George Elliott Clarke (1960-)
Exile
for Kwame Dawes
1 Your scuttled pays floats -- fiery -- in the ether;
2Blazing, it vomits smudge-smoke. Your mind chars
3Black because you yaw –- moth-like -– too near flames.
4You douse your dream-scorched brain with slave-sweat rum --
5The only gold you can own, corroding
6Your liver. Your anthem plays to gunfire.
7 When you think about it (when you can breathe) –-
8After all the lies that frame nostalgia,
9All the dead faces that occupy photographs,
10All the slain lovers pitched into ditches,
11Your eyes itch and ache with water, then dry –-
12Curling like dead leaves, starving for gold fire.
Notes
1] pays: country
3] yaw: swerve from side to side.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
This poem cannot be published anywhere without the written consent of George Elliott Clarke or the Polestar Book permissions department.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Blue (Vancouver: Polestar Book Publishers, 2001): 25.
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: 2004
Recent editing: 1:2004/7/22*1:2004/7/22
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