Derek Walcott

Schizophrenic, wrenched by two styles, 
one a hack's hired prose, I earn 
me exile. I trudge this sickle, moonlit beach for miles, 

tan, burn 
to slough off 
this live of ocean that's self-love. 

To change your language you must change your life. 

I cannot right old wrongs. 
Waves tire of horizon and return. 
Gulls screech with rusty tongues 

Above the beached, rotting pirogues, 
they were a venomous beaked cloud at Charlotteville. 

One I thought love of country was enough, 
now, even if I chose, there is no room at the trough. 

I watch the best minds rot like dogs 
for scraps of flavour. 
I am nearing middle 
age, burnt skin 
peels from my hand like paper, onion-thin, 
like Peer Gynt's riddle. 

At heart there is nothing, not the dread 
of death. I know to many dead. 
They're all familiar, all in character, 

even how they died. On fire, 
the flesh no longer fears that furnace mouth 
of earth, 

that kiln or ashpit of the sun, 
nor this clouding, unclouding sickle moon 
withering this beach again like a blank page. 

All its indifference is a different rage.

by Derek Walcott