Dream of a God

((A Poem for Haiti) (a conspiracy))

The author inside the 1720 Citadel, built to defy Napoleon and his navy. It is 1986, the year the author decided to

do some missionary work in the mountains of Haiti…

At some time in our life, we may have to turn away from disbelief, seeing at least for a while, the possibility of a God because certain hidden voices within us are strengthened or freshened by our soul, by doing so. While I was in Haiti in 1986, I felt a longing to compose a radical poem, perhaps this one, with roots that would speak to what has its back turned to God.

       I began imagining two personalities roaming the streets and back streets and hill country, the whole country of Haiti: one a Christian God, the one everyone recognizes in the day, the morning, and the other a Voodoo God (conceivably composed of demonic figures), one recognizes in the twilight and later part of night, and one who betrayed the other at one time, in the far-off past, that being the latter. And so I now have started this poem, poetic prose, “Dream of a God,” with images suggesting these Voodoo demonic figures and their betrayal to their brothers, in some far-off pre-Adamic Period—these beings I call sleepwalkers, the un-magnanimous, unfriendly, and excitable, perhaps neurotic (with the symptoms of neurosis: insecurity, depression, anxiety, hostility, etc) who try to rewire our spiritual needs—the enemies of God: the Christian God.

       Naming and describing these internal as well as immortal beings, adversaries to God is not a practice, although: one that Blake, Keats, H.P. Lovecraft, Poe, Clark A. Smith, all poets in their own right, were good at describing,  that began in the Victorian Period of Western Poetic schools of thought, and has lasted to this day, Postmodernism, and Hollywood has continued this immortal image of damnation. How many beings dwell in us! Only they know. Certain entertainment industries: music, movies, and now religions, certain forms encourage us going beyond the breaking limits, replacing Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and God the Father—leapfrogging over the Trinity over our valuable spiritualization, to philosophical concerns; religious beliefs as Darwinism, the New Age movement; gods of Astronomy (as Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking would have it), it is as if these individuals or demonic beings want us to accept these compensatory forms as our gods, as if man is still stained with the unpardonable sin, and still needs goat’s blood to cleanse him, a conspiracy no doubt.

       Listen, and listen up closely for what I have to say: I have lived four and sixty plus years, I have learned this, as Solomon had learned, the Holy Spirit will call, and try to put families back on course, try to put you back with your family—as for the world, it has passed the breaking point, past the point of no return, but listen closely: heed the Spirit’s call, it may be only one call.

 “Brief, it was all so brief, back then, now I turn quietly,

   To feel my probing mind, —the   Poet inside anyhow: I

   Wonder how it is now…back there in Haiti, it has been

   twenty-six years…” D.L. Siluk

Dedicated to Pastor Naason Mulatre Midnight Poems VI (8-26-2011) No: 3031

Not taken from any journal notes, as others indicated in the Chapbook.