Here they turned swamp into marl pits,
stretches of reclaimed firm ground, waiting
always for storms to fill craters, allow
the rising tide to meet sudden lakes—
this is the ruined earth before it was
ever glorious. Everything is flat here,
acacia bushes and dull green almond
trees scattered along the road way,
squat as cowering crowds, as if afraid
to rise above it all, afraid of the slash
of the big machete; and where the city
begins, a line of bars and fish dens,
the stench of rotting fish and cooking
garbage. At dusk, the women line
the streets in red and garish green
and the quick flamboyant scar
of yellow—it is a basic trade; making
ends meet; holding body and soul
together, making dicks hard fast
to make them soft quick—it is work;
no sweetness here, just the calculation
of survival. This is where Kingston
has seeped, spilling out new tribes
that try to grow roots in reluctant
soil—the bloodletting continues
over the plains from the water’s edge
to the scraggly heights of St Jago.
Yu will find no palm trees here,
not a coconut frond in sight, and we
come to the crowded beaches for the fish
and festival not for the water and black
sand in these gray foamy coves where
everything has died, and the fishermen
must push far out towards South America
to find a fresh fish to catch. And Lascelles,
dressed in his green gabardine, the well-
pressed olive shirt buttoned like a bad man
to the last button at the throat, struts
through this wilting city—Lascelles
the an with a voice sweet as Delroy
Wilson with the roots ruggedness
of Dennis Brown and a soul boy’s
pretentiousness, like he could dance
band-legged like Ken Booth—
he can sing this small sharp-headed
man, head up, strolling the side streets
with nothing to show for it, hoping that
now since Labor is in, that the green party
people will let him cut a tune,
capture a stage, burst like a hero
for that last triumph before the disease
in his blood, the disease that shadows
even the sound of his name takes him.
Snap a shot of Lascelles leaning back
against a pink wall, shades over his eyes,
left foot pressed against the wall, hands
tucked deep into his pocket, with a cluster
of lazing women, conserving their energy,
waiting for a regular to come by for a quick
one. And he sings into the night, his head
thrown back, his head swaying,
that voice carrying over the squalor,
making these women look up
for a moment, seeing for the first time
in a long time, the magic of an open sky.
Portmore
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