We return to Brazil
this time to spend Carnival
in her hometown of Salvador.

By the double banks
of rising bleachers,
epicentre of the impending celebration,
there is a fearsome Behemoth;
a truck with seventy speakers.
Including the band,
there must be forty
on the open roof alone,
about three tons
of electronic equipment
and a clutch inevitably
of the new ‘rock’ stars.

Close on three or four thousand
bland-faced crinkle-heads,
positioned in the road ahead
and clustered in the wake
of this monster and all across
the public square wait,
until someone with the studied hysteria
of a Brazilian football commentator,
screams an announcement into
an already distorted sound system.

Silence then. Nothing stirs.
Ten seconds later, the first amplified rattle
of drums and all the heads begin
throbbingandbobbing like beans
on a just switched-on conveyor belt.
The noise is deafening.
A single file of twelve military police
with ugly truncheons half a metre long,
stride impassively
through the throng.

They wear steel helmets
and look like combat paratroopers
but why they should be there is unclear.
No truly individual act
of spontaneity or criminal defiance
would be possible in that pounding.
There was no apparent passion,
poetry or release;
there was
certainly no samba.

Seeing her eyes were swollen
I ask, ‘What is it? ‘
‘It’s so sad,’ she explains
‘I was crying with frustration!’
Whether it is the march
of civilisation, the corrupting
influence of television,
or just that everything -
even the best things – must
change for the worst; I don’t know.
It was hard for her and in time,

I think it will be hard for anyone
to find regeneration when the great
traditions of celebration have expired.

Salvador, Brazil  ‘86.