since foreday dawn we come down splashing the dust of nefarious stars! and while our gods sleep we steal their masks and exhale completely, blow gauge/ bathe in mud and dip in tar and warrior red, gargle hot rum and spit fire, pump biscuit tins slack with rhythm. clap clangin’ hub caps and iron, knockin’ rum bottle with spoon and crook sticks. we coming down! blowin’ conch shell an singing, anointing our bodies with liquid light like blue we blue, we red, we black. magenta. silver striped, satyr tailed - scars of white paint.

powder smoke billow from sailor mas, calabash green, wild island gold. but some colours cannot be deciphered by the bare hearing eye. and the sound: brass wrestles wounds through asphalt, steelband jammin’ like they bound to make a body make a body leap arcs of abandon, take days to come down. drums like cathedrals tumbling. hi-hats reeling sparks like cutlass lashing de road - hot so hot even thumb tacks moan.
but some sounds cannot be measured –
                              …and a muscle in the air.



this floating island spun centre of the earth as an epicentre of all things sensual. here we measure time by temperature. distance by breath, prefer death by fire. revellers, we as dense as wet gravel down henry, george and charlotte street, all the way down to the jetty in a vast and surging kaleidoscope of blazing fire mas.

wire frames support rabelaisian disguises, meticulous sequins and fetish figures of startling silver worn swinging with the hip shake/my chest gone tight as a warm drum, niggerman, make the snare pop! sweet socalypso man chanting till him heart bust an’ big big arse rolling ’pon truck top. grind mama grind and shake the firmament - o gorm- no man can brace when the tempo
                                                            .drop