beneath the rubble in port o prince
a crumpled rat pobertson, lay struck down by the devils
he recognized so well they whispered his name the hiss of a serpentine’s call tickled his
ear choking breath and life as each pin placed just so permeated and awakened the
evil’s noxious gases to sing him a lullabye his terror alive
from the bowels of a shaking earth a spell of vodou cast over his empty human shell
paralyzed the songs lifted him over his beloved south as he cried to his god
for rescue from such darkness from such unholy pain and evil and this inevitable
end it snatched him amid his parched screams unclenching his tightened hand
still scratched and bloody from dragging him from the steps of his money changer’s
temple pulling him out from his vaults of filthy stolen gold in the name of his
righteous god …
vodou carried him and his silent screams for mercy over a raging
sea to the island shaken from the belly and bowel of earth
and he listened as the chants began ‘oy yay va oy ya y va’ exploding his eardrums
as the hiss of a serpentine smile buried him in spell and whispers
beneath the rubble among the innocent dead…
and when the serpent wrapped itself around the fallen preacher’s neck its tongue
penetrated into his filthy mouth down throat ripping through vocal cords that
had allowed such spewing of repeated cruelty and lies silencing this voice for good
this evil voice… thru lung and rib into chest its forked, darting tongue
probed searching to penetrate the vital life organ the richness of beating heart
only to discover there was nothing beating in this chest of evil human!
and finding such heartlessness the serpent spit him out and buried him among haiti’s dead
and dying ol’ rat’s last breath was sweet his prayers rolling unheard amid his tears
and screams… he suffocated in a perfect slow torture
a perfect heartless death in the rubble as unforgiving as he had been to others as self-
righteous in his lies and cruelty his own sorry life ended a swirl beneath the rubble
