Paiute Poet

This is no Movie of Noble Savages

Adrian C. Louis

Born of trees

whose timeless atoms

carried on their savage

act of indolence

in annual assault of leaves

upon the earth

while their branches

felt up the sky

where the white man’s God lives,

this paper

holding these petroglyphs

is neither apology nor legacy

but a wanted poster.

Now, dauntless before Dante’s

nocturnal emissions

of visions of Hell

I curse God and weep

because some creeps crept

through the back window and carried

away my typewriter

while we were at the wake.

When I find them,

they will bleed broken English

from shattered mouths

and my fists

will sing songs of forgiveness,

unless of course

they’re my in-laws.