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.