Bruce Cockburn: Dancing in paradise

Praying mantis on screen canoes prowl reef in early morning sun as it flashes on the rhythmic fall of weed cutter's cutlass blade everybody's got something to sell besides the obvious dollars and dope aloe rub, starfish, vegetable patties, braid your hair miss and bush doctor cures sudden angry eruption between aloe peddler and man with property to protect muscular security guard with truncheon of twisted wire "kiss my blood clot" she hisses and they're enemies for life in the beach front bar they're playing reggae versions of Jim Reeves' Greatest Hits the waitress sings along, eyes focused dreamily on that sentimental world and there's DANCING in PARADISE... blue green ship in turquoise bay swollen bauxite-red river rushing stream rising from feathered bamboo hills tracks once paved now falling away into deep lush valleys and the farmed-out road contracts pass through so many hands the print erodes with the weather-worn blacktop and the jungle's always trying to reclaim the right of way and the mangoes cacao turmeric goats soursop mushrooms cane plantains limes horses crayfish long-legged birds donkeys curved horns of cattle above dense grass ganja sensitive plant ackee and some thorn whose prick brings lockjaw and tires torn by sharp yellow rocks -- young girl stares pensively from dark door in pale blue wall Big About and friends at their crossroads bar with its dirt corral for dancing drink soursop juice all day long in quest of the perpetual stiff bamboo and there's DANCING in PARADISE... Biggy Dread gunned down by police at Big Bridge March 16 riding a mule cart to Sav-la-Mar pulled out a cutlass and they had to shoot that's what they say something tells me they like to shoot something in the eyes of the ones at the road block where they searched the car and tried to get us to confess to whatever... there's truncheons and gas down in Harbour St. -- typical response where life isn't so sweet and somebody gets desperate enough to say so -- price of fish price of flour going up up up almost by the hour and they throw away money on spectacular shows to show the world the right likes the right music and the Prime Minister sucks ice cream in the company of a happy band of children while a naked man, sores on his neck, lies for days in Washington Blvd. gnawing chicken bones and the Chamber of Commerce thinks there's too much crime and there's a kung fu movie in every town and there's DANCING in PARADISE...