INCIDENT IN HELL
By Carl Rakosi

Our ancestors were happy

 

when the white man came.

We made him welcome

 

and took care of him

 

When he was hungry

we fed him. We never

did him any harm.

He seemed honest

 

and we trusted him,

but once he was settled

his words became as flimsy

as fluff from a cotton-wood

 

and he acted like a coyote

around a hen-house.

There was no limit to

his greed and cunning.

 

His soul glared the way

an owl glares at

a covey of quail-chicks.

He had no mercy,

yet he said

there is a God.

 

What is he?

Who sent him here?

With that the old chief

his face lines with dignity

said no more

 

but the agony in his eyes

was like a caged beast

in the Inferno

 

as it struck bed-rock:

kill or be killed

 

signed, Playboy of

the Western Hemisphere

 

Alas, old chief!


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