A Haitian Experience
People surviving, people living their own dreams.
Some full of passions, some passionless.
People do Facebook, negotiate prices on purses
while outside others beg for anything.
Garbage everywhere and not a can in sight.
Pastries by the bag, people begging, people making deals.
Pottery and purses. Buy here, pay there
Men in suits speak four languages, others wonder why.
Art for sale, so are people’s dreams
Undecided women shopping, Others wanting the sale
The heat of the day increases, People are getting tired
All kinds of machines.
Broken cars being fixed on the roadway.
Toto didn’t play lotto, he worked it.
Empty dreams, some person’s home.
Three accidents, still in traffic.
The dogs never sleep
By the light of the inverters light, a French Bruce Springsteen in the background,
as prisoners behind the gate we can only see out the window.
Big watches, big hearts. The never ending stream of people.
Death comes no matter the acreage, finally free from a gilded cage.
People circulate wanting a final respect/glance.
Who is here for friendship and who for business?
Around the round table the men palle vous football.
Women recount old times, how well they still look.
Behind the iron gates and barbed wire they fall asleep,
assured no one is coming for them.
Bags of concrete on the head, rebar in hand.
No prescription needed.
Shoes shined, people waiting.
Under construction the whole country
T-shirts with words they don’t know
Poor go to a “bank” to buy a dream, the rich go to a different bank
Wahoo bay Homer overcooked
International People overcooking
Cell phones blazing
Wood to coal, time to cook, nothing wasted.
An army of tap-taps drive in every direction.
Traffic that never ends, until you turn off the car.
Great croissants, Rivers of rocks and trash
Three shot after the bank, life goes on.
Cows strolling down the road, women talk and talk.
A country under construction, everything for a price.
Every road a new challenge, never a straight line.
Everything complicated, people everywhere
Window washers, protection money.
Unfinished business waiting for someone to finish them.
Downtown a place so crowded no one wants to go.
Next to the palace, the forgotten fountain
The forgotten people, the forgotten tower,
A window to the end of humanity
the smell of death coming is what you remember most
It is best not to remember, best to walkway and remember the mountains, the promises.
Endless mountain views that go forever, covered in a mist.
Promises that never meet reality.
As the generations pass the mountains keep giving,
but the water flows less and less each year.
Haiti, it’s people, like their paintings are surreal,
confusing, hardened, colorful, unbelievable.
The Tap Tap are silent now, the faces scared.
Life goes on with the fear that any moment the end world is here.
Time heals all wounds, but so many wounds take a lot of time.
When you travel you never know what your going to learn.