I began to think about the devastation created by the earthquake in Haiti and how these people who have nothing lost everything. I began to write, and write and write. I refuse to give these poems names because I did not want the poems to be polluted with my so called artistic evaluation in choosing a title.
100, 000 dead.
100, 000 different souls.
God are you listening to their cries of dismay and confusion?
Children lost, moms and dads looking, and there comes no relief.
I can not imagine how the ground shook, maybe like a rattle perhaps.
Maybe it was a rumbling of ground cracking and hell releasing itself furiously.
I’ve never been in a quake before.
I can’t imagine the stone from buildings falling as rain.
There is a picture of this dark skinned child.
Hair like that of carpet, dreary eyes, gray even, the light was took from them.
Lips crusted as old bread and a face as dry as dust.
He was alone, under the rubble, dead.
Now God I return to you.
Trying to understand the point you’re trying to prove and
How many lives you let families lose.
I am a praying man, understanding too, is this how it ends?
Poem2
I find myself hurt; it is not that I understand their pain,
But simply because I was complaining about mine.
Suddenly, I feel blessed like all my cares are careless.
I wanted a new phone
The Haitian girl wanted a drink of water
I wanted a car
A Haitian mother wanted for her son to live
I wanted for America to get out of this financial crisis
Haitians wanted food
I wanted more money
Haitians wanted to be able to fit into a health center
I wanted to pass French
The Haitian man wanted his wife not to be buried in a garbage bag
I wanted Grace Ozinga
The Haitians wanted to sleep in a house
I wanted to be a RA
A Haitian mother did not want to see her new born buried under rubble
I want to help the Haitians
The Haitians want me to help them.
Poem3
The scar on your face paints a picture of the day. Maybe it was the tons
Of bricks on top of your head that caused it.
The bandages, soaked in blood, tell of your struggle to live, to breath,
To see your family again and to live.
Your eyes seem glossy, reflecting the look of fear, but not cowardly, but humble,
Still, fear.
Your face is stained with death; a paradox of your youthful age.
You seem worried because tomorrow seem as far away as far can stretch.
Your red, grubby, worn-out shirt is a characteristic of the blood stained streets.
I wonder even if you were posing for the camera;
Or if that is a look of consternation.
Maybe they’ve told you that all your friends are dead
Or your entire family is missing.
I wonder what you’re thinking?
Poem4
You could not find Haiti on a map before,
You still can not find it, the quake took it out.
I looked for it and could not see it.
We could not even spell it correctly,
Or even knew if it had its own language or not.
We never knew what to call them, but Haitians it is for now.
I found America though.
It invaded the map; standing out like the sun
Stands out from the other stars.
Haiti must be Pluto then.
Something seems odd when we have one less planet.
Poem5
Its been a week now God,
When will the Haitians stop suffering?
When will they have clean water to drink?
When will they have enough food to eat?
It’s not that I’m angry, I know better than that,
Because I certainly don’t want to find myself next.
But really, God?
Poem6
And when Times reported the 100, 000 death toll,
There was nothing else to be said.
