Caribbean Poetry

Derek Walcott (St. Lucia)

Codicil

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

tan, burn
to slough off
this love 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 beach, rotting pirogues
they were a venomous beaked cloud at Charlotteville.

Once I thought love of country was enough,
now, even I choose, there's no room at the trough.

I watch the best minds root like dogs
for scraps of favour.
I am nearing middle-

age, burnt skin
peels from my hand like paper, onion-thin,
like Peer Gynt's riddle.

At heart there's nothing, not the dread
of death. I know too 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
whitening this beach again like a blank page.

All its indifference is a different rage.

-from The Gulf 1963 (32-33)


Lorna Goodison (Jamaica)

The Mulatta and the Minotaur

And shall I tell you what the mninotaur said to me
as we dined by the Nile on almond eyes and tea?
No, I shall not reveal that yet.
Here, I'll record just how we met.
We faced each other and a bystander said,
'Shield your eyes, he's wearing God's head'
but it was already turbulent and deeply stained
with the merciless indigo of hell's rain.
And I, delaying my dying, hung my innocence high
and it glowed pale and waterwash against the sky.
And we met, but he was on his way
So he marked my left breast with this stain
which is indelible till we meet again.
And our lives rocketed through separate centuries
and we gave life to sons in sevens
and I was suckled of a great love or two
split not all the way asunder
and stuck together with glue.
And he wed the faultless wind
and wrestled with phantasms
and fantastic djinn
and came through the other side whole and alone
with a countenance clear as wind-worried bones
and the seal of a serpetn engorged by a dove
imprinted on marching orders for love.
And I was suckled of a great love or two
split not all the way asunder
and stuck together with glue.
For the Queen of Sheba had willed me
her bloodstone ring,
a flight of phoenix feathers
and her looser black things.
So,
Minotaur;
God's-head wearer
Galileo
Conqueror-of-Paris
Someone I don't know
There will be a next time
Centuries ago.

from I am Becoming My Mother, 1986 (31)


Ricardo Pau-Llosa (Cuba)

Icarus and Ariadne

Down to my last skin,
I angle my free head in the sun,
marking the gravity of bones,
flapping, palms sweating, a feather

drops, and another down
a failing corridor or saltwind,
to her lying body on the beach.
She thinks of nothing, dreams
of animals that dream of her,
their horns charging her elaborate sleep.

Down to my last core
I plunge, plumage furled
to measure magical amen.

from Sorting Metaphors 1983 (33)

Kamau Brathwaite (Barbados)

Calypso

from "Islands and Exiles"

1
The stone had skidded arc'd and bloomed into islands:
Cuba and San Domingo
Jamaica and Puerto Rico
Grenada Guadeloupe Bonaire

curved stone hissed into reef
wave teeth fanged into clay
white splash flashed into spray
Bathsheba Montego Bay

bloom of the arcing summers...

2
The islands roared into green plantations
ruled by silver sugar cane
sweat and profit
cutlass profit
islands ruled by sugar cane

And of course it was a wonderful time
a profitable hospitable well-worth-you-time
when captains carried receipts for rices
letters spices wigs
opera glasses swaggering asses
debtors vices pigs

O it was a wonderful time
an elegant benevolent redolent time--
and young Mrs. P.'s quick irrelevant crine
at four o'clock in the morning...

3
But what of black Sam
with the big splayed toes
and the shoe black shiny skin?

He carries bucketfulls of water
'cause his Ma's just had another daughter.

And what of John with the European name
who went to school and dreamt of fame
his boss one day called him a fool
and the boss hadn't even been to school...

4
Steel drum steel drum
hit the hot calypso dancing
hot rum hot rum
who goin' stop this bacchanalling?

For we glance the banjoy
dance the limbo
grow our crops by maljo

have loose morals
gather corals
father out neighbour's quarrels

perhaps when they come
with their cameras and straw
hats: sacred pink tourists from the frozen Nawth

we should get down to those
white beaches
where if we don't wear breeches

it becomes an island dance
Some people doin' well
while others are catchin' hell

o the boss gave our Johnny the sack
though we beg him please
please to take 'im back

so now the boy nigratin' overseas...

from The Arrivants: A New World Trilogy (48-50)