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 FAULT LINES: Haiti, Two Years On Joseph G. Ramsey Faultlines I. The Earth has kept on traveling round the Sun Since the day it shook and tore them down. Down Down and Down Everything fell: Shacks and church pews smashed through sewers; Palace collapsed – an empty shell. Three hundred thousand (counted, fewer; Thousands buried, never found). The whole world ruptured; catacombs Unleash the walled up winds of hell. La Terre Tremble. II. Will we forget what that shaking ground Revealed for all to see, who cared to look? The way the streets filled up with bloated bodies; The way the troops drove on, and let them cook? The “Aid” delayed, as if for fear of zombies rising from their rubble graves to run – White eyes blazing bloody memories of how white masters came and took by gun. Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 And yet, and yet, poor Haitians did not riot; worked to pull each other from the ruins. Carried those who died, and those who wouldn’t for a while, And those who lived. Gave until they had no more to give. (Meanwhile,“Security,” guns in hand; Guarding the gates that could no longer stand, Protecting property of those in command.) III. A sudden eruption of broken heart blisters oozing, drying on Live TV far flung news anchors aim for the ripe wound, peeling it back, letting us see, seek the perfect angle to capture that “inexplicable-horror-of-it-all,” (just a dash of sugared hope thrown in for the folks at home) that juicy spot where the latex glove meets the bandage meets the hand meets the ballot box meets the sky Where it hurts to look. Where it makes you cry. (But never lets you find out How? or Why?) From this fastened hook Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 America hangs Prepared to unleash its charity thang Solemn Celebrities claim center stage: And all that sit are moved. Millions shut their eyes in prayer (secretly thankful that they’re not there) Yet ready to do what good people should: for a minute, an hour, or even a week. Never though letting the Haitians speak. What do the people there have to say? When they look at US what do they see? Who will dare to take a peek today? Caught in the sun, the pocked eye turns away. How much can the blinded stand to see? Band-aids slap where barricades should be. IV. Worldwide They say there are a dozen cities With at least a million people each Lying, waiting, sleeping on a fault line; (Slum-dweller flesh to feed the breach). For each year, the Earth, it shivers In the endless cold of space; Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 Quakes and quivers, like an ox whose skin must knock flies from its face. The fault is not the moving Earth’s – We know that quakes will come, and even where – At fault: a world-wide class affliction Razing mounds of contradiction; Bubbling boils that bust through skin, Seeping hot pus, sweat and blood – and liquid gold That trickles up to rulers’ lips ice cold. Parasites suck membranes thin: Vulture claws cleave crater-trails, Until what’s precious flesh is drawn In scabs and scars to fit the scales; (Heed the bankers’ dark command:) Plow the farmers off the land Build estates on bone and sand. Spill the poor in pavement cracks. Stitch the workers into seams For rulers’ flowing cloaks – Breaking their backs – letting them choke gasping for air – Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 stripping them down to their dreams, then bare. The earth, we know, will quiver; the brittled surface, tear. V. This predator’s plague has no plan for poor people, except for the juice to be squeezed from their veins to quench its viral thirst. Markets pressure and hearts burst. So long as endless profit reigns. (The heads of state remain aloof: Crisis = opportunity, after all Helicopter blades give the world a roof. And there’s plenty of sweat to catch, as they fall.) VI. Outside Port au Prince: Refugee Cities – Rain soaked sheets Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 Flap on and on, But only the bugs and bats can fly. The people gathering, grasping Why. Eyes peer out through fraying holes; Fingers point: jet-liners tearing the sky. Aboard corporate jets: Thirsting agents Ties loosened, Clinking drinks in hand, Toast to the future they found behind, Traveling home, to milder climes: If they look down through parting clouds – see only some dirty laundry lines. (updated, Dec. 30, 2011) Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 Sun and Bone In Camp Corail On the hot white plains Of Camp Corail, Between mountains and mountains Where a railroad no longer runs And trees no longer grow, The state no longer dumps the dead; They dump the living there instead. Shards of skeletons are hidden beneath Acres of crushed stone Pressed flat as a leaf so flat it’s like an army of bulldozers has come and gone in the night. A sky-to-sky concrete plateau: The stone mixed in with the bone below burning the feet and blinding the eyes of those who stand in the sun. Even in shoes it hurts to walk; But it’s too hot to run. * It is not the earth that moved them here but those who said they came to “help” Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 who deemed their old survivor camp – on the edge of the crumbling city shelf amidst the debris of the walls and streets that had soaked up their cries of joy and pain, where at least what torn ground still remained to break their fall was ground they knew – “unfit.” That place not far from the parliament, And the flattened factory where some had worked This place they had squatted on, made their own though it was nothing they could call a home – this strip – was, pronounced a “high risk zone.” According to experts In human resettlement The spot was at risk of being effected By outbreaks: of “social unrest,” communicable disease, And perhaps fire. It would not do. And so On advice of the foreign experts the police batons in hand encouraged the people to leave For their own good. The former killing field Far from the city Would do nicely Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 was thought to be more suitable, a safer place to put them – Though safer for whom Was not entirely clear to the people As they broiled, blinded by the stone-and-bone reflected sun. Trucks brought them there by the hundreds, Thousands. Brought them here, until Camp Corail was filled. And so now The white tents of those who still live mark the graves of the numberless dead never given a proper burial. Dumped in the middle of the nowhere wastes The living dead infuse this place. The living haunted by the ghosts below The ghosts, by the living above – They have been here for more than three months now. They have been here for almost thirty years now. Past and present knot and gnaw. In the heat, buried dreams Long sealed: thaw. * Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 After the sun goes down the ground cools enough to walk upon: a child slips out of a tent to dig with her bare hands in the rocky sand. She picks her plot with a careful eye. Drops to her knees and scratches to get her start Breaking up the sun-sealed crypt of crust. It gives, but not before it draws blood From her fingernails. She licks the wound And spits the dirt. And digs. Down through the bleached, chalky rock Digs: searching for moister dirt; she digs, though the surface hurts her knuckles, digs Looking for dirt that will hold together. She finds, hand by handful, only still more rock pebbles and more dry dust; nothing that sticks nothing that can be salvaged for making anything not even the smallest mud castle, or cake. Not even a good dirt ball. She is about to give up, hands gray with dust but keeps on just a bit longer, just for the feel of it: at least this deeper dirt is cool. Perhaps at least-she has come so far now – Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 she will dig a hole big enough for her to slip into. Like a womb. A tomb. A shelter. A place to soak up the cool. Her own dirt pool. Her means become her ends; At the very least she will have a hole. But then this: A knee and half-a-thigh deep, her eyes fix on Something: the hard frozen flower of a human vertebrae (though she does not know what exactly it is): A weathered star of scattered backbone. She picks it up. She can tell it is not stone. – it does not fit in with the crater of dust. It must be from somewhere else. It must. – And, look, there is another. Like splinters, shards of history working their way up to the surface almost as if the land had purpose: The trace of some ancient species long gone The fossil of one who refused to go along. The child holds the curious talisman up, catching the moonlight In her palm’s cup. She does not know what it is, only how it feels, lighter, Different from the pebbles and stones she usually steals from this jagged ground. Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 Bringing the bone, like a pick to her lips, She rubs it against them, as if to strum some forgotten tune, Some melody she has never been taught. Sifting through names of extinct things. Is it a piece of a dinosaur tooth? As she touches her tongue to the very tip of her find She hears a shriek rip through the night: A dozen rows of tent away: the rusty teeth of the gnawing saw Spit fresh blood on the white rock floor. Held down by hands, a mother faints from pain, leaving another child alone, standing by the door. Watching her in the lamp light. One more landless peasant will walk no more On her own two legs. The surgeon works quickly While she is unconscious. Back and forth. Echoes of hundreds of limbs that have come before. Feet and arms piled on the floor. Back and forth. (The gangrene started in her toe. They should have caught it long ago.) The canvas sides, the surgeon’s mask soak up her dreaming groans and gasps As does the rock (and the bone) below. Thank god these flapping walls; they could not talk – Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 Nor could the splattered stone: No one will know. Just before morning, the mother wakes her invisible leg on fire, she quakes. A strong patient, she has survived the worst. (Yet how is it that her foot still hurts?) Summons up what courage she commands. Her hands are tied to the bed with bands; Grinds her teeth to bring the rain; – nothing but Motrin for such hot pain. Makes fists out of her praying hands: It’s hard to believe they’ve not been cursed; This blighted, blackened, branded land. She wishes to God that the clouds would burst And end this endless devil’s plan – Just wash them all away – Since it seems there’s no place left to stand. How will she endure this endless test upon the searing desert sand? The water well is half a mile away. Her son hears her waking cries, ducks in. Brings with him a paper fan. * On the edge of Camp Corail The girl with the newfound dinosaur tooth Lies in her trench, her ancient secret gripped Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 in a warrior hand. Between her fingers and her thumb, she turns the bone-shard into a gun; Yes, with it she’ll shoot The rising sun. Before it boils them all. She tightens her lip closes one eye: Aims at the blood-rimmed base of the sky. It’s worth a try. What is Needed Campside (based on true events) 1. In Haiti there is money to build walls not to house the poor but to block them from view; Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 to lay imported brick high and thick, not to protect the homeless from the hurricane, but to protect the rich man’s twenty-acre estate from the sewage that flows downhill from the camp when it rains. And so now when it rains A human stew Bubbles backs from the base of the wall into the camp – deep enough to drown in A gathering cesspool Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 for mosquitos to breed and cholera to bloom. 2. The construction project Gives at least a few men – from another camp across town – work: hard, back-breaking work for a few weeks At almost three times the minimum wage: A few dollars a day. The wall they build gives At least the mosquitos a home. Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 These fiends thrive, Lay their eggs in the stagnant water Feed by night on what flesh they find. Each little blood-sucker’s life is short. They live for only a few weeks Before they drop dead In some unmarked speck grave – that is if they aren’t caught first Between the finger and the thumb – They burst like tiny rotten berries. Yes, any single mosquito can be easily dealt with. Once you know where exactly its buzz Comes from. Splat. Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 But in their uncountable numbers, an invisible, everywhere swarm They appear utterly unvanquishable. You go mad at night just swatting the sound of them . Praying through razed blisters for someone to drain this godforsaken swamp of a world. 3. Across the street, Food for the Poor (that’s their name) Tells a delegation from the camp (they’re next door neighbors) that they cannot help them; That this is a not a distribution center; That FFP’s funds go elsewhere And that, besides, they wouldn’t want to start trouble by giving food to people Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 Just like that, Without, you know, going through all the proper channels. Without armed guards present to keep order and paid clerks on hand to track everything on official charts and checklists: how many grains of how much rice went to whom and to where and what color it was, and who said please and who thank you (and who did not). I mean, if distributing food to the poor was as easy as, you know, just Givingfoodtopoorpeoplewhosaytheyarehungry andwhohavetheribsandcollarbonestoproveit then, well, You wouldn’t even need professional organizations like Food for the Poor in the first place, would you? 4. A world away Far beyond even the locked gates of Charity Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 Elsewhere Where “History” is made A UN official gets promoted to stand behind a podium and speak of “A risk of a pandemic” and “A surge in infant mortality.” Earnest euphemism Rolls off that juicy pink tongue; (The fluent official gargles water Before coming on stage with another bottle of Aquafina at the podium Just in case the throat suddenly dries up; It can get awfully hot up there, Under all those bright lights, With all the world watching.) 5. Meanwhile Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 In the dark cholera stretches it limbs across prison floors From steel barred windows to crack-webbed walls Where profane protests against the state are smeared in feces and blood. Some walls still won’t fall. As others go up. And more are planned. * Tons upon tons of construction materials Sit piled at camp-side: Metal beams like the stacked legs of starved giants, Head-high mounds of sand and crushed granite, rubble Fresh-shoveled and trucked from the wreckage of Port-au-Prince. (There’s a fortune being made in the sale of rubble.) Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 Monster machines sit idle. Watched over by armed guards. And a handful of hired workers stand and smoke, idle too, waiting to break ground, at the boss’s order. Their muscles itch for work. There are building materials here for a hundred homes, at least. Only, Not. The squatters are to be Evicted from their road-side camp By the rightful land owner With the official stamp. He wants to build a factory He needs to build a factory – there is capital for a factory – Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 obligations to meet words to keep (The owners, too, imprisoned, by what they must build Though their jail-cells are air-conditioned, fine coats keep off the chill.) They’ve contracted a foreign company to produce: baseballs to be exported and sold to Sporting Goods stores who will sell them at a mark-up to the parents of little American boys and girls who have fields to play in and who can afford to lose things in streams and under fences and buy new ones. 6. Campside Hundreds of people contemplate Scraping up the will to struggle together, to keep their grip Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 on a cracked plot of ground that they never asked for In the first place; That was forced upon them: A sun-baked tarp town where they have been confined for more than a year now, without schools or sanitation, While the rulers make plans That do not include them Except as sources of excrement To be sealed off Or else as cheap labor to be mixed with the bricks that wall people in and people out. * Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 The bulldozers rumble The manager shouts “If there’s no trouble, if you all move out, Some of you may get the chance to sew baseballs. You like baseballs, don’t you?” The new boss promises three dollars a day. A few will be hired—the rest flushed away. 7. Will the refuse of this system pick this city of sheets and boiling shade Of ghosts and newborns and grandparents and toys But no safe place to play and Of grime and sand and whispered songs And blanched rebel memories To make their stand? Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 The stagnant waste water by the wall rises. Do they think they can? Or will the machetes and American Made machine guns scatter them in the night (As they have done before) Leaving them in the ditch Dreaming of clean water, a plot of land, And a world That’s been flushed of walls and the rich? 8. A rash spreads across the old woman’s legs What can she do? But bang her two pots together at half past noon with the others, Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 (a daily demonstration) that, and be ready to place her body between her grand-child and the bulldozer, when they come: She’s lost her shop, and her sewing machine. Used to sew clothes for people in the city, To patch the garments of those who could not afford to buy new. (She had been one of the luckier few.) There is plenty here that needs stitching. By hand, she does what she can do. sews rags into a quilt, keeps a sole on a shoe. (Plenty that needs tearing down, here, too.) 9. A baby lies asleep on the bed, a mosquito net dome, laid over his head. Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 Those elsewhere who can afford it use mesh like this to protect their finger sandwiches from the flies, when they sit out with guests in summer time. * In an alley of the cramped camp The braids of a child Flap in the wind As she chases a red rubber ball downhill Between tents Trying catch it Catch it Before it rolls into the muck. * Do you want to know What happens next? Do you? Or shall we just let this one go, too? Let it go Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 Let it go How much of this world are we willing to just Let go? How much humanity Will we just let go Let fall away Like some ball slipping through A child’s open palm? Or a kite forever swallowed by the sky? * Fresh watered flowers and incense torches line the owners’ oblivious porches, keeping off the bugs masking some distant stench. And a young girl has drowned in a rain-swollen trench. Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 10. There is money in Haiti To build with; it pours in; the rich hire poor people with it erect walls with it so they don’t have to see the sludge That soils their green gardens. And this too: so the sorrow-sick souls gathered now by the edge of the camp-side mire still gripping pots and pans unearthing and wiping clear the braided face of the child Can’t see them, the rich, sitting there in their place out in the sun, doing what they do, Enjoying the open air: So well-dressed, Copyright © 2010 by Joseph G. Ramsey and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087
 carefree And so few. * Almost a million still homeless in Haiti. It’s not for lack of brick or steel nor engineers Nor hands to build with. Not for a lack of land. Not for a lack of money. Not for lack of a Master Plan. What is it, I ask you, that is lacking here? What is it, I ask, that is needed?