Jan 16, 2009

A Pause for Poetry



My collegue Croilot Semexant is pleasure to know and work with. He's tapped into that beautiful energy that goes beyond, race, gender, time and place. He's forever fascinated by ideas, the world and the people within it. I got to see him do his slam poetry thing last year at the event I served as judge (blogged about it). Here is a taste of his poetic truth.

One Island, 2 Languages by Croilot Semexant

My mother sold the panties she had on to
To keep me a live during her pregnancy

My lieutenant father was never present
He thought she was Dominican

Hence why I'm here

Son of a Spanish Romeo
Son of a Haitian Eve that mothered

Twins in her womb
But she said I ate my twin sister at birth
Cause she probably would've betrayed

Us like Jacob

Be a spy for the Dominican
Government
Teach them how to kill another 40,000 Haitians
Cause of their Chaka Zulu color
And so my mother said I ate her in the womb
Because they kept that in silence
In their Rafael Trujillo history books

Some claim their just Spanish
But you can smell the Haitian voodoo
In their Habituala

Some claim their just Haitian
But you can Bachatta in their Konpa

The culture of kidnapped children used
To chop sugarcane so your Starbucks coffee
Can stay sweet in

One Island, 2 languages

Disconnected like the brainwashed
Of the slave's taste for beauty is
Blue eyes and blond hair

And my mother's side of the family said,
Don't marry a Dominican
Their just bitches

And her side of the family said,
He's not light skin enough
Besides he can barely speak Spanish

And I watched them wear the mask
Claiming their Africans, African Americans
But never claim their Haitians

And I watched them claim their Spanish and
Indian but don't know where they got that
Venus Hotten Tot Ass from

While you purchase your
Tickets to flush the resorts toilets
So our people can catch Ecoli

The history professor said,
You divide people
By language and by burning their books

One History, one Africa

Rape by Columbus from the back
While Napoleon get his nut suck
To give birth to us
So we can kill each other

One Island, 2 languages

My mother said she's a mutt too
That's why she can dance mirengue
While stirring up a mean bacaloi
In haitian style

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Cant believe you post the poem for real...Good Stuff Sun....See you back at work..Hope the reader enjoy

Wonder Man said...

it's nice

Anonymous said...

This reminds me of an interesting story: one of the schools I work at has a Dominican principal, but if he walked passed you on the street you'd think he was an Afro-American man. One day the school was receiving some visitors from the school district, which included an African-American man, and he insisted that one of my co-workers sit in on the meeting, who happens to be an African-American woman, so that the visitor can feel comfortable!! That whole scenario prompted me to inquire if my principal owns any mirrors! This guy was married twice, to two Eastern European Jewish women, so that his kids can be cute, and he can show them off, I'm serious. Unfortunately, there's a lot of tension between the Dominican kids and the Black American kids, needless to say, this principal is not helping...

jackzonian said...

Hey Guy, I met a girl named Semexant, born in Haiti, living now in Sint Maarten. Maybe you are related?

Interesting poetry.

jpc