27345: Simidor (poem): for Dominique Esser

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: daniel simidor <danielsimidor@yahoo.com>

Curse ( a prose poem)

There is a pattern in Haiti that goes back 200 years
First, man gets in power
Then man wants power for life
Next corruption sets in, then repression
Now and then people would say enough is enough
But Haiti?s satrapy is a two-headed hydra
When one head is cut, another one rises

There is a tradition in Haiti that goes back nearly
200 years
A tradition of foreign meddling to keep the pattern in
place
To guard against the social revolution
That would complete that other revolution 200 years
ago
First the French, the Germans, the British
And the Spaniards too.  Then the US landed in 1915
And left behind an army to keep the lid down
And when that army was outflanked the Marines would
return
In 1986 to escort Baby Doc out
In 1994 to escort Aristide in
In 2004 to escort Aristide out
Now we have the International Community
Every second rate power wants its turn at the Haitian
lottery

Pattern and tradition are not one and the same
There was no foreign hand that we know of at
Pont-Rouge
How long does a curse last?
Can the people slay the two-headed beast?
Or can it be tamed, now that the end is so near?
Or was the future in Haiti written in stone
All along, beneath the soil that washed away?
These are not easy questions.  Does anyone know?

Daniel Simidor
Brooklyn, 1/25/06


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