Schizophrenic, wrenched by two styles, <br />one a hack's hired prose, I earn <br />me exile. I trudge this sickle, moonlit beach for miles, <br /> <br />tan, burn <br />to slough off <br />this live of ocean that's self-love. <br /> <br />To change your language you must change your life. <br /> <br />I cannot right old wrongs. <br />Waves tire of horizon and return. <br />Gulls screech with rusty tongues <br /> <br />Above the beached, rotting pirogues, <br />they were a venomous beaked cloud at Charlotteville. <br /> <br />One I thought love of country was enough, <br />now, even if I chose, there is no room at the trough. <br /> <br />I watch the best minds rot like dogs <br />for scraps of flavour. <br />I am nearing middle <br />age, burnt skin <br />peels from my hand like paper, onion-thin, <br />like Peer Gynt's riddle. <br /> <br />At heart there is nothing, not the dread <br />of death. I know to many dead. <br />They're all familiar, all in character, <br /> <br />even how they died. On fire, <br />the flesh no longer fears that furnace mouth <br />of earth, <br /> <br />that kiln or ashpit of the sun, <br />nor this clouding, unclouding sickle moon <br />withering this beach again like a blank page. <br /> <br />All its indifference is a different rage.<br /><br />Derek Walcott<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/codicil/
