Abstract Poems

	The Arrival This new occupant next-door What ghost painted him? Where did he come from? His voice rumbles and knifes Like a bear's claw on water He misunderstands the fire When it talks, snake-like His possessions creep like noses Over our line, metal thieves Eat into the sands that bore us From the windward side His children like running milk Spit on ours when hearing our silk Voices and ululant prayers They all seem deaf He communicates not through earth Trees or the wind, but hangs Like a pregnant storm cloud Itching to spill He lives to erase the silence With his fierce teaching He scoops up pieces of land As though his wife The smoke we use as letters He tames to murder in his hands His friends wear buffalo pelt Are careless as thunder When we test the sound of hoof Or running prey, a laugh As cool as mountain lakes Breaks the palest face He has in his stomach eyes Emptiness as black as coal Pits. Purple veins pulse Purple violets. This new man beside us- What will he bleed for? What cry when he kills me? © David Incoll 2001
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