PAUL CEZANNE AND THE FISHING VILLAGE IN TRINCOMALEE, SRI LANKA.

 

I took the journey after seeing Cezanne's painting Mont Sainte - Victoire (1882-1885). Cezanne of course had painted this mountain countless times, but this one for me was different. It shows a large tree in the foreground and a road that runs into a village. This reminded me of a Village I had seen many years earlier. I wanted to go there again.

Being just 5 degrees north of the equator this is a very sunny country and this eastern part of the island is known to have the highest temperature. But the term dry zone is not very accurate, for when the north-east monsoon blows in, the landscape transforms unexpectedly, with luscious green vegetation sprouting up as far as the eyes can behold.

We finally arrived at the onion land where many women were harvesting, row upon row of green stalks. I strolled to the edge of the barbed wire fence where a large Tamarind tree grew. And on the opposite side was another large land with another barbed wire fence, beyond that another and it goes on and on like this forever until you meet the very edge of the sea. Around here the biggest threat was a wandering stray cow eating the plants and so a barbed wire was all that was needed.

The view was unrestricted, presenting an incredible sight. Trees and shrubs, bare open land, noisy insects, the smell of sand, a yellow flowering shrub that had a strong heady aroma, birds of the brightest hues, a sun so bright that it burnt the skin, what would Paul Cezanne have painted if he was born here. I felt a great energy come over me and I took out the oil pastels and started to draw. The picture I drew is posted below along with the picture by Cezanne that made me take this journey.

Illustration by me for the Science Fiction Novel "THE SONGS OF DISTANT EARTH"

 

Illustration by me for the Science Fiction short story "THE SENTINEL" written in 1948

 

The Dream that Flew Away

 

I once attempted to build wooden triplanes and biplanes and the first type of wood I stumbled on was Kumbuk wood. These were not toys but scale models less than ten inches long. I wasn’t an expert, I just read some really good books about woodworking bought some tools, and started making. Art is an incredibly enjoyable endeavor, but it is limited in some way because what you create is two-dimensional. Woodworking is three-dimensional, you can actually hold what you created in your hands, and in that sense, it is “real”.

Even the first plane didn’t look too bad, and by the fourth plane, I had almost perfected the technique. I painted the wings yellow and the fuselage sky blue with US markings, and it looked incredible. I felt I could sell it, I even took it near a shop to meet the owner, but turned back at the last minute. It was somehow too embarrassing to sell. The real problem that many people face is not making something good, but trying to sell, maybe it is a fear of rejection or shyness. But if they are employed by someone, who wants them to sell a product they will readily agree and walk a hundred miles to sell it.

I went home and decided to sell later after improving it further, but I never did. I told myself that I will increase the output by giving different parts to different people who used power tools and assembling it myself, but I was only lying to myself. As far as I am concerned there are only two kinds of people. Those who can sell things they create without embarrassment - are called entrepreneurs and the rest of us are called employees.

IF YOU MAKE A FRIEND OF TIME

If you make a friend of time

It wouldn't matter that you have no dime

For waves that break in the mangrove beach

Will pull your ship from that sinking reef

If the lighthouse is afar

And a misty fog blocks the North star

Follow the terns to the left

Or north or south whichever is best

A starfish near the beach

May swim away beyond your reach

But a crab that moves sideways

May even wish you better days

A seagull that you think is dull

May show you the way if you lose your hull

A whale that you feel is bland

May one day give you a helping hand

An oyster that pricks your feet

Could have a pearl on some distant beach

A raft that is blown to sea

Will reach the Island of Serendib

Watercolor

 

How it all Began

My paternal uncle, was once a world-famous scientist and inventor, but now nobody took him seriously. For all his brilliance if two words could be used to describe him they would be Extremely Eccentric. He had the strange habit of suddenly asking a physics question in the middle of a normal conversation and you were liable to be scolded if you did not give a satisfactory answer. For this reason some people including many of his former colleagues avoided him. Some said it was old age encroaching, some said it was an illness of the mind.

But apart from this eccentricity he was a kind and friendly man and as much as I avoided him I could not help feeling guilty so one day I went and met him. "Oh there you are at last, you numbskull, you have been avoiding me for one month" said he. "I had my exams, but it was all in vain for they asked questions from just the part of the syllabus that I avoided" said I. "Serves you right, now tell me how the Universe was created" said he. "Well according to the Big Bang theory it all started as an infinitely small primeval atom, and it expanded to form the stars, planets, galaxies and everything else in the universe. But what the theory does not explain is how the primeval atom came to be in the first place and what was there before that" said I

"That’s right, it doesn't explain it, but I found the answer for that too, though it is a secret and I don't want to tell it to you right now. But I have something interesting to show you look out of the window" said he. Outside was an enormous metal tower, and a field of what looked like huge batteries. "The world is facing an energy crisis, economies have fallen because of it and it is only going to get worse, but I solved that problem through this invention. Look what happens when I press this switch" said he. As he pressed the switch there was a crackling sound and within minutes dark clouds appeared over the tower. Soon it turned into a terrible thunderstorm. "You see Thomas this tower has a charge that attracts lightning, which leads to a chain reaction that causes thunderstorms" said he. Soon lightning discharged in the tower almost continuously making an ear splitting noise. "Cant you see what's happening Thomas, I am converting the static charge in the lightning into chemical energy in the field batteries which is then used to make an electric current that could be used by people” said he.

Two weeks later I returned and to my utter dismay he asked the same question, but this time I was prepared ......Well uncle, according to scientists when matter and anti-matter collide it leads to nothingness. So somewhere in the indeterminate past this process was somehow reversed and from nothingness we had matter and anti-matter, or in other words the universe formed from nothing. At this he laughed and said......just as I always suspected you are not overly bright.....but then we all have to be the way we are made.

But at least tell me what you know of the Theory of Relativity.

.......Well uncle according to it time is relative and not absolute. The faster you move the slower time passes for you. As you approach the speed of light Time stops” said I. “But what has the speed of light to do with time, you pinhead” said he. “I do not know though I have often wondered” said I. “No you idiot, Light and other electromagnetic waves move at the speed of light and even in a stationery object the small particles that make it move at the speed of light. But when the whole object moves the need to move is compensated so the small particles that make up the object move correspondingly slower making it look like time moves slower for it. But when I tell this theory to other scientists they call me a nut” said he.

“But uncle don’t worry about it, for your lightning machine will make you famous, nobody ever figured out the way to make electricity from lightning,” said I. My uncle’s face darkened as I said this and he said “That’s where the problem is Thomas, I can’t present my invention to the world for it would be misused. Imagine what a superpower could do if it got its hand on my invention. It could even be used as a weapon. I don't want my invention to be used to kill people, So I decided to destroy it, in fact I already have” said he. My uncle died two months later, I think of a broken heart because he had to destroy his precious invention. I do not know if his theory of the universe was correct but I know that he was the greatest scientist nobody ever talked about.

Oil pastel and black pen

 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) was an American Poet. At the time of his death Longfellow was regarded both at home and abroad as the greatest American poet. His reputation in England rivaled that of Tennyson. His translations from German, Italian and Scandinavian had much the directness and sincerity of his own verse, and attracted many American readers.

When critical taste turned toward a sterner brand of realism, Longfellow’s faults were noticed more than his very solid virtues. He has been called “The poet of the Commonplace,” but he had the gift of illuminating the ordinary and surrounding it with music. The simplicity that endears him to children and many adults often is interpreted as triteness or mediocrity. Nevertheless, Longfellow has earned a permanent place as a skilled lyricist of pure, sweet and gentle tone. Longfellow’s mastery of the ballad form and his proficiency with the sonnet are generally acknowledged.

A tragedy occurred in 1861 that shadowed the remaining years of his life. While his wife was melting sealing wax, a match set fire to her dress and she was burned to death in spite of Longfellow’s efforts to save her. He was seriously burned. Though the poet’s fame continued to grow, the peak of Longfellow’s creative life had passed. His translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy (1867), to which he turned for solace after his wife’s death, was competent but too literal to possess the musical quality Longfellow ordinarily summoned.

At the 50th anniversary of the graduation of his class at Bowdoin, Longfellow read a poem “Morituri Salutamus” (“We Who Are About to Die Salute Thee). After being stricken with dizziness in 1881, he died from an attack of peritonitis on March 24 of the following year. He was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery.

A poem he wrote was The Secret of the Sea and in it the following verses appear.

Ah! What pleasant visions haunt me

As I gaze upon the sea

All the old romantic legends,

All my dreams come back to me

Till my soul is full of longing

For the secret of the sea

And the heart of the great ocean

Sends a thrilling pulse through me

Oil Pastel

 

Why I Draw

Many years ago when I was a kid I had a great fascination with the sea. As I grew up it didn't leave me, the sea seemed to be the fun place it had always been. But one day I went to the beach and found it all very dull. The sea seemed mysterious and menacing rather than the magical place where all my dreams were formed. As I was returning home by train after the disappointing trip, I was shocked to find out that I had lost the thrill of travelling by train. One by one as the years went by I found that I had lost interest in most things. It was then that I discovered art. Though my drawings and paintings were not very good it gave me a great thrill to draw something new every day. Later on I got interested in writing short stories, few people comment on what I write and those that do so out of sympathy, but still I enjoy writing. I think having an idea either in art, music, carpentry or any other thing and then implementing it is one of the greatest thrills life has to give. So one day I decided to revisit the sea. It was one of the best things I had ever done. It seemed through art I had found an old friend again.

Trinco

 

……Many years ago, I was walking on a village road in Trinco with a Doctor who seemed to be more interested in trees and plants than on patients. He seemed to know everything there was to know about plants and was lecturing me about each plant and tree, the structure of the flowers, the kind of leaf, the root system, we came across as we walked. It seemed he had an endless knowledge about everything that the botanical world could throw at him and was fascinated by his own knowledge. I was astonished. But isn’t this useless knowledge, that was irrelevant to me as well as him. How could it benefit anyone other than someone directly involved in it to earn more money. Didn’t a famous ancient poet (whose name I couldn’t recall), once say that education is like an endless ocean, but to be successful one had to be like the mythical swan, who when given milk mixed with a lot of water would only drink the milk but put away the water. Time being finite shouldn’t we only filter out knowledge that is useful to us. However I never asked him this question, because it seemed an unkind thing to say. But as I was listening to his endless lecture on plants I realized the true value of such knowledge. To pass an exam or maybe even to be successful we should follow the mythical swan. But to be happy we must take a wider interest in things around us, the trees, the stars and a million other things around us…..

Composition

 

Many years ago I tried my hand at painting. I wasn’t a natural draughtsman, and colour was a total mystery to me, but what worried me most was the flat look that all my paintings had. The reason this happened was wrong composition.

Composition is the way different elements are arranged in a picture. Many artists place composition above both drawing and colour, because even if the drawing is impeccable and the colour of the highest quality, if the composition is at fault it will fail to satisfy the eye. But many impulsive beginners are so anxious to get on with the painting that they ignore composition.

There are some rules in composition that should not be forgotten. The painter must lead the eye of the beholder into the picture and not across it. Into the picture does not mean the center of the picture, but towards the center, to some focal point where the eye can rest and be content to remain. Also the painting should be balanced, a dark cloud at the top of the picture must be balanced by some other object in a different part of the picture. However it must not be completely balanced, this creates a kind of "tension" that makes the picture more interesting. In the picture I drew given below these principles are followed. The smoke stacks in particular are not balanced and create a tension. However, the most prominent feature of this drawing is a careless even crude use of line and colour that energizes the drawing I hope.

Book cover designed by me

 

The pen drawing after oil pastel

 

Pen Drawing

 

When doing line drawings (pen and ink drawings), cross hatching must be used. Cross hatching is a widely-used artistic technique used to add shadow and dimension to drawn objects. It involves filling a space with at least two sets of lines, with the second set crossing over the first to create a darker effect. Its a bit complicating and time consuming (and therefore boring to do), so I used a kind of crude technique for the following line drawing.

Joseph Conrad

 

A few years ago I read “Heart of Darkness” (1899), by Joseph Conrad. It is about Charles Marlow’s journey down the Congo River in Central Africa as an Ivory transporter. Overall I really liked this story, although like most stories of its time, it sometimes, suffered from xenophobia. So I wanted to find out who wrote this story and this is what I found out.

Joseph Conrad was a British Novelist of Polish Birth. His experiences as a sailor enabled him to picture the beauty and mystery of the sea and also write convincingly of romantic adventures in strange lands. Man’s struggle against nature was one of Conrad’s favorite themes. “Typhoon” is a short story giving an unforgettable description of a storm at sea. “The Heart of Darkness” is a longer story set in the steamy jungles of the Congo, while “The Secret Sharer” is a short tale of shipboard life in the Far East. “Lord Jim” (1900) which deals with a young Englishman’s years of atonement for one moment of cowardice, proves Conrad’s ability as a psychological novelist.

Conrad used English only after he was 20, and did no literary work in it until he was nearly 40. He was an accomplished stylist, but his work often has a flavor suggesting that he continued to think in polish. His real name was Teodor Josef Konrad Korzeniowski. He was born in the Polish Ukraine. His father was exiled for several years after joining in an unsuccessful revolution. Later the family settled in Cracow. The elder Korzeniowski was a cultured man and gave his son the essentials of a sound education. Joseph was a restless boy, and at the age of 17 enrolled in the French merchant marine.

His first sea voyages were to the West Indies. He later sailed on British ships to most of the Mediterranean and pacific ports and to Africa and South America. He was given a master mariner’s certificate in the British merchant marine in 1886, and in the same year became a British Subject. While recovering from an attack of jungle fever in 1889, Conrad began to write a novel published as “Almayer’s Folly “ (1895). He left the sea in 1894, was married, and settled down in rural Kent, England. Conrad’s first books were praised by critics but did not sell well. In his discouragement, he had just decided to go to sea when he was granted a small government pension. Success came with ”Chance” (1913). Like “Victory” (1915), this is a novel about a man’s struggle against a tragic flaw of character. A Personal Record (1912) is Conrad’s autobiography.

Expressionism - Expressionism, artistic style in which the artist seeks to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse within a person. The artist accomplishes this aim through distortion, exaggeration, primitivism, and fantasy and through the vivid, jarring, violent, or dynamic application of formal elements. In a broader sense Expressionism is one of the main currents of art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and its qualities of highly subjective, personal, spontaneous self-expression are typical of a wide range of modern artists and art movements. The following are two Expressionist oil pastel drawings by me:

 

Oil Pastel Still Life by me (A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or human-made (drinking glasses, books, vases, jewelry, coins, pipes etc). Still life occupied the lowest rung of the hierarchy of genres, but has been extremely popular with buyers. This painting is a still life I did using oil pastel).

 

A Tree More Valuable than Gold

 

Here along the reef lies a sunken treasure

Of a ship that sailed but did not measure

I seek to find it soon

Under eloquent stars and moon

I use starlight to navigate the seas

It will be in moonlight the treasure will be freed

Of foolish men who did not see

That numbers will ruin their destiny

I reach the treasure sailing East

But the stars disappear with my endless needs

I throw the treasure overboard

I need the stars to sail back home

The stars guide me to reach my isle

I walk inland a hundred miles

I reach a jungle of a billion 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 they seal my doom

What is gold but a hideous thing

That kills more men than a ruthless king

But each atom in this wondrous tree

Has magic in it that can cure all ills

Cartoon

 

The dialog is as follows: This is the coolest Planet I've been to so far........Where else have you been to idiot Mars?.....No but I've been to Sri Lanka

A WALK IN THE DARK

 

Once I took the old sea route
For I had missed the bus
Taking the road on that dark night
Was for me just too much

An old man told of this old beach route
That he alone once tread
But now as I walk on this strange beach I wonder
Was the old man dead

As I gaze at the dark night's stars
The constellations now seem strange
To the left of me is the strange dark sea
To the right a Portuguese grave

These men had been dead for centuries
But why did they die here
So far from their homeland
It fills me with a terrible fear

Why did these men come here
This was not their land
To die on a foreign beach
I never understood it man

When I set out this night
I thought I saw the Great Bear
But now strange stars loom so large
That it gives me a scare

The Sea now seems to say something
Or did someone scream
Northern Lights seem so strange
In this Eastern beach

Are these the sands I left behind
Or the famed Sands of Time
Will I reach my home beach
Or the very dawn of Life

Has a night now passed
Or perhaps a Century
Is that a sea turtle out there
Or a Creature of some Primordial beach

I wake up in my home beach
Where fishermen cry fish, fish
But did I really walk out there
Or was I half asleep.

THE MAGIC OF UNREALITY

 

I didn't study art and am not an expert in it, so when I first saw Salvador Dali's paintings I was astounded and wondered what it was all about. Surrealism was an art and literary movement that began in the 1920s. Its leader Andre Breton had earlier worked in a hospital and had even met Sigmund Freud, perhaps it was this meeting that got him interested in the study of the unconscious for he founded the Surrealist movement, which he considered a revolutionary movement. Surrealism seeks to free the unconscious to express itself. The first technique was automatic writing which Breton expressed in 1924 as pure psychic automatism - by which the real processes of thought could be expressed. It is the dictation of thought free from control from reason and any aesthetic or moral considerations. If this seems odd it gets odder still when we view the surrealist paintings. Everyone accepts that something that is illogical has no value, but the objective of this movement is exactly this – to create unnerving, illogical scenes with the objective of freeing the unconscious.

Amazed by what I saw and read about Surrealism I drew the landscape shown below following the strange theories of the Surrealist. I think too much rational thinking can sometimes be bad, because logic can take you only so far. When there is too much rational thinking and too little creativity I think it leads to unhappiness. With logic you can prove many things, with creativity you don't have to. So I decided to draw "automatically". In an attempt to draw realistic or impressive drawings and avoid mistakes the artist sometimes loses the thrill of drawing and painting.........his output drops........in this new Surrealist method I used, mistakes are modified or left as they are to make the drawing more energetic......the artist finds the true purpose of art - to express oneself and be happy...As anyone looking at the drawing can see, it was a horrible drawing, but it really was a liberating and enjoyable experience.

A few years ago I read a book by a famous scientist and in it he says that while fields like physics were truly profound, artists pretend to have done something great by describing their work in a profound way, even going to the extent of using extravagant names, while in reality, it was all nonsense. If that was so I wondered why some artists' work sells for hundreds of millions of dollars while this scientist's books fetch him a relatively small amount. The reason for this is that there are at least some instances when an artist can capture our imagination far more than a famous physicist can and when this happens it's not called nonsense, it's called magic...

In memory of many days that were happy

 

In memory of many days that were happy

And some that were sad

From an Island I was born in

I don’t feel so bad

This ain’t no New Zealand

This ain’t no France

But if I had to choose again

I’ll always choose my land

On her quiet beaches

On her restless sands

Some men call her thoughtful

Some men call her mad

But I’ll only remember her mountains

And her precious sands

Trees that seem to talk to me

Birds that sing I can

I only hear what I want to hear

I only see good things

Time here ticks to her own beat

The birds here always sing

When bad times come remember even your shadow might disappear.......But then the Sun will shine and then......

Shadow Shadow darkest shadow 

Will you too leave me

When the meaningless reeds on the southern river bank move with the wind

Will you still believe me

Shadow Shadow my own shadow

Will they even sway you

If in anger they bend the truth

Will you then lie too

Shadow Shadow my best friend

If the wind blows slow

And wicked men use oars to reach me

Will you join them too

Shadow Shadow darketh shadow

If darkness helps your goals

And the Sun disappears for me

Will you help them kill my Soul

Shadow Shadow my very own Shadow

If you ever lose your Soul

In the darkest hour that comes before dawn

Remember the Sun will still unite us.

RJX

THE ENDLESS BEGINNING

 

During World War II my grandfather had been stationed as an officer in the then British colony of Ceylon. It would have made a great impression on him for he spoke about it for fifteen years when I was growing up. Great stories of holy mountains, rock fortresses, and ancient kingdoms with the most advanced irrigation systems in the world. For many years I thought he was making most of it up, but it intrigued me. So one day I finally decided to visit the Island to find out if he was telling the truth.

The Airport is about 30 Kilometers from the capital Colombo. Colombo borders the sea and its port is one of the busiest in Asia. In the lower central part of the country, there is a mountainous area where tea is grown so abundantly that it looks more like a picturesque painting than an actual mountain. There really is a holy mountain here called Sri Pada which is said to be the holiest mountain in the world. And the Sigiriya Rock fortress built in the 5th century is one of the marvels of the ancient world. And the great Tank Civilization of ancient Sri Lanka is still being used today to irrigate. I was amazed to find out everything my Grandfather said was true, this really is a great Island.

But the most interesting aspect of this island is the people. Although I do not have a degree in psychology I have a strange habit of analyzing the people in every country I go to, so I would do the same here. Sri Lankans in general are very friendly and very intelligent, but for an intelligent people they do not think deeply about some things that trouble at least a small minority in some other counties, like for example: how was the universe created? Are there things smaller than atoms? Are we related to monkeys? This kind of thinking is absent even among highly educated scientists who are qualified to answer these questions. But even here there is an extremely small minority of people who think of such things, but unfortunately, they are so rare that you could spend an entire lifetime without meeting one.

But I did meet such a person on the island and he was the clerk in the hotel. “Aren’t you Carl Saban the famous American astronomer, and the world authority on supernovas?” said he. “Yes,” said I a little surprised that someone here knew me. “I’ve been reading the articles you write, they are interesting and I have used your observations to verify my theories, theories that I think solve all the problems of the universe, including how it was created, and I have written it down in this book, it would only take a few minutes to read, can you tell me whether it is correct,” said he. He took out of his pocket a much-crumbled book that looked like it had been slept on. For a moment I could not decide whether he was just joking or completely mad, but he thrust the book at me so fervently that I reluctantly took it.

I present below just the first two pages of his book, exactly as he wrote it without any modification by me:

Everything is made up of atoms, but atoms themselves are made up of even smaller particles. Even though our senses fool us we and everything around us are energy fields. The movement of these tiny energy particles moves electrons, atoms, aero-planes, stars, galaxies and everything else in the universe. These tiny particles and their ability to move are the only reality in the universe and other things such as Time or Space are not real and are how the mind perceives the movement of these particles.

According to this theory, there is nothing called space, three-dimensional or otherwise, for when these particles move, as they always do it creates this illusion in our senses. There is nothing to fill, for there is nothing else. Similarly, there is no dimension called Time, this is what the mind perceives when these particles move, but it isn't real, for there isn't anything separate called Time. If there is nothing called Time then the universe could not have been created at a particular point in time in the past, this solves the mystery of creation. These particles would have always been and will always be.

So how does this explain Singularity, or what is popularly known as the Big Bang? If matter were to lose its ability to move, it would converge to a point infinitely small, but soon the deep tendency to move would lead it to expand outward, which would eventually form Stars, planets, Galaxies and everything else that is in the Universe. How does this explain Gravitation? It has been found that when a sub-atomic particle was moved another particle that was seven miles away moved in exactly the same way, and it has been estimated that however far these particles are separated they would move exactly in the same way. This is strange for nothing moves faster than the speed of Light. This twin movement could be used to explain Gravitation, for if a particle were to move, its twin particle would move towards it.

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The rest of the book contains calculations to prove this theory, which I can’t fully understand, but which seem profound all the same. Can somebody tell me by reading this book whether this young man in Sri Lanka is, in fact a great scientist or a little wrong in the head?

Travel Story

 

So I will now tell the story of how I got the idea to travel around the island. Once I lived in a place called Peliyagoda, which is a suburb of the capital Colombo. The trouble with Peliyagoda was this – despite being the closest suburb of Colombo, it was not very developed. Many other suburbs like Wattala or Kiribathgoda had much better buildings and facilities. The biggest landmark there seemed to be the police station, which I think says a lot. And before the police station, its most famous landmark was an enormous rubbish dumb that could be seen from miles away, which I think says even more.

However, it was an exciting place for me because the great Kelani River flowed through it, and I wanted to paint it. I am only an amateur artist, but I have a great passion for painting and drawing. But unlike most artists who draw rivers, I wanted to draw it at night. And so, many years ago, I did one of the weirdest things I have ever done; I decided to stay in the garden at night and paint till morning. The night was infinitely dark and strange; it seemed that everyone had gone to bed and switched off all the lights. The road was deserted except for a lone cow which seemed half asleep. A blue-green firefly, very rare for this part of Sri Lanka, flew and disappeared behind a leaf. Flowers that bloom at night are usually white, and most have a fragrance.

In the foreground, I could see the great river flowing. It moved slowly in the night like destiny itself. It was silent, mysterious, and fatal. Above the river shone many strange stars. There was a particularly bright reddish star that didn't twinkle. Could it be Mars, the one they called the red planet? Unfortunately, I could not be certain. Then there was another bright star which, for some reason, I felt was Venus. Unfortunately, my knowledge of astronomy, like so much else, was incomplete. All these thoughts made me so tired that I sat down in the garden and couldn't remember anything after that except the ground felt hard on my head, an annoying cricket made an annoying noise, the smell of grass and marigold flowers and once I imagined that the cow was in the garden. The hoot of an alarm made me jump, and for a moment, I was horrified to find that I was not in bed but outside at night. I went to the gate to see what made that noise but could not locate it. Then I looked up, God how things had changed. Now it was around two in the morning, and the stars were brighter than ever. I couldn't see the Great Bear, the only constellation I knew apart from Orion, but I could see a group of prominent stars that curled down and formed what looked exactly like a tail. I wondered whether this was the Scorpio Constellation, and I still do. I looked down again, and the river was still flowing endlessly, and at that moment, I felt a great energy come over me, and I decided to explore my country even if it was the last thing I did.

Marooned in a Lonely Island

 

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 Dum 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

Far far from the shore

Wrote this poem, here the word Dawn could mean a person's name or could mean new light or a new beginning, greed could mean the ships name or greediness for material wealth

Far far from the shore

In a place I don’t want to go

Lies a sunken ship

The ship they called greed

We once sailed to an Isle

Far beyond the Nile

On a ship that made

Thoughts that were vile

In this Isle

We stopped for a while

They sailed on

For I had seen Dawn

In greed they went

They were my friends

Their mighty needs

They could never reach

Their stars faded

The seas abated

They lost their way

For their souls I pray

I found me

In the Island of peace

This is all I need

They call it Serendip