So I put some poetry up on Poetry Soup - here's a link to my page in case you want to take a little journey - and it is free.
http://www.poetrysoup.com/poems_poets/poems_by_poet.aspx?ID=41163
And here's the beginning of a short story I published in 2013. I'd done a project with the UK National Archives and it prompted me to write the story with a Jamaican theme.
THE GALLERY OF LIFE
Ella found herself in a room full of black and white pictures taken around the 1950’s. She guessed the images were from across the West Indies. It was confusing, uncertain as she was about how she had come to be in the gallery. However, the photos captivated her interest, drawing her to speculate on whether she recognised anything.
There were scenes of people working in cane fields, women carrying loads on their heads, children bathing in a cove, fishermen: one of alligators thrashing their tails in a river, sweeping up a spray of water. As she moved along the elongated room, the images gradually phased into colour and became more vivid, alive; whispering tantalising secrets locked in the portrayal of tones, hidden in full view.
She halted before one exhibiting a Jonkonnu in explosive colourful progress. A man on stilts wore the head of an alligator and sporting a red bow tie while smoking a large cigar. Panning across from him was a lady dressed in a powder blue suit and framed sunglasses. The image held Ella’s eye. She shifted uneasily to the next picture which depicted near enough the same scene. On closer inspection, the woman was in fact holding a little girl’s hand. As she studied the scene, she recognised the woman to be none other than her own mother and the child, herself. This realisation was a shock. She gasped: froze.
(Excerpt from: The Gallery of Life © 2013 – Flight of Fantasy Collection
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