Jerk-chicken outposts proliferate

Now I am free I go with the beat. The stage is placed at the same part that it always is, at the side of the park near the lido with the crowd stacked up towards the central point, the cafe/house. At the sides of the arena the jerk-chicken outposts proliferate. I go with the beat and I see the sky wobble in gold blueness. It is everything and I twirl to the thump of whatever, and I am spinning in the makeshift dancehall. Everyone is so bright. Or, they wear and carry bright things. Their t-shirts, bracelets, hair-beads, bags, drinks plastics/cans/bottles, their water bottles, all radiate glistening whiteness, a once-a-year whiteness, that renders the grass around it a sort of hazy black a bit like burnt hay. They all seem saturated in white, the pure colour frontier of the sun. But all I am focusing on is the turquoise sky beyond the booming stage, and the way the sky is perfect and endless, but cut up by the high-rise, which is kind of timeworn bronze, and could do with some tender treatment. Tiny rectangular towels and flags – England, Millwall, Jamaica – cloud up balconies here and there. Bikes etc too. How do they see us? Do they look down on us, within this prosthetic grandeur made from treelines (summer green) and security guards (summer neon yellow), with the intensity that I look up at them? I suppose they would just see a mush of flesh, and with a little of the whiteness that I paddle in removed from that. I’m continuing to stare at these buildings, and I’m living both down here within the crush and thinking about being up there. The crowd multiplies, with our new friends joining the throb, becoming the whiteness when they do. Brixton beach. The people move through like it’s Rio or Berlin. And tomorrow it’ll be back to the dog walkers and joggers, provided they get rid of all the shite off the grass and pathways first. Tomorrow it’ll be back to the normal park, without the dancing and the ragga, which feels weird.

@Mangolandin – 20 Dec Come and party with us tonight – it’s the last squeeze of the Mango – everyone invited (;

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