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Andrew Fa'avale
New Zealand

Andrew Fa'avale is a NZ-born Samoan who now lives in Brisbane, Australia. Until recently, he worked with Maori and Pasifika young offenders in Logan and Inala. He now heads MANA Community Mentoring Inc. (www.mana.org.au), a youth/community organisation that he founded with his wife Nicola and some friends. Andrew and Nicola have two amazing children.
Tuituiohu Tapueluelu
1996-2013; 17 years young

I watched an apple grow once
Sad isn’t it?

It made me wonder
Why it is...

That the growth of this fruit...
Is morbidly linked to its attraction to the teeth of gravity

Which means:

At the peak of its splendour
Dressed in a crisp, shiny suit
This unseen downward spiral force
will break the apple’s neck

The branch's burden
too heavy to bear

And it will fall..
Roll…
And then it will stop

Forever.

There, the December sun
Will sap its bruised blood
The worms will peck at its flesh

And all that will remain
(for some time at least)
Is a stalk -

The umbilical discord
That reminds me
There was once a beautiful apple

That hung here.






Mentor Health

A tribute to Travis

Travis:

you,
of no fixed abode
but a 16 year old shell
in which rejection roams

ravaged
through a prickled placenta
that bridged her demons
for her services rendered

tainted,
by the seeds of survival
smoked or injected
cloaked in weeds of denial

sprawled
like a ball on the floor
of a disabled toilet
this is his lore


how can I ask you to hear
a child alone,
mothered by fear

how can I ask you to believe
you have more urgent risks,
you must dare to breathe

how can I ask you to lead
as you follow your nose,
to steal what you need

how can I ask you to dream
from those concrete slabs,
upon which you sleep

how?






Mere & Child - Penny Howard
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