Attempt a critical analysis of the poem “Stone” by Brathwaite.

The only word which comes out, in a “heavy riddim” from the guts, is “murdererrrrrr.” Life ebbing out of him is experienced as somebody slowly twisting his neck so that the only activity possible is spitting out the blood and uttering the name of the lord. Nature as an unresponsive witness to this act is evinced in the “stare” of the sun and the “flittin” of the butterfly. In these few moments before death he becomes acutely conscious of usually unnoticed functions like the flow of blood in the veins.

This natural bodily music is like the music played by “bands” at Carnival. The masqueraders in Carnival select a particular theme each year whether historical, topical or imaginary. Smith imagines that the band whose music he hears has selected a nautical theme. The noise of the ship bells reproduced in the poem is a reverberation of the sound of his own bodily functions heard by the dying man. Wave-like, the music rises only to hit against the “broken schooner” of his injured body seeking its “harbour.”