Year's End: 2005 is the year of The Rooster

Welcome to Paradise Acres, Montego Bay again ladies and gentlemen, the season of merriment or folly, brings people flooding to through the streets, clappaz and scribbz(fire-crackers) can be heard every 15 minutes from about six in the evening. The walls of speaker boxs have been strung up on almost every street corner and children are about with star lite an all manner of trinkets that won't last past new year's eve. The sounds of gregory isaac, garnet silk interspaced wid some old mento and calypso waft through the cool blue Christmas nite at ruffly 12 o'clock. Matterhorn and Marijuana seem to be the drugs of choice along with the sorrel at the corner shops. Dominoes and Ludi(ludo or parcheesi) all played by rotating casts and compulsive gamblers intent on making the most of their holiday bonus. I don't which fool invented the myth about roosters crowing in the morning or at sunrise, here they crow from 12:00 am to 9:00 am of course with the choir of crickets, dogs on base and cats on alto. Nature is at high frequency here.

As we proceed into the thoroughfare of human traffic that now congests Montego Bay proper, every Tom, Dickhead and Harry is hussling and peddling his ware. Phone card, clappaz, wata are but ust a few of the items that are available. KFC on the boulevard is packed to capacity and a little more. The hipstrip(Gloucester Ave) is a wash with Pan chicken men, vendors, pedestrians, party goers cars, the lovely chimmer and shine clad prostitutes, the escalades, and evolutions. Jesus I'm sure is turning twice in his grave(seeing this isn't exactly his birthday, and what's teh fat red guy have to do with him, and oh the mass marketing). The street is strung up with lights and RatBats(real Bats, not Moths) are circling fruit trees everywhere just as their friends in flight the birds are in constant chorus at Sam Sharpe Square, and seeming constant diahorrea. Marguerita Ville is popping, the Brewery is popping, Oh and the Coral Cliff full a pickney cyan' done.

Here now is a poem I wrote some years ago a christmas:

One Night In December

The sky is in her deepest blue,
While stars glow bold in the cool of night,
Ackee trees rock as the breeze comes through,
All is peace even the mongrels cease their fight.

Children frolic the street with sparkles in hand,
And old reggae rythms softly scampers across the air,
The spirit of nativity captures the land,
The weary soul can rest without fear.

© Yannick Nesta Pessoa & Azteka Designs MMIV (2004 a.d.) ®