Young Divas on the digital highway Pouting hipsters on hyper connection Talking to Venus or Mars in the din of Soca Reality has nothing to do with reality anymore Photo Hugh Ardoin The Notting Hill 2013 Carnival Gallery
Marching down Chepstow like an army of stragglers The dazed troops of Soca show signs of battleĀ fatigue Rum is a friend and foe while weed is a smokescreen While music booms like the big guns of a battery And the helmet-wearer is still alive… Photo Hugh Ardoin The Notting Hill 2019 Carnival Gallery
Devils of all colors follow the Carnival’s cortege Mourning the years gone by and celebrating those who may come A year will come and a year will go some will drop out of the life-line Become spirits that relive and revel in the music the soul calypso The young will join unaware that the souls […]
Pouring across the sidelines Followers of any colors “join the fray” Carnival is the battle for culture and acceptance We come here to rub our beautiful differences At the beat of the drums and the sounds of Soca Photo Hugh Ardoin The Notting Hill 2019 Carnival Gallery
Riding the waves of music, a mermaid swallows her cheeks A refrained smile or a secret message to the beholder Dancing Queen rocking at the threshold of a trance The Jab’s call at the blurred edge between Soca and Voodoo Photo Hugh Ardoin The Notting Hill 2015 Carnival Gallery
Beyond the street there is the street Performers and onlookers start to twerk and shout Farewell to the twist and shout, let’s start something new The Soca and the Reggae music from the sunny islands A wave that came across the Atlantic, a Columbus in reverse At long last… Photo Hugh Ardoin The Galleries
Exhausted performers wander aimlessly on the sidelines They take a moment of rest away from the body to body combat Soon the mas bands will recall their troops and it will start all over again The rigs will begin the slow motion forward in a thunder of reggae and soca Hundreds of hands rising to […]