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Showing posts with the label west-indian writer

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The fist, a poem by Derek Walcott

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The fist clenched round my heart loosens a little, and I gasp brightness; but it tightens again. When have I ever not loved the pain of love? But this has moved past love to mania. This has the strong clench of the madman, this is gripping the ledge of unreason, before plunging howling into the abyss. Hold hard then, heart. This way at least you live. Derek Walcott

The acacia trees, a poem by Derek Walcott

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I You used to be able to drive (though I don't) across the wide, pool-sheeted pasture below the house to the hot, empty beach and park in the starved shade of the acacias that print those tiny yellow flowers (blank, printless beaches are part of my trade); then there were men with tapes and theodolites who measured the wild, uneven ground. I watched the doomed acres where yet another luxury hotel will be built with ordinary people fenced out. The new makers of our history profit without guilt and are, in fact, prophets of a policy that will make the island a mall, and the breakers grin like waiters, like taxi drivers, these new plantations by the sea; a slavery without chains, with no blood spilt� just chain-link fences and signs, the new degradations. I felt such freedom writing under the acacias. II Bossman, if you look in those bush there, you'll find a whole set of passport, wallet, I.D., credit card, that is no use to them, is money on their mind and is not every time you...

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