sketches of cité soleil (5)

sketches of cité soleil

for whose entertainment shall we sing our agony?

in what hopes? that the destroyers, aspiring to

extinguish us will suffer conciliatory remorse

at the sight of their own fantastic success?"

-- ezili dantò

i.

a light aircraft
just under 12,000 lbs.
bezwen soulajman
(needed supplies)

overflies runway;
crashes in cité soleil.
manna from heaven?

the carrion folk
come, groaning for burial --
strip the carcass clean.

gone before the blood
pooled on the pilot seat clots,
long before it dries.

ii.

chimères: ghost
gangs who haunt breeze-block walls that
grin like rotted teeth,

buildings scarred, pitted
from eruptive bullets, who
traffic in terror!

bereft of purpose,
& populist vision, they
steal, rape & kidnap;

extort & kill without
guilt or remorse. trade their souls
for weapons.

iii.

vigilante groups –
neighborhood protection – meet
terror with terror;

steal, rape, kidnap, kill –
in retributive orgies
of feral justice.

no police dare come,
no blue helmets seen in no-
go cité soleil.

no international
peace keepers come without
armored vehicles.

iv.

no female is safe.
the penis is a weapon;
a tool of control.

one in two girls &
young women soul soiled by
sexual abuse.

children’s songs spread tales
of what the boys have done – the
girls cannot go home!

the women cry out
we are shamed & dishonored
to ears trauma stopped!

v.
even h.i.v. –
dread diare masisi
who lurks, zombi walks –

fails to scare, deter.
is warded by strong potions
of vaginal rinse,

water quaffed that washed a
lover’s most private parts clean,
or sex in the sea,

or houngans sleeping
with girls possessed with spirits
infected with a.i.d.s.

vi.

pòv cité soleil’s
haze of dust & cooking smoke
hides her real abuse:

1st world sabotage,
aid agency failure &
government neglect.

a people betrayed:
one hundred twenty-two years
of indemnity

extorted by france;
20 billion dollars paid,
the cost of revolt.

vii.

billions of dollars
of aid appear, disappear;
swilled by corruption.

i.m.f. loans &
structural adjustment speed
resource extraction.

cheap u.s. produce
flood all haitian markets
farmers stop farming,

& in the highlands
desperate people strip bare
the once lush forests.

viii.

impotent leaders
sadly caricature what
government should be.

grounded by the shades
of rulers, overthrown &
assassinated,

residually
haunting the government seat,
they are bent, twisted,

voracious & cruel
or at best indifferent.
èske gen espwa?
(is there hope?)

ix.

is there any hope
for those held hostage by life
in cité soleil?

in cité soleil
where folk decrease to half-lives;
in set rate decay.

a malignancy
poverty, not vodou, makes;
metastasizes.

where there’s life, there’s hope.
where there is hope, redemption.
beni ayiti!

©Joseph McNair;2010

fix the shading on the children's faces (4)

fix the shading on the children's faces!

"to depict the biggest picture on

the building as a black person, i would

have to ask the question: why?"

steve blair

what guides the hand of a
muralista? some glittering
idea that compels from a
world apart? some form
embedded in media matter,
awaiting a cunning artisan
touch to coax it out in all of
its material splendor? or
maybe some possessing
spirit of the age to take the
head, insinuate itself into
the lime mortar or plaster,
the tempera or encaustic
colors ground in a molten
beeswax or resin binder to
buon-or-mezzo-fresco
social realist art into the
public sphere -- to achieve
a political goal, to socially
emancipate, to advertize.
the mural mice, hardly a cell

of trotskyites, hired to paint

two intersection-facing walls

of the miller valley elementary

school in prescott, arizona,

learned first hand the backlash

of white privilege. they daringly

deigned to represent a multiethnic

vision --children using "green"

modes of transportation.

dominating pattern & symmetry,

points of interest & texture,
line & depth of field was the
striking image of a young
brown boy with a thick strong
jaw & defiant eyes, on one
knee, poised to get up &…act!
a metaphor for the artist in
a decadent capitalist society?
shaped by conflict between

himself & the social forces

arrayed against him? hardly.
like david alfaro siqueiros’
tropical america, brimming
with radical political militancy
or diego rivera’s provocative
post impressionist mural for

the hotel de prado in mexico

city including the words

"god does not exist" or jose

orozco’s symbolist murals

promoting the political causes

of peasants & workers?

not at all -- but powerful enough
to provoke a thermidorean
reaction from the prescott
demographic. from moving cars
came the shibboleths:

"you're desecrating our school,"
“get the nigger off the wall!”
“get the spic off the wall!”

hurled by the philistine, the
conservative & the frightened;
prompting the school principal
to tell the mural mice to lighten

up --the images on the wall,

that is; make those dark folk

lighter before they draw out

the destructive quality of

reconstructed whiteness, its

sinister structural causes &
consequences, before they
reveal the possessive
investment in being white &
the reinvention of white
identity as nonracist,

nonoppressive & victimized --

informed by the delusions &
projections of so-called decent
folk preserving their heritage.

©Joseph McNair; 2010

we cannot chuse but hear (3)

we cannot but chuse to hear

at length did cross an albatross:

thorough the fog it came…

samuel taylor coleridge

formed when sand,
silt & grains of clay,
scraped & torn away
by tenacious, taloned
fingers of wind, rain,
& glacial ice, from
sundry land terrain --
proud mountains &
defiant flatlands –
whose scarring
declaims like totemic
tattoos the lingering
injuries & damage;
join the downslope
creep of soil to be
carried by rivers,
streams & gravity,
deposited in layers of
sediment on the ocean
floor, in riverbeds &
swamps, mixing long
dead organic miasma,
the fossil remains of
plants & planckton
mixed with mud &
sand, squeezed into
source rock & heated
to the night temperatures
of the earthen crust,
bearing the downward
press of a hundred
thousand years, the
transforming weight
that releases kerogens --
the black waxy crude,
or natural gas -- into
porous or fractured
rock, into subsurface
pools – one of gaia’s
many seepages &
secretions – brought
forth from wounds
piercing her dermis in
spurts of black, thick
& tar-like fossil
fuel or small, light
effervescent carbon
chains timed to the
beat of her heavy
heart. like a blood
donor, she has given
much & often, has
transfused mankind’ s
movement & industry
but now bleeds
uncontrollably from
too many punctures,
bathing wetlands &
barrier islands in a
tide of oozing crude,
smothering an entire
generation of shrimp
& crab, smothering
dolphins, whales &
turtles, poisoning fish
turning diving birds –
gannets, pelicans
frigates. & sanderlings –
into flightless, oil-soaked,
drowning birds. can we
not read the portents,
the omens? have we
lost the gift of auspicy?
the higher the bird flight
the more favorable the
omen but flightless
birds portend certain
doom. can we not see
as one with a glittering
eye? see for endless
days & nights the curse
in the eyes of the eleven
deep water horizon dead.
must we wander in our
guilt this earth to tell
any & all who might
listen that god glories
life over greed, loves
all things s/he has made?
or will we remain the
unwitting prizes of
yellow-haired, red-lipped
life-in-death

©Joseph McNair;2010

si m mouri, ou pral mouri!” (2)

si m mouri, ou pral mouri!”

(if i die, you die!)

once an island lush with trees, ayiti is
bereft, her mountainous breasts bare,
their covering ripped by hunger’s rapine
hand. the cold aromatic sea breeze with its
tangy, fishy smell meets an acrid warmer air
from a land smoking, redolently reeking of
wood burning on lle de la gonave, stacked
in whitened piles eternally curing, then
bagged & distributed in les arcahaie.

the people cry out: “nou vle manje; nou pa vle
mouri!” (we want to eat; we do not want to
die!) but the land screams “ou ap tiye m!”
(you are killing me!)

ninety eight per cent of her forests gone,
fifty-odd thousand grieving trees felled each
day like brittle warweary soldiers under truce
to clear the way for summer floods to wash her
rich, nutrient topsoil into the sea. riding bare
back on the scent of charcoal are the foul
cadaverine & putrescine bouquets that beckon
skulking desertification, the scavenger who
will surely come to clean the island’s bones!

but the people insist: “nou vle manje; nou pa vle
mouri!” (we want to eat; we do not want to
die!) & the land screams “se mwen menm
mouri!” (i am dying!)

are there no environmental regulations? no
subsidiaries for alternative fuels? where is
government? behold bureaucrats, the mango
tree is too precious to cut down. plant mango
plantations. tell yr people to plant corn, sorghum
& beans between a few mango trees on their
small farms. harvest the towering mounds of
garbage, recycle the paper. use that as cooking
fuel! there are no shortages of solutions!

terrace farm the mountains! cultivate plants
that will thrive on mountainsides, whose
roots will hold in place, stabilize & regenerate
the soil. behold businessmen, there are haitians
who know how to do this, who are doing this
already! where is the money? & where are the
teachers, the each-one-teach-ones who persuade
the people that killing the land brings on their
own unconscionable & inevitable demise

the people rejoin: “nou vle manje; nou pa vle
mouri!” (we want to eat; we do not want to die!)
& the land responds with resignation ”si m mouri,
ou pral mouri!” (if I die, you die!)

© Joseph McNair;2010

hb2281 (1)

hb2281

"tell me & i will forget,

teach me & i might remember;

involve me & i will learn."

ancient chinese proverb

languages [like the arizona
wapiti or the arizona jaguar]
become extinct when no longer
able to negotiate hostile or
changing conditions or prevail
against irresistible competition.
the moment of extinction? the
death or muting of the last
language speaker. the last
ubykh speaker died in turkey
in ‘92 at the unethereal &
certainly uneternal age of 88.
cultures [like the greater prairie
chicken or the passenger pigeon]
become extinct when cultural
diversity is abated & languages
are endangered & proscribed
with extreme prejudice!
every two weeks, a culture
dies, taking with it irreplaceable
knowledge & experience into
a great unknown. we stand,
some of us, strangely mute,
unmoved or unmoving & at our
own peril, like vacuous & self-
absorbed deutschländers in ’23
unmindful of the frenetic, evil
goings on in the bürgerbräukeller"
while in arizona a general process
of destruction, like a tall, dense &
involved nephotic mass, gathers
momentum. a delusional rationality
begets an imaginary construct
which shapes a body politic in the
image of its fears, resentments &
whited sepulchral utopias, razing
relentlessly & trying to eliminate

the rest of us, “the enemy”;

attempting to reduce vibrantly

viable speech, customs,folkways &

the spirit of the same to eerie

artifacts of the extinct …

& the rage of affluent collectors.

©Joseph McNair;2010

arizona goddam! (17)

arizona goddam!

alabama's gotten me so upset
tennessee made me lose my rest
& everybody knows about
mississippi goddam…
nina simone

dos cabesas, yr steep mountain slopes & granite
outcroppings, yr vegetated canyon floors provoke
strong feelings of arousal, attraction, & yes,
even love by more than just the white-tailed &
mule deer or eagles, golden & bald, the ranging
mountain lion, the beautiful collared lizard &
the peregrine falcon. u, dos cabesas, are,
indeed,a love object for arizona natives
imprinted by the wilderness with its uncultivated
spaces,its searing heat with that eerie desert
dust on its winds, a narcotic that makes them
susceptible to quaint hallucinations (daylight
savings time is a bolshevik plot),conservative
& highly distrusting of government. (goddam!)
where lawmen under the influence of frontier
fancy could take a hapless but convenient
outlaw straight from the lyrics of their state
song, a befuddled recidivist burglar named
ernesto arturo miranda, compel from him a

rape, etc., confession, make him write it down

& sign papers with a printed certification that

he “voluntarily & of my own free will, with no
threats, coercion or promises of immunity…” &
“full knowledge of … his)…legal rights” made
that confession, but failed to inform him of
his right to have an attorney present & of his
right to remain silent.(goddam!)
where in a season that saw even ronald reagan
bow to the inevitable winds of change by signed
the king holiday into law, three house republican
arizonans, including an “unevolved” john mccain
& that doyen of true american conservativism,
senator barry goldwater voted unequivocally no!
state lawmakers like sand lemmings followed suit.
babbitt, not sinclair lewis’ vacuous protagonist,
but a governor doing the right thing, signed an
executive order declaring a paid king holiday.
but 7 months & 24 days later, soon-to-be-

impeached evan mecham rescinded that order

in one of his first acts as governor! (goddam!)
rising from a searingly dry tropical airmass,
pulled northward by low-pressure cells moving
eastward across the two-head's wilderness

echoing off the sulphur springs & the san simon

valleys came a venal & corruptible voice calling

out to arizonans with the arrogated authority of

i am that i am: “i guess king did a lot for the

colored people, but i don’t think he deserves a

national holiday.” but the rocks surely cried out

in protest & boycotts. all manner of stones,

pythagorean frozen music, released their song

with stevie wonder singing lead --hapy birthday

to yuh -- public enemy struck back, the nfl

relocated the super bowl & arizonans, kicking &

screaming, capitulated in ’92 (goddam!)
where even the wind that competes at dusk

to be heard with the yips, barks & howls of

coyotes in telltale yellow desert coats, weeps &

wails in uncertain english even tho’ placed for

a year in english immersion classes where

languages other than english were banned from

speech. brainfried arizonans insist that the

speech of the alligator juniper, the bitter condalia

& crucifixion thorn, the catclaw & even the skunk

bush had better be the same as that which arose in

england & southeastern scotland; that they

obsequiously subordinate their mother tongues,

their identity & culture, for to speak a language

other than english is nothing more than a social

defect.(goddam!)
behold arizonans, the behemoth that u have made,
rising out of the desert, so mean, & abrupt of
emotion – & so unlike that mighty torch-bearing
mother of exiles on a distant shore who verily
welcomed the poor & the homeless. this shire reeve
golem of single eye & foul disposition casts his
all-seeing search light glance to expose & extirpate
all illegals wherever they might be found, especially
in the ghostly golden gate barrio, in cuatro milpas,
or in any of the barrios historicas that housed the
brown laborers who built yr streets & towns, yr

canals, laid tracks for trolleys & trains that brought

in the droves of undocumented anglos who

overwhelmed the indigenous population! (goddam!)
what have u done, arizonans? the adam of yr labors
has run amok & points proudly back to the womb

from whence it came – that monster matrix of

racism, red-baiting,anti-government sentiment &

resentment of anything progressive, whose birth

juices reek of hatred & calumny – back to u & yr

guiltfear, yr paroxysmally parochial thinking. it has

engorged on a steady diet of rights violations, english-

only legislation, reasonable suspicion & belief, & now

it stalks like a grotesquery seeking to devour the
interdisciplinary study of racialized peoples, latinos
& chicanos in particular. what makes u think, brain-
fried arizonans, that it won’t turn on & devour u?

©Joseph McNair;2010

most interesting of our american birds (16)

most interesting of our american birds

the gooey oil washing into the maze of marshes along the
gulf coast could prove impossible to remove, leaving a
toxic stew lethal to fish and wildlife...
government officials & independent
scientists

most interesting of our american birds
whose iconic flight & voracious appetite
inspired no less than audubon to inscribe
rhapsodically in his journals:

listen to the sound of the splash they make
as they drive their open bills, like a pock-net,
into the sea…

a pelican feeding its young embossed on
louisiana’s state seal by 1804 & on her blue
unfurling flag by 1912, a fitting perch for one
who’d tear her own flesh to feed her young.

one of ornithology’s most astonishing events,
in 1966, the year it became louisiana’s state
bird, pelecanus fuscus vanished like the hero
in a novel from the state’s entire coast.

did concurrent tropical storms savage vulnerable
nests in its overwash? perhaps some pathogen
or virulent human encroachment struck? or
more likely the toxic pesticides from

agricultural plains, drained into the mighty
mississip, got absorbed by anchovies &
other favored fish -- did an inside job on
eggshell formation, on eggshell thickness,

& caused the heroic pelican – the same who
would destroy itself to feed its young -- to
destroy its eggs as it sat on them within its
nest to incubate & protect them.

thus did the brown pelican become like a
novel’s anti-hero whose one abiding trait
is bewildered & anxious uncertainty about the
futility & fundamental amorality of life.

for despite efforts to transplant fledglings from
florida’s peninsula, at hundreds per year, or
banning ddt, the pelican will never see any
pattern in life & rarely its destination.

we can see this now in the frightened eyes of
oil-soaked birds who hobble like drunks at dawn’s
break on barataria bay because they cannot fly;
whose brown & white feathers, are now jet black.

whose nests & new hatchlings are coated with
crude, whose gunk-glazed eggs, like their habitats,
may never be cleaned or saved, whose offensive
images are the new expletives for corporate greed

& signs of our failure to live in harmony with nature,
symbols of our disdain for ecological balance,
signifiers of our suicidal self-absorption --
new metaphors for our insanity.



© Joseph McNair;2010