Derek Walcott

A City's Death By Fire

After that hot gospeller has levelled all but the churched sky, I wrote the tale by tallow of a city’s death by fire; Under a candle’s eye, that smoked in tears, I Wanted to

Koening Of The River

Koening knew now there was no one on the river. Entering its brown mouth choking with lilies And curtained with midges, Koenig poled the shallop Past the abandoned ferry and the ferry piles Coated

Love After Love

The time will come When, with elation You will greet yourself arriving At your own door, in your own mirror And each will smile at the other’s welcome, And say, sit here. Eat. You

The Schooner 'Flight&#039

1 Adios, Carenage In idle August, while the sea soft, And leaves of brown islands stick to the rim Of this Carribean, I blow out the light By the dreamless face of Maria Concepcion

After The Storm

There are so many islands! As many islands as the stars at night On that branched tree from which meteors are shaken Like falling fruit around the schooner Flight. But things must fall, and

In The Virgins

You can’t put in the ground swell of the organ From the Christiansted, St. Croix, Anglican Church Behind the paratrooper’s voice: “Turned cop After Vietnam. I made thirty jumps.” Bells punish the dead street

Pentecost

Better a jungle in the head Than rootless concrete. Better to stand bewildered By the fireflies’ crooked street; Winter lamps do not show Where the sidewalk is lost, Nor can these tongues of snow

Dark August

So much rain, so much life like the swollen sky Of this black August. My sister, the sun, Broods in her yellow room and won’t come out. Everything goes to hell; the mountains fume

Codicil

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

Forest Of Europe

The last leaves fell like notes from a piano And left their ovals echoing in the ear; With gawky music stands, the winter forest Looks like an empty orchestra, its lines Ruled on these

A Far Cry From Africa

A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt Of Africa, Kikuyu, quick as flies, Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt. Corpses are scattered through a paradise. Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries: “Waste

R. T. S. L. (1917-1977)

As for that other thing Which comes when the eyelid is glazed And the wax gleam From the unwrinkled forehead Asks no more questions Of the dry mouth, Whether they open the heart like

Midsummer, Tobago

Broad sun-stoned beaches. White heat. A green river. A bridge, Scorched yellow palms From the summer-sleeping house Drowsing through August. Days I have held, Days I have lost, Days that outgrow, like daughters, My

Coral

This coral’s hape ecohes the hand It hollowed. Its Immediate absence is heavy. As pumice, As your breast in my cupped palm. Sea-cold, its nipple rasps like sand, Its pores, like yours, shone with

Blues

Those five or six young guys Lunched on the stoop That oven-hot summer night Whistled me over. Nice And friendly. So, I stop. MacDougal or Christopher Street in chains of light. A summer festival.
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