I have been writing for a couple of different publications, have a read. They’re good. I promise.
Wellbeing Escapes:
E8 Community:
POV:
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I have been writing for a couple of different publications, have a read. They’re good. I promise.
Wellbeing Escapes:
E8 Community:
POV:
When he looks out at the composition of sky, mountain and sea, are his feet dangled or hunched against his torso? Are his eyes frantic; skidding between clouds and ripples, or are they still and calm? Thinking about his life feels as if I am looking into the vase of a hazy dream. He continues to walk and be sedated by his hopeless desire. His thoughts are soaked and he is subdued in a difference of pattern; he now has reason to have a heavier foot, for the plants to seem less green and for the sky to have a tinge of cruelty beneath its plastic yellow.
Whilst I shovel my way through the discombobulated scrap, my torrid head tries to regain balance and I find myself skidding out of line. Things are different here, I am without the sea and mountains. Things are somehow less forgiving and I have to forgive its disillusioned self.
His surroundings are sparser, they have a minimal approach. Nature is a beast in itself but like music sheets, it has its peaks and troughs of momentum. He sits at the wharf where his thoughts repeat like the steady sound of a drum, I am a relentless idea. He imagines me forming from the furthest wall of sky, slowly making my way towards him. I suddenly drown and melt with the surface of the glassy water; some thoughts are too hard to keep hold of.
I am falsely distracted by the bustle of buildings and the hustle of people, how unlucky I am. Things move so quickly, our foot prints make an incomprehensible map. The streets are doused in people who look out at life through a square. Opportunities do not happen through windows but it is a point of perspective. The city’s formation is a series of streets, until now I had never thought of streets as being a burden or barrier. The streets are relentless, they squander the space and leave no room for a view free of interruptions. To see ocean and mountain would remove this armour of mine.
He speaks to people but seldom listens, his eyes avert to inanimate objects; eyes require attention he cannot give. I speak to people, I do listen, only because I know I have to. If I cannot engage myself here, I will be lowered to the status of a rat. Cut-throat. I look at people in the eye but am aware of my somewhat disconnected state. I am always somewhere between the present and past, I am a pendulum with an imbalanced equilibrium. We continue to wait for one another. How unrealistic this all seems, this story does not feel real, I must be writing someone else’s story.
This time the village was larger. Perhaps double the size of Nawaikama. After the eating of copious fish and cassava, people began migrating between thatched halls. The guitars began to emerge like wooden flowers sprouting from the layers of woven mat. Men positioned themselves in a circle, the singers and guitar players, others closely stacked behind them wanting to be communal in song. The songs varied; from slower soft melodies where the men’s voices streamed past each other like silk, to faster rhythms. The faster songs were interjected with short yelps where clapping was infectious. Women would sit with one another further away from the central hub of the action. The cava bowl decided the arrangement of the room; like blotting ink in water things leaked from one initial circle. The women usually began the dance and instinctively took to the bouncing melody. Some men rose and swayed to the throngs of Fijian words, whilst offering their open hands to a woman. The hall was wall to wall with people, all assembled together seeming like a bright bouquet of flowers. The room belted with colour and entering the hall felt like finding your way through the mesh of a bedazzling garden. In this particular hall, the majority of people were sat down. As I entered there was barely room for another pair of feet let alone a body. I looked out into the crowd of glossed faces and didn’t know where to look; I was more lost in the combustion of flowers than their faces. The women were fanning themselves whilst exchanging laughter. The men seemed quieter but I think the disguise lay in their rubble voices. At various points in the night men would stand to make an announcement, some lasted longer and seemed like a story. They made the people laugh and despite not understanding the content, I was revelling in watching my Fijian family get lost in laughter. This was simplicity at its most beautiful.
The other hall was outdoors and in comparison was calmer. People were spread out on the mats, fingers forked out and their heads leant back in a floppy manner; they were relaxed. Conversation feathered amongst people and cava bowls were handed out at a slower pace. Outside the green palm trees seemed an aubergine colour against the black sky, whilst reflecting an almost yellow tinge. The stars were prominent as ever and seemed encrusted into the sky, as if it were impossible for them to ever move. From outside each person seemed like their own individual flower; some were hunched over, others were wiry and some were propped up straight. Each person wore not one colour but several, they were the most beautiful sight of life and happiness I had seen. The black night’s sky could not muffle them, they had always been colourful in all they did and I knew the traditions of Fijian village life would continue. My only sadness was I would not grow old with it.
Within one scrunch, i hear
the efforts of my labour wrinkled into oblivion.
My arms ache,
they have been out-stretched all afternoon.
I stand open mannered, I only offer peace.
The walkers continue to pass by
and my fixed stance
remains unshakeable
because I know it is God I serve.
I swivel and turn to see
whose eyes I can meet
it is something of a defeat
the passers-by look ahead without direction
an infection of their souls
but I wish them no harm,
for I am merely a man
who silently spreads the word of God.
It is night as you walk around
the sounds are small, only loudening when you
pass by a house.
The sky is freckled in silver
the trees live amongst you like elders.
Like floating bees, candlelight hovers
in the small fraction
of a window
an ajar door.
Everything is patched in darkness
and through distortion of sparkling black
revealed patches of
Colour.
Like when a person speaks, they are compound, they are bound
But as they continue to speak, things unravel
And you see their own arrangement of;
Colours, layers, the shapes that unfurl by dictation of their manner.
The people are circled together upon the floor,
Leaning their heads back and speaking openly.
They too look at you,
Lean in and furrow an interest.
You hear the cry of a baby
their eyes are wet and enlarged.
The black covers the air but the
Fijian flashes of colour
exist no matter what.
I am wearing a band of cloth; things are muffled,
My eyes only see the bodies of Fijian people
Dressed in all their coloured flowers.
Fijian Village Life
The island of Gau (‘now’) is the fifth largest island in Fiji, appearing on the world map as a mere dot and in comparison, Fiji itself is no more than the size of a button. The impression it left however was an expansive one that blotted out prior geographical ties. To say I became Fijian is an obvious exaggeration but a measure of my experience. What does it mean to be Fijian? Being Fijian means living an honest life where emotion dictates actions. The most important qualities one can bring to Fiji is to feel. Feel sincerely and profoundly. Nothing less, but perhaps more.
Visually, Fiji verges on fantasy; white beaches and azure skies with the essential palm tree curved into the picture. The reality however was far more real. The village of Nawaikama and its hub of houses, if at sea and looking on, is nestled between vast mountains. To the right lay the primary school although barely seen by the décor of palm trees. They grazed the clouds and you wondered how the locals managed to get to the top, even for the sake of a single coconut. To the left was pure mountain, no interruptions. They enveloped a sense of nothingness that prevailed themselves as an illusion. The illusion being that mountains are still and peaceful, undisturbed.
The ocean lulled and trickled at the wall that separated land and sea. If the tide were out, the black sand appeared like wet marzipan. Chinks of shell and crab scurried along, hauling themselves out of their black trench. The wharf, our first point of arrival, stretched out like a decayed tongue. The wharf saw many a Fijian child jump into the ocean. Big boys and young men looked out as their thoughts scattered amongst the ripples and drifted toward the bamboo raft.
Fijians most used phrase is ‘gnu te’ which means ‘come and eat’, it poured from every house. Your periphery would catch a combusting flower arrangement that upon her shoulder seemed enlarged; I knew that by the roll of her shoulder she was weaving a mat. Fijian hospitality is endless, I should know as my waist line has given my jeans a run for their money. Almost all of the men are farmers whilst the women see to the production of food. Fijian women however know what it is to graft and their responsibilities are just as widespread.
Fijian soil houses its national drink, known as Kava. Kava resembles muddy water and is a taste you eventually taste less of. The dry branch’s leaves are crushed to form a powder that is the basis of Kava. The first serving delivered in a coconut shell is the hardest to swallow, but Kava is a focal point of socialising and so village life gets you into good practice. Kava nights varied from sedate affairs to everyone up on their feet dancing.
Fiji is a place where there is little else room for anything but happiness.
The moaning man’s voice rises over a chain of wooden utensils colliding. His voice sounds like it is calling out to someone, their heart throbs as they sing. His chin is pointed upward and his eyes droop into the throngs of the melody. He is surrounded by his belting brothers. Some smile and use their instrument as if a female body in their grasp. Others are less animated, they burrow beneath their hats and play two-step with their feet. The guitar strings begin to rise, as hair does in defence of the cold. The swing of the bathroom door faintly swings, as loud or quiet as the ice hitting the side of glass. As the music becomes the room, people move like a swarm of flies of dizzy anticipation. The heat rises in the wooden painted room. Scratched pictures tilt in unison upon the walls. They look at each other when no one else is looking. Candle flames flurry in the whirl of action. Swirls unpeel and linger from the wall into the air. They move amongst the people and bring them together. The flutter of dresses appear like brush strokes that suspend like a string of coloured lights.
My favourite time of the year to write is winter; from the staleness that October yields and before the cold rolling stones that December brings. The air stiffens and like looking through an empty vase, the mind can melt into clarity, forgetting about the wilted flowers that succumbed to the winters frozen exterior. The frivolity of summer does not beckon you and instead the bare trees and crisp gatherings speak to you like an individual thought; yes we do talk to yourselves amongst the darkness. Perhaps there is a sense of retreating that we are all subordinate to during this time of the year. We all go into our hovels, shells and boxes to etch away at the person we have been all year. The engine of creativity beings to purr with activity, and soon we are disturbed by the embedded roar of our thoughts. The doom of cold that thickens upon us acts as a vessel of emotion. It is almost as if winter wants us to remember, because staring coldness in the face is like looking back into yourself. The air thins to white, the acute sound of birds, the nude trees and the people more scarce. The charm of summer is behind me and I feel less lithe. My freedom is dictated by the sky that quickly draws blackness. I am required to write! For what good is it to count the glimmer of black birds against white sky? They will continue to fly as you continue to look. The sun now hides and the moon boasts its white eye. The moon itself is like a white ball of condensed thought. It has dips and crevices that like human nature, symbolise fault. How is it so far and yet I see it’s tired eye and dimpled cheek. The moon looks back at you in the winter night as frozen breath of definiteness, although full it appears hollow. It is a plate for your thoughts to feed off of one another. What becomes bare must be re- nourished and so my mind is filled with how I can create a river of richness to stream along my consciousness. Winters promise is quietness, it is a constant and perhaps one of its most alluring aspects. Quietness is the essential ingredient to the romancing of thoughts.
The trio of boys leap across the mirrored water
amongst fragment of jet black polka dots;
up close scurrying stampedes of crab,
grey marzipan stretches of wet sand streaked between
and once again the silhouette of boy would
thumble along.
I could hear their feet splat the wet flooring
and my sole felt the gratification of an imprinted foot
The tide was far out, almost oblique
there only lay a white crust
The streaky clouds above the met the waves as if
it were thinning hair to a set of
ferociously grinding teeth
seemingly wisps of hair continued to fall
into the white heaves.
and like the flashed reflection upon mirror
the wave would streak along in quick succession
The sound of a group of boys gathered
as the sand became their playing field
footprints,
that lapped up and momentarily dismissed its wet heel
I couldn’t see, but i knew
the sand, just like the sky
had thoughts of its own.
Water and chemicals, that’s what we really are aren’t we?
Is there more than ourselves as jellyfish,
drying on a bed of salt
that may feel like stale rice, a sense of bumpiness.
Devoid of the layers we put on,
we too are translucent,
we can all look into each other;
layers allow us to describe ourselves. visually.
They are accessories to thoughts that we may or may not water to grow.
And amongst our mind-field of cells,
zigzaged creatures in their own domain working away,
we behold our own kaleidoscope, our distorted arrangement.
It begins with Y or M or ends in I.
We all posses our own underground wearing transparent shawls, to guard us.
We dim and we blush
we pause and we propell
we sting with allure between one another.
We tail debris, even if we can’t see it,
we are soft
we are easily replaceable
we have a thunderstorm of activity in us.
But then again, there are names for everything
but then again should we place trust in any name, for that matter.
seewhatshemeans 