A Proper Burial

It was told that/ those who disappeared in Mazatlán/ made their way across/ the Sierra Madres/ in the Mexico Basin/ where their pirate souls were restored/ by the salty sea/ of the Gulf/

Horse hooves clucked the rhythm of urgency/ as celebratory riots broke out/ in the streets of/ Old Havana/ once its residents were told/ their tyrannical dictator/ who kept his country in shambles/ for over two decades/ had died in his sleep/ He was chained to a cement block/ along with his blood money/ and lowered/ somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle/ It was coded in the very essence/ a celebration of death/ a rising smoke vengeance/ that may have even reached/ the shores of Panama into Columbia/

Thick, sweltering air saturated/ moist skin while supple lips/ reflected dewy/ reddish-gold midnight haze/ constrained by a/ peeling and chipped pastel building/ adorning arched windows that gleamed golden light/ upon cobblestone streets/ Voluptuous women smoldered/ beneath a faint/ orange glow in darkened doorways/ their brown eyes and hair leaving little to the eye/ and everything else to fantasy/ while tobacco smoke ruminated/ in shadowed corners/ where gasping silhouettes/ fell and rose/ like the fluidity/ of absolute motion/

Where food/ and basic human decency were scarce/ violent men/ and beautiful, broken women/ got rich off the dark weaknesses/ of upstanding citizens and tourists/ on the islands/From Puerto Rico to St. Croix/ Dominica to Barbados/ archangels chased the excesses/ of the West Indies/ to the confluence of the Caribbean Sea/ and the Atlantic/

Shipwrecks could be seen/ from tattered motels/ in Fort de France/ The authorities were a part of/ if not altogether responsible/ for the corruption/ as long as they were compensated/ in ways/ that were difficult to prove/ It was whispered/ that muffled screaming could be heard/ from the women/ whimpering all throughout/ the halls/ Most were stolen from their homelands/ and brought here/ to be sold/ to men with an/ especially sadistic streak/ Even the authorities/ who did not participate/ stood watch/ to guard/ to protect the women/ The local mental institution/ was the largest residence/ on the island/

It was always in paradise/ where waves sounded like Elysian Fields/ where the worst of humanity/ drowned/ in aquamarine/ and pirate’s gold/ so long as the myth/ was created from pathos/ so as it remained a mystery/ so long as the/ sane/ the artistic/ the healers/ the shamans/ the eccentrics/ were tortured/ were exiled/ were strange and ill/ so long as the free/ were enslaved/ could there be what is called/ paradise/ the mask of an/ unspeakable/ a hidden/ an unforgivable violence/ just below the surface/ there/ within each person/ the potential/ it exists/ there exist/ infinite excuses/ to qualify malice/ Human beings will trench/ their very last heuristic/ to prove it/ and only in our/ blindest anger/sparkling like a satellite/ we falter/ a repulsive continuum/ a mutilated ecstasy/ The armies have overtaken/ the capital/ Paradise/ a requiem