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Haiti
Sent on ships with shark-rancorous crews
That beat human beings
Until blood bombarded the decks,
Some Africans were taken to Saint-Dominique*.
Though oppressors lived to destroy joy,
The stolen, worry-swollen
Africans in a Caribbean,
Mephistophelean-ruled land
Defied tragedy's tide and revivified hope.
Years of lash and gash chattel anguish
Inspired tears comparable to cloudbursts.
Within the sorrow
And wishes for a greater tomorrow,
Toussaint came to fill dissenters' will.
His legion's revolt brought their slavery to a halt
Which removed crazed with sin Napoleon.
Africans turned Haitians
Defied tragedy's tide and revivified hope.
Raging pages of centuries turned,
Cain-hateful conflicts burned
Unveiling text on evil,
Republic upheaval,
The inferno emergence of insurgence.
Haiti felt the hollow hunger
Stab with fiscal strife's knife,
Nonetheless, the burden beset Haitians
Defied tragedy's tide and revivified hope.
Upon their battered habitat,
Where every being and thing shook
And took people to disaster-laid graves,
Haiti's value-engraved resource-
Courageous will-was saved.
Again, again Haitians
Defied tragedy's tide and revivified hope
With their universe-enormous,
Religious regard,
Defied tragedy's tide and revivified hope
With their every rhythm and limb
Communion dances,
Defied tragedy's tide and revivified hope
With their pulsating,
Disposition-sating songs.
No matter the conflict's length,
Haiti possessed a hero's strength.
* "The following is a list of spelling variations in
various historical references: S. Domingue, St. Domingue,
San-Domingue, Santo Domingo, San Domingo, St. Doming,
Saint-Dominique and St. Domingo."
Written by Bob McNeil
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