Marooned

Marooned in a Lonely Island

Seeking a Friendly Ship,
Waters of Silver Ripples,
And Beaches of Branchless Trees.

A Sun that Burns the Skin
Clouds that Embrace,
Parrots that Speak Bloody French,
God ! Am I going Insane

Is that a Damn ship out there
Will it hit the Damn Reef
Will my Dumb Dog greet me
Dammit, it’s the bloody Spanish

But behind this Coconut Jungle
And Creepers of Blue Lilies
And Past that thorny hell bush
Is a Jungle of Great Trees

Trees of Giant Timber
A Jungle of Tamarinds
With a Saw from the old Wreck
Could I Build a Two Mast Ship

RJX

The clock struck 3 - Short Story

 The clock struck 3 and inside a bookshop in Maradana, Codwin made a mental summary of himself.....Codwin, age 29, failed artist, indifferent poet, and now a bookshop assistant at Premasiri Bookshop in Maradana. The world seemed darker than it did a few years ago and he knew that it would become worse when he reached his thirties. He looked through the glass window at the traffic below....it seemed to move slower every day....so much like his life...........already he felt weary of his journey home.....the traffic before the Kelani bridge would take one and a half hours......why on earth did they build a highway without solving this problem first........but then he gave up this line of thought......these were nuts beyond his ability to crack.....surrounded by books that's what he must think about.....most of them horrid and unsaleable.....how on earth did they make a profit selling this junk. He knew Mr. Premasiri knew nothing....nothing at all about books… but knowing nothing seemed a good qualification nowadays...the novel's on the shelf's that he had read secretly were all trash.....but still Mr. Premasiri was a millionaire.....the wind blew in a different way nowadays.......and the likes of him with his half baked poems.....and knowledge of things unimportant wasn't going anywhere........but even in this trash, there were gems that had been bought accidentally.... take for example….. W. Somerset Maugham's short stories based in Malaya...... most of George Orwell's books were good too....though you got the feeling that Orwell like his characters had gone off his coconut. Maybe he should have become a teacher.... yes of English... general knowledge and things like that.....he could certainly write better than people in the XXXX newspaper……… but who cares about writing nowadays.....the way the wind blows Sir.....is the way the Crow goes.....But he was surrounded by horrible books and he hated them, the poets the novelist, they were rotting with nobody left to read them……They were crawling, yes crawling like dung beetles to a common grave, and so were we all…....

Written by: RJX

F. Scott Fitzgerald

 F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), was an American short-story writer and novelist. "This Side of Paradise" made Fitzgerald famous at the age of 24 and he married Zelda Sayre. "The Beautiful and the Damned" (1922), describes a young man and his beautiful wife, who gradually degenerate into middle age while they wait to inherit a large fortune. Ironically, they finally get it, when there is nothing of them left worth preserving. Perhaps to avoid this the Fitzgerald's together with their daughter led an extravagant disorderly life. Fitzgerald began to drink too much and Zelda suddenly, inexplicably began practicing ballet dancing night and day. In 1930 she had a mental breakdown and in 1932 another, from which she never really recovered.

Through the 1930's they fought to save their life together, but the battle was lost and Zelda was admitted to a sanatorium. His next novel "Tender is the Night" is the story of a psychiatrist who marries one of his patients, who as she slowly recovers exhausts his vitality until he is "a man used up." Unfortunately for Fitzgerald, the book was commercially unsuccessful. With this failure and the despair over Zelda, Fitzgerald was close to becoming an incurable alcoholic. However, by 1937 he recovered enough to become a scriptwriter in Hollywood. In 1939 he began the novel "The Last Tycoon." It was Fitzgerald's last attempt to capture a dream he had for a long time. In its intensity of imagination and brilliance of its expression, it is equal to anything Fitzgerald ever wrote. And it is typical of his luck that he died of a heart attack with the novel only half-finished at the age of 44.

Kumbuk Tree - Terminalia Arjuna

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NaTree Leaves - Mesua Ferrea (Iron Wood Tree)

 

Kobolila Tree - Bauhinia purpurea

 

Bauhinia purpurea is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae, native to the Indian subcontinent and Myanmar, and widely introduced elsewhere in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. 

Rough Pen Drawing

 

The Mahaweli River

Meandering along the valley

Flows the great sandy river

Starting from the central hills

It reaches the sea forever

Kings may come and kings may go

But the river flows on

The river reminds me

We are all one

Flow when the sun is shining

Or in the pouring rain

When you reach the sea in an unknown bay

It'll be destiny's end

RJX

Short Excerpt from the Travel Book

 Unfortunately just when my travels started to gain real momentum the covid 19 pandemic struck. We went through a series of strictly imposed lockdowns, that made travel impossible. However, during one of the brief interludes of the lockdown, I decided to walk somewhere, anywhere at all away, as far away from home as was possible to be. I had never been a great fan of walking, but the lockdown had made me a kind of aimless wanderer. 

So I set out of my home and “discovered” for the first time that on both sides of the road were large Kohomba (Margosa) trees. From what I understand the margosa tree is one of the true shade trees that thrive even on the meekest trickle of groundwater so it's invaluable for those of us who can’t afford to air-condition. People in Sri Lanka, India, and Africa love it for this reason and its many medicinal and other uses. So it's surprising that it was declared a weed tree in northern parts of Australia in 2015. Introduced as a shade tree for cattle in the 1940s, it spread so quickly, that it's now illegal to buy, sell or transport plants or seeds. I've always wondered why this was, for as everyone knows nothing much grows in most parts of Australia except gum trees. Then I realized that in reality, many great trees grow in Australia, most of them endemic. An aunt of mine once visited Australia and she told the story of how she ventured into a woody place (she was always venturing into woody places) and found that there were countless Uguressa trees full of fruits. When she inquired from an Australian, she got the reply that it wasn't edible, and was in fact fit only for birds. Hey, we eat this fruit around here, it's one of my favorite fruits. Then I came upon a picturesque lake that was lined by a long row of Kumbuk Trees. For me, the Kumbuk tree, with its shiny smooth bark and colorful leaves is one of the most pleasant trees that God has put upon this earth. No Gum tree can beat this.

Written by: RJX

Short Excerpt from the Humorous Travel Book

 In Sigiriya, I met one of my relatives. He was quite old and from the things, he said I could never decide whether he was extremely intelligent or a little mad. Over a drink, he started his “advice to the young” though god knows I could hardly call myself young. “ You know what the problem with the world is” began he “ No,” said I. “Well, the problem with the world is that many people walk with only a vague idea of what they want to do.” I wondered secretly whether this accurately described his condition – senility (A decline in memory and other mental functions associated with old age). “Great wars have been fought, and millions upon millions have died because people don’t know what they really want.” “Take Hitler for example, he was a man who walked with a great anger about the injustices to his country after the First World War. But he never had a clear idea of what he really wanted, the result - 75 million people died” in the Second World War, “True” said I, “and how do you solve this problem” said I, trying to sound intelligent. “A piece of paper,” said he “Just write all your problems on the left side, and the solutions to each of them on the right side, and suddenly everything is clear. No more walking vaguely with anger or greed in your mind” said he. I only wish somebody had given me a piece of paper and said this when I was younger.

Written by:RJX

Pettah - Rough Pen Drawing

 

RJX

A Tree in Serendib

 Here along the reef lies sunken treasure

Of a ship that sailed but failed to measure

I seek to find it soon

Under eloquent stars and a moon

I use starlight to navigate the seas

It will be in the moonlight the treasure will be freed

Of foolish men who did not see

That numbers will drown their destiny

I reach the treasure sailing East

But the stars disappear with my endless greed

I throw the treasure overboard

I need the stars to sail back home

The stars guide me to reach an isle

I walk inland a hundred miles

I reach a jungle with countless trees

But I came here for just one tree

Here in this jungle grows a hidden tree

That all the eyes in the world cannot see

I seek to find it soon

Before the daylight kills the moon

What is gold but a useless thing

That kills more men than a ruthless king

But each atom in this secret tree

Has magic in it that can cure all ills

I find the tree before early dawn

All my troubles disappear with the misty morn

I am one of the few who are truly free

For I found the tree of Serendib

RJX

Rough Pen Drawing

 

RJX