Frederiksted Nights by Derek Walcott
The goombay band or whatever
combination of Chicano charge
and black funk ignites the fish-fries
by the sizzling pierhead
with the sharks of submarines cruising
like the Puerta Ricenan putas
or lemon Dominican whores
the electric guitars rocketing
at the terrified, empty hotels,
all anger in the groin,
the bomb-cock,
the crotch-trap,
the thudding, explosive pelvis,
to which even the yachts nod,
to which a volley of bullets
sputters under the coalpots,
are gone dead
short-circuited.
The moon is a blown bulb.
And the La Cuenca Café
which only means ‘The Corner’
a beastly green, pink and beige
is also out. Closed.
The plastic tablecloths are whipped away,
the defeated Chicano proprietor
gone back to the Main, maybe.
What is remarkable is
that he has taken you with him,
when he served us,
I did not know you would be stolen,
There is nothing around La Cuenca.
There is only the white street,
with the white gates and the oleanders,
and a library full of dead books,
houses, the ochre poorhouse, a hotel,
banks. It is simply another town.
It is simply fish-fry music,
or so I tell myself. Simply.
But my eyes wince at the names of shops
the empty tables are eating my heart;
nothing shines,
your radiance also turned off
by your own hand. So, tonight
when the foolish moon
gapes at the stupid pier,
and the boring music blares
I’ll kick its ashes with my foot,
the fishbones, the cold songs,
feel vague as the moon in daylight,
and abhor the cheap green curtains
of the La Cuenca Café.
My life has no corners to turn.
You are young. Go.
I will not turn down any more alleys
to find someone as astonishing;
and in the end, one always
comes to this,
to the dock,
the rain-hazed horizon
and the corpses of poems.
From Sea Grapes 1976.
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