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
