Three Poems For the Earthquake

Death Themes

Double your leisure

Double your death

Double the bodies

That died in the berths

Double the trouble

Of toil and rumble

Double the slaves

The meek and the humble

All the world's a death

Waiting to happen

All this death's a life

Hoping to remain

All of life asleep

In the supper

All of death alive

In the slumber

We walk through the shadow

Of the Valley of Oz

We are all behind the curtain

We are all because

Double your pleasure

Double your fun

Forget the bodies

In the body of one

All the world's a taste,

A refreshment; a waste

When Liberty's left alone 

In a mirrored case

Lorna Dee Cervantes

6/27/09

For Haiti

3 million stories fall

an apocalypse away

the concrete structures fail

the palaces, the guard houses

the poverty pockets buckle

and strap

               3 million stories

fall silent and silence the tongues

of those who stay — 3 million voices

rise singing in a dusty song of survival

a hymn to the Orishas, a single

story in a last breath — the people still

their hearts — the people open closed

hearts — the people need to speak

their stories, their ragged endings

the wings of will arise

Lorna Dee Cervantes

1/14/10

Insurance

      "The greatest earthquake is poverty."

        ~ Miguel Robles, survivor of the Mexico City earthquake

The typical American man

doesn't care about Haiti.

The typical American man

doesn't care if Jerico

falls down on Chile.

The typical American paycheck

doesn't allow for donations 

of the heart, doesn't count the fallen

or the blood drops of crushed

children or the buzz of the saw

on limbs or the long long wait.

The typical American fellow

wouldn't give water 

to a mother and babe. The babe

on the arm of the typical American

male is a sight to behold, to hold,

but might not stop to care.

The usual type in America

texts ten dollars to fill a page

and the paychecks of the admin

while snorting up the rest.

The typical American man will not

be found alone in a jungle digging

out the dead and living dead.

He will not be found hauling

rails to drive the washed-out chasms.

He will not be discovered

with food, with water, with

water, with water, with water

so that a whole pueblo survives.

The normal man will not stand 

and hold the shunt, the stent,

the IV to a new way of life.

Another world is possible.

When the rubble is cleaned

and the clearing of the dead

hearts and minds begins.

The typical American man

doesn't know we are

all American.

Lorna Dee Cervantes

3/25/10