Dwelling I
Screw you jailer
fever with its razzia dagger in its teeth fever with its torrential word in its teeth
fever thoroughbred horse sweet falcon
with its palanquin preceding me
Dwelling made of defeats
dwelling made of living ships' hulls
dwelling made of passionflower
dwelling made and remade a hundred times
dwelling made of sharks' teeth
ah hallowed dwelling made of flashing hell and damnation
of somber saps dozing in my massive ceibas
the screaming curse upon me no longer exists
the chain evil that checks our ankles
the iron collar evil that presses heavily on our shoulders
all that has been dissipated stripped away like this kernel
dissipated like the bay catching the light of fine weather in the noise bowl of the sea
stripped bare like you Volcano who at the peak of your crime hurl yourself into suicide to rejoin in the
sea's depths your accomplices the pensive porpoises yet to be born and who wait
Translated from the French by A. James Arnold and Clayton Eshleman.
To read more poems by Aime Cesaire, please click here to purchase JUBILAT 18
