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  • Les Affres D’un DéfiAn Excerpt
  • Frankétienne (bio)

The paths of Legba intertwine deep in the woods where the sacred stones lie; they become entangled beneath our feet, infiltrate our nerves, stir up our blood, flow through our bodies, electrify our senses. How far will the expiatory road excavated within the pain of self-examination lead?

We awaken early; through the keyhole, we watch the zonbi go by, single file; shortly before dawn every morning, Zofer leads them to the swampy rice paddies.

How can we speak without subservience or lyrical effusion of a tragic adventure that touches us so intimately?

Servitude begins by the mortgaging of our desires, unleashing a waterfall of alimentary inhibitions through the fear of transgressing artificial or natural boundaries.

Underlings carry out their trade as sinister spies; there are so many of them around us that existence has become a daily exercise in skirmish and evasion.

A match scraped / fire breaks out and spreads / smoke bellows / a mere spark is enough to make flames erupt from their barrels. We are fighting cocks, sparring with beak and claws in the arena under the sadistic eyes of the spectators. For three days, we have had nothing between our teeth; our children have neither eaten nor drunk anything. / But, who would dare talk about a hunger strike in a country of empty stomachs? The midnight horse hooves hammer the surfaces of deserted streets / A powerful noise that kneads the muscles of the guts. / Sexual breathing and the stench of fear.

We forge painfully ahead through a space become lusterless through our procrastination / our broken wings sweep the dust foreshadowing the eclipse. A mortal blow for the saltcellars / an outpouring of derisory words / an unforeseeable twist of the pincers of hunger / we have been forced to change our course toward other ports. After devouring rats and mice with great gusto, Master Cat emptied several sacks of rice, corn, and millet; caught in the act, he left the empty house in a whirlwind, leaving nothing but a heap of acrid excrement.

Who devastated a part of our fields? / What aggressive hands poisoned our gleanings? / A war of hypertense nerves in which the fruits of madness ripen. Hearts that are too delicate dare not enter the maelstrom / the weak should not take a chance / A dazzling shock / Grimaces on faces distorted by demoniacal over excitement / Overcoming the howling and stamping of the enraged crowd, we enter booby-trapped terrain. [End Page 756]

Dust, mess, and desiccation of the members cast into the garbage can / Blood curdles, decomposes, and rots in intestinal shadows. Through our indifference, the cow has fled / the rope that linked the heart to hope has broken.

They have devastated and robbed our homes / Whining like idiots, we watch the wind pass / Sickness impossibilizes our desires; and misfortune inhibits the soaring of our dreams.

The vulnerability of the naive / the failure of buffoons / the degeneration of the valets widowed by their masters. Sad and disarmed, we invoke the gods of chance / Rather than sleeping, we would do better to march / The virile joys of action transcend the vapid inertia of sleep. Assassins of hope, robbers of souls, insatiable carnivores who pollute the air with their breath, they have specialized in the placement of sticky traps.

With layers of gray clouds, the tempest is preparing a coup d’état by the gathering of scattered winds above a sea at white-hot temperature. Prostitution of the stormy waters reflecting spasms of fire; evil is unveiled in the menstrual fluids of light. Thirst greater than martyrdom beneath the noonday sun / Carnage / Sweat and blood oozing from the dilated pores.

Memory is peeled away at the threshold of insanity / Ghastly castration by yanking out the tongue and puncturing the eyeballs. The bèf chenn hurls imprecations at the midnight-machine taking off at top speed toward death with barbed disasters. Stench of crime / Vision of cadavers in the depths of their irises / They have ground the bodies of children and stabbed mothers in their very breasts. Unleashed torrents / Rivers at flood stage / Fury of the lavalas / Daily grumbling of impotent adults. The aficionados confront each other with knives / The frightened...

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