We Still Dream Again And Again Of Ayiti Poem by Hebert Logerie

We still dream again and again of Haiti
A land of hundreds of dreams
A country without truce
A land of doleful and moonlit nightmares
A lost tropical haven of uproar, havoc and chaos
We dream of this once super pretty pearly country
Where the flowers were the most exotic and beautiful
Where the women were the most vivacious and stylish
And the birds hummed and sang better than elsewhere
An oasis where we dreamed of a perfect and inconceivable happiness.

Ayiti, Haiti, a land of tropical caresses
Ayiti, Hispaniola, a land of unmatched sadness
Ayiti, Quiesqueya, a country in tremendous distress
Ayiti, Bohio, land of a thousand and one tresses
God, we still dream of this unfamiliar and funny paradise
It's a humongous soil that trembles and burns with madness
Where in the evening, the jasmine aura perfumed Mother Nature
Oh! We're always thinking and pondering about this oasis of adventure.

Ayiti, a land of nonsensical hate
Ayiti, a land of excruciating pain
Ayiti, a land of immeasurable suffering
Ayiti, a country of sheer pliancy
Ayiti, a country of special Heroes
Ayiti, a country of callous zeroes
Ayiti is a land of invisible volcanic fires where blood flows
From the top of the Boutilier hills to the smoked region of La Saline
These are the anathemas of Jean-Jacques Dessalines
This is the price that Haitians pay for blaspheming and assassinating
The biological father of the Motherland. Oh! It's a heart-wrenching debt
Where interests accrue and increase daily until a quasi-eternity
Ayiti, a country where vicious and dishonorable thugs are capable
Of committing never-imagined heinous and odious crimes
Ayiti, a country without truce
Ayiti, a land of moonlit and starless nightmares
Ayiti, a land of countless emotional dreams
Ayiti, a land of non-stop hollow brags and brawls
Ayiti, a country where people die for nothing
Like flies, mosquitoes, bed bugs, cats, rats, mice or dogs
Ayiti, Haiti we still dream of the past, the once beautiful country
That her own crazed children have sold for nothing and betrayed
To please the disguised priests of Judas. Ayiti, a small lot of sand and land
Where corpses and dead bones are ubiquitous, it's a vast cemetery
Which rejects no one: the rich guilty as well as the destitute innocent.

Haiti, a land of obvious dishonesty
Haiti, a land of incomparable bravery
Haiti, a land of onomatopoetic beats
Haiti, a land of kaleidoscopic feasts
Haiti, a land of forgotten respect and incense
Haiti, a land of unheard peace
Ayiti, Haiti is a funnel that would never be satiated with blood
And where waves of tears wash the sidewalks and the cries deafened
The swollen bullies. Grieving women lost their voices due to incessant cries
Children rushed to grow up to face countless habitual, venial and mortal vices
And the shenanigans, who are professional liars, wait for just the perfect occasions
Ayiti, a country where hope is as slow as a dormant and inebriated turtle
Ayiti, a country where everyone either has dry or wet tears in their eyes
Ayiti, a country where water of the banks is sourly tasteless, choleric and murky
Ayiti, a country where too many good souls die sporadically
Countless home birds have also stopped humming or singing
Including the most robust, potent or super-manned roosters on the rosters
Ayiti is a country of division, corruption and obliteration
Where strength does not come from eating onions or forming union
But from heavy deadly weapons and aliens coming from abroad
From far-away pariahic superpowers that put all lives in danger
Ayiti, Bohio, land of heat, is waging a senseless and criminal war
Darn, Haiti is fighting countless wars within. Lord darn, Ayiti, Haiti, formerly
The pearl and the spectral curl of the West Indies, is now a shame
For all those who adore her. This is no laughing matter. We dismantled
Vandalized, plundered and slapped this young struggling country
Every second of the holy day. Oh! Ayiti. Yes, Haiti
A tiny nation with a beautiful bluish and clear ocean
Ayiti, the land of visible and invisible smokes and fires
Oh! It's snowing. You better believe me. Oh! And it's raining
On Ayiti, a land of thousands of kaleidoscopic dreams
A country that has suffered, cried and almost died
A country where insecurity, hypocrisy, treachery, trickery and fear
Rule or govern. Oh! Ayiti, the land of the lonely martyrs
Listen to the tam tam of the evildoers! They burned and they shot
They stole and they killed Haiti again and again. The poor gendarmes are absent
Real purple blood is in the streets and small red puddles are on the soiled sidewalks
Oh! Nights and days of nightmares, we still dream, again and again of a martyred Ayiti
Which won't die, once our oasis, our country, our haven, our paradise.

P.S. Translation of ‘Nous Rêvons, Encore Et Encore D'Haïti' by Hébert Logerie.

Copyright © February 2020, Hebert Logerie, All Rights Reserved
Hébert Logerie is the author of several collections of poems.