Oh, Lord! Tell me where to turn.
Make me forget this squalid city
That  looks into my eyes like a rancid haggard black- eyed panel
Crying through its cracked walls
                  Half- fallen roofs
                   naked windows.
This city of my ancestors, oh Lord!
They lift their angry fists and forgotten voices,
A sharp cry cuts the streets, bangs doors, uproots trees
Fierce and feared offspring of Huracan.
I hear my Havana cry like a lost child
Hopeless, angry, sad.
Oh, this city of mine
No more
What shall I find when and where I turn?
Will there be a balm to sooth and take away my pain?
Oh, city of mine
No more
Taken, sacked, imprisoned
Raped, bitten, battered
Sold in the market to the highest bidder
                                “Young, good teeth, wide hips, good for labour
                                Going once,
                                Going twice,
                                Gone forever!”
And you’ll serve your master good,
who might in return by you a new calico dress
And if you are very good,
he may reward you with a plastic bag full of goodies
Or  perhaps spare you a free night for you to visit your hungry kids
At the other side of the bay.  
Oh, Havana, of so much loving
your soul went dry
The dark side of your Juno face has taken over. 
Dust covers the famine-stricken palm trees in Miramar.
And what of the gardenias that perfumed your Vedado nights?
What of the lovers that kissed in ecstasy at the view of the perennial Lions?
Where to turn, my Lord, when beauty is gone and the soul is dry?
Oh, Havana, city of the godless nights
Centuries apart from the city of lights
Cradle of the teen-age mothers who try their luck along the Malecon.
Oh Lord, if only for one day
I could relive the memories of greatness of this city
where Jesus and Changó
After a drunken night
play domino
Where Ochun and Mary walk the streets
Looking for the fulla to kill their needs
Oh Lord, my Havana, I morn for thee. 

(September 2009)