I want to be known by one name
Like Dessalines, Christophe and Pétion
Like Pelé, Ali or a Great Champion
Like Edison, Jefferson and Washington.
I want to be known by just a name
By my pretty and sweet surname
Like Spring, the most gorgeous season
Like Tiger, Peacock and Lion.
Everyone knows you a surname
When we have only one name
As Pope, Love and Peace
Like Michel, Catullus and Plautus.
I want to be known by a wise name
Like Hébert, Vertières and Liberty
Like Flaubert, Hugo, and Shelley
Like Baudelaire, Angelou and Mallarmé.
Copyright © March 2023, Hébert Logerie, All rights reserved.
Hébert Logerie is the author of several collections of poems.
Before
Toussaint and Dessalines
It was nothingness
Organs, guts and spleens
Of our ancestors could be found alongside the roads
Many fleeing poor slaves in disarray
Were treated worse than animals
Oh! It's hard to find the words
To describe the usual carnage
From the time of slavery.
Before
The Battle of Vertières
Graveyards and cemeteries
Were virtually everywhere
Before
Pétion and Boukman
Christopher and Biassou
It was slavery
Blacks and Indians were considered savages
Worse than animals
Were humiliated, lynched, tortured, massacred, and killed
By adventurers, buccaneers, hyenas, deplorables, freebooters
Pirates, motherless bastards and marauders of the time
In search of sugar, foodstuffs, indigo and gold.
Copyright © June 2022, Hébert Logerie, All rights reserved
Hébert Logerie is the author of several collections of poems.
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