Wings Soaked in Molasses
(For Haiti)
by Darnell Fine
Atlanta, Georgia
- Seismic activity
Is only felt by those who
Rise from captivity
With Icarus wings
Soaked in molasses
Da Vinci flyin machines
Tied to the throat of the masses
Held the sky like kites with lynch ropes
But cut ties with Europe’s horizon
Flew to the fault lines of mountain tops
But they don’t see
Saint Domingue
From the summit
Cuz when the left hand of Christ
Is nailed across the Western Hemisphere
Blood don't trickle down past Cuba
It still follows one-drop rules of
Politicized sickle cell
Cataclysm existed well
Before 7.0 hit the Richter scale
When sacrifice and salvation
Is only extended
If it's part of anti-communist agendas
Only if the
Wood from your rafts
Can be used to crucify Castro
- If this be by the hands of God
You must admit
Your Lord has Parkinson’s
And that catastrophe hung in the balance
When you sung prayer songs,
Dancing ballet devastation
Tapping into the resources of sugar plantations
Tectonic plates were just the tu-tu
So if Haiti chooses to pray usin voodoo
It’s not cuz they had a pact with the Devil
It’s cuz you signed a contract with God
That leased them off as property
So they hold on to Yoruba religion
Like it’s the missin link to their humanity
- Beat tom-toms when tremors
Leave Haiti broken, bleeding
Leaking from the same mouth
That demanded revolution
Unable to move when
Her legs are trapped underneath
Tons of concrete hatred
As hypocrites add their 2 cents in
One cent less than what America paid when
Each acre of the Louisiana Purchase was sold
Haiti is owed
Everything west of the Mississippi
And the U.S. profits made from slavery
So when Rush Limbaugh talks of
How much Haitians depend on foreign aid he
Maybe should mention the U.S.
Being built on Triangular Trading
And the sugar cane drained from Haiti
- Sugar cane be
The crutch that held up
European economies
When men were cargo
Black skin like barcodes; property
And we still counting bodies
From the rubble of 1800s embargoes
And today’s debris of immigration policies
The 150 million former slaves paid
France for their own freedom
Crippled Haiti’s economy for centuries
And there are still historians
That don’t record Haiti’s movement
As revolution
Because slave property doesn’t build republics
When they don't work, they malfunction
- So Sankofa bird refugees
Seek freedom
Trapped in Diasporas
Speak Creole
With cracked esophagus
In the oppressor's language
Article 12 of their 1804 constitution stated:
No white man can own property
Then the wording of Article 13:
The Polish, Germans
Or any white person
(even British)
Can become a Haitian citizen
And finally Article 14,
Stating matter-of-factly:
ALL Haitians are BLACK
See, Haiti said Black was more than beautiful
Before your heroes knew the ground was shaking
- A pan-African country
With a sugar cane history
That looks at the future like a memory
Reads birth certificates as eulogies
But they don't need saving
Just prophecies of the past
To foresee the un-weaving of Fate’s tapestry
Re-braided back with reparations
Absent of US intervention
And French imperialism
I wonder if the world will pay attention to Haiti
Now that the disaster is natural
And not an economic exploit of the West
So moments of silence
Don't do long-term genocides justice
When US Occupation left
Haiti pinned inside the clutches
Of poverty
Army fatigues camouflage well with
Capitalist intentions
Our relief efforts don’t make sense cuz
We already left them penniless
Our text message donations
Are just words of comfort Janjaweed
Give women of Darfur—machete in hand
It will take more than Hitler singing
Silent Night to Jews in gas chambers
To give them oxygen
This poem won an Honorable Mention in the Poems of Solidarity for Haiti Contest.
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