AYITI, MA CHÈRIE

by Jerrice J. Baptiste

Le Nègre Marron

A long-simmering crisis over Haiti’s ability to govern itself, particularly after a series of natural disasters and an increasingly dire humanitarian emergency, has come to a head in the Caribbean nation, as its de facto president remains stranded in Puerto Rico and its people starve and live in fear of rampant violence. —NBC News, March 15, 2024

I long for sanctuaries of your forests.
Chirping bird—Hispaniolan Trogon.
Enduring name of long ago
La Perle des Antilles
Shimmering light.

I long for your full peasant skirts
flowing with countryside
breeze, where bare 
feet imprint
sand.

I long to be eating sizzling Fritaille 
griot, fried plantains, and pikliz 
of red & yellow hot bonnet 
peppers dancing 
in my belly.

I long for Krik-Krak from uncles. 
Stories told in backyards.
Laughter of familiar 
voices greeting
moonlight.

I long to bathe your infants 
in tranquil turquoise sea.
Dress your daughters
in white organza 
fabric.

I long for your Taino fathers

wearing red & indigo flags 

during carnival or Rara

dancing to Djembe 

rhythm.

I long for your Taino mothers 
Poto-Mitan, ivory backbone 
of our homes. Selling
clusters of quenepe
at street market.

I long for your white conch shell 
blown by bronze lips  
breaking chains.
Le Nègre 
Marron.

Jerrice J. Baptiste is an author of eight books and a poet in residence at the Prattsville Art Center & Residency in NY.  She is extensively published in journals and magazines such as Artemis Journal, The Yale Review, Mantis, Eco Theo Review, The Caribbean Writer, and many others. Jerrice has been nominated as Best of The Net by Blue Stem. She has been facilitating poetry workshops for eighteen years.

ANGUISHED SOUL

by Jerrice J. Baptiste and Roodly Laurore

Dèyè mòn, gen mòn. (Beyond every mountain, there's another mountain.)

—Haitian Proverb

A woman walks past local authorities removing the bodies of men that were set on fire by a mob in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday, April 25, 2023, a day after a mob pulled the 13 suspected gang members from police custody at a traffic stop and beat and burned them to death with gasoline-soaked tires. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph) April 25, 2023

Sadness in his chest, 
his spirit weakens,
enemy of our race.
 
I’m still a young girl grinning, watching him smile. 
Now, his smile vanishes quick, unlike gun 
powder floating in air, we both know the scent well.  
 
“Free my heart,” he says.
His mango tree awaits, bandits pluck his luck.    
Our island is still awake, sleepless 
1,460 nights, and centuries of anguish. 
 
You snooze, you lose your life.
 
No banana leaves to fold his skin. 
Wrap, wrap his chest to become 
a bullet vest, impenetrable.
 
No difference from his friends’ ashes 
at noon or during the early moon.    
 
“My soul courts pain and grief,” he sighs.
I fall deeper in disbelief. 
Nothing to catch either one of us. 
No net large enough from any fishermen. 
 
When will the rays of hope appear?
Sunshine after anxious nights. 
 
Loss of kinetic energy. Craves the little joy of
scooping young coconuts like we used to  
in the countryside. Flamingos on a distant beach.
 
Now, my uncle wishes 
one day to enjoy 
the pink side of life. 

 

Roodly Laurore was born and raised in Haiti. He is an engineer and poet. His poems are published in Kosmos Journal, Autism Parenting Magazine, Solstice Literary Magazine, Jerry Jazz Musician, and others.  Roodly lives in Haiti with his wife and two sons. He collaborated with his neice Jerrice on this poem.

 

Jerrice J. Baptiste is an author of eight books and a poet in residence at the Prattsville Art Center & Residency in NY.  She is extensively published in journals and magazines such as Artemis Journal, The Yale Review, Mantis, Eco Theo Review, The Caribbean Writer, and many others. Jerrice has been nominated as Best of The Net by Blue Stem. She has been facilitating poetry workshops for eighteen years.

HUMANITARIAN PAROLE

by Jerrice J. Baptiste

Gone, morsels of light from the island 
       flickering in silent eyes.

 

He waved goodbye last Tuesday
      to the turquoise sea, mid-day sun 

 

choking on tears. His welcome meal

 

sliced papaya, crescent plantains, 

      conch in creole sauce. Smiles. 

My cousin’s soft lashes
       brush American stars. Glow reflects

 

on forehead, cheek bones, bridge of nose.

       Lips speak freedom, a new language.

 

My uncle hears his son’s voice 

       migrated among birds of the white season. 

Night churns slow. How can he keep still?

      One has left his cocoon.

       

Even from gunfire.  

Author’s note: Humanitarian Parole offers an opportunity for people arriving in the U.S to feel like humans. Approved non-residents landing for the first time are welcomed appropriately and can adapt under the right conditions of housing, employment, education, etc. They can be happy even if their family members left behind—in Haiti, in the case of the speaker’s uncle in this poem—miss them terribly. 

Jerrice J. Baptiste is an author of eight books and a poet in residence at the Prattsville Art Center & Residency in NY.  She is extensively published in journals and magazines. She has been nominated as  Best of The Net by Blue Stem for  2022.

ANSWERING THE PHONE WHEN DEATH CALLS

by Jerrice J. Baptiste 

Angry demonstrators have roared through the streets of Haiti’s capital, blocking roads and shooting guns into the air to protest a slew of killings of police officers by Haitian gangs over the last week. Haitian news outlet Le Nouvelliste reported that angry scenes erupted in several neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince on Thursday, and barricades of burning tyres were erected in the centre of the city.  —Aljazeera, January 26, 2023. Photo: A man gestures by a barricade of flaming tires during a police demonstration in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Jan. 26, 2023. Officers were protesting after a gang attack the day before on a police station in Liancourt left several officers dead. —VOA, January 26, 2023

Dedicated to all of my family in Haiti

"I'm going to lose my life," he screams.
Gunshots in rounds, mind on
a roller coaster ride, vibrating bees
disturbed on a hot day in june
except it's january 26, 2023. Bullets

wake up, shake up my eardrum.
Like a conductor gives the cue,
his quaking voice in my ear rises,

his instrument, a steady shriek,
final end to a symphony.
"Everyone's shot around me" he yells.

Feet in flight, heart dodges left right left 
No boulders in city of Port-au-Prince.
"This might be my last day." His voice quakes.

Low hum follows the phone's sudden click. 

Heart drops with conductor's hands.
No hole to hide in the bear's den.

Silence.

Silence.

Author’s note: My uncle Roodly was almost killed yesterday. I wrote this poem about the events that happened in Haiti yesterday.

  

Editor’s note: Roodly Laurore’s poem “Ayiti,” translated from Haitian Kreyòl by Jerrrice J. Baptiste, appeared in The New Verse News, October 13, 2022.

Jerrice J. Baptiste is an author of eight books and a poet in residence at the Prattsville Art Center & Residency in NY.  She is extensively published in journals and magazines. She has been nominated as  Best of The Net by Blue Stem for  2022.

AYITI 2022

by Roodly Laurore

translated from Haitian Kreyòl by Jerrrice J. Baptiste

The gunmen who invaded Christelle Pierre’s neighborhood in July gave her a stark choice: run or die. She was six months pregnant with her first child. The men were members of one of the ruthless criminal gangs that range unchecked across this city. They swiftly burned her neighborhood to the ground. I met her here late last month, a couple of days after she had given birth atop a square of cardboard in a public park. The cloth diapers, the downy receiving blankets and the infant mattress she had carefully saved up for had burned. Gone, too, was her husband. The gangsters who overran their community shot him in the head and left his body to burn. “I can’t stay on the streets with a baby,” she told me. “But I have nowhere to go. There is no shelter, no food, no medicine, no work. There is only chaos in this country.” Haiti is in free fall. —Lydia Polgreen, The New York Times, October 12, 2022. Photo: Children slept on the floor of a makeshift shelter after they were forced to leave their homes because of clashes between armed gangs. Credit:Odelyn Joseph/Associated Press via The New York Times.

Everywhere guns. 

Bandits pass as a legal force

Installed in each neighborhood.

Not looking up, not looking down.

They spread terror, shaking people.

Grandma‘s troubled, her son is a gang member.

Not long ago he scratched her head,

Plucked gray hair for her to fall asleep.

Now killing people.

What's wrong with my grandson?

 

Bullets like rain fell on tin roofs.

Adults, children frozen flat on the floor

Even pregnant women and newborns.

Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, 

removing hundreds of protesters by truck.

Wings on our backs, 

Flee the land, avoid our death.

 

Like fools who have lost their way

Not looking up, not looking down

Misfortune hangs over our heads

Life is hell

No calling, no answering.

***

 

Toupatou zam fè kenken

Bandi pase kòm fòs legal 

Enstale nan chak katye 

Pagen anwo pagen anba 

Yap simaye laterè, fè moun pè.

 

Granmè gen pwoblèm, pitit li sòlda

Pa lontan li te konn grate tèt li 

Rache cheve gri pou fèl dòmi 

Kounyea ap touye moun 

Pitit mwen sak metew nan sa?

 

Bal tankou lapli degrennen sou do kay 

Granmoun, timoun rete plat atè 

San lizaj pou fanm ansent ak bebe kap fèt 

Polisye makonnen ak bandi konplike la vi 

Zèl nan do, kite peyi evite lanmò. 

 

Tankou moun fou ki pèdi rout 

Sa kap moute sa kap desann 

Malè pandye sou tout tèt 

La vi tounen lanfè 

Pagen rele, pagen reponn. 

Roodly Laurore was born and raised in Haiti. He is an engineer and poet. His poems are published in Kosmos Journal, Autism Parenting Magazine, Solstice Literary Magazine, Jerry Jazz Musician, and others.  Roodly lives in Haiti with his wife and two sons.

 

Jerrice J. Baptiste is an author of eight books and a poet in residence at the Prattsville Art Center & Residency in NY.  She is extensively published in journals and magazines such as Artemis Journal, The Yale Review, Mantis, Eco Theo Review, The Caribbean Writer, and many others. Jerrice has been nominated as Best of The Net by Blue Stem. She has been facilitating poetry workshops for eighteen years.