My watch

Silver arrows

millions of them --

the astral arms

of the archer must be sore;

but right here

where they fall

stars and merged constellations

are birthed and slayed

on pavement and puddle

and there’s a one-tone shhhh…..

that silences all

this damp morning

of nowhere-to-go. 

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The bus that caught India

There was a bus going to Trichy
to an airport and a plane

speeding from hatred and insanity

there was a bus

that caught a stone

and held a scream;

there was a bus that left for Trichy

but skidded off the road

to end in a city,

that Delhi of centrality

of apathy and political calculus

Delhi of a Shining India

that displaced chauvinism off-shore

but found that ideas don’t leave

like people do, like guns do, like money does;

there was a bus that caught a stone

it is the bus that Delhi didn’t want to take

but that India found herself trapped in --

and here

in Sri Lanka

we look across the water

we see and shake our heads:

‘Sorry, wrong number,

sorry, wrong bus!’ 

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Night-love

One arm under her neck and back over her

the other under her arm

so cheek can rest on palm,

(she’s palmable)

soft kisses on the other cheek

and the nocturnal chanting

of all known sweet-nothings

that are everything and more;

she turns by habit,

lays head on chest

and claims in her unconscious

the conscious right: ‘you are mine’,

and turns back for preferred comforts

in the happy concession: ‘I am yours’.  

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Mulleriyawa is a Memory-Ground

Blood was shed in 1562

blood, like any other blood,

in any other year,

here or there or anywhere

but Mulleriyawa,

deliberately 'asylumed'

on account of shame

was bloodied

in the name

of way of life

and by way of life

in the art of war

of have-to-do

and why and when and how

as it is

when invader is tested

and bested

as it will be

450 years hence

in that other 'Angampora'

of the relevant age:

Mulleriyawa is battleground

and memory

of an insanity

that was cured.

[Inspired by the photography of Sanka Gallage who captured a special display of the ancient Sinhala art of war, 'Angampora' by Mahantha Arachchige Ajantha Perera and his students commemorating the 450th anniversary of the historic victory of the Sinhalese over the Portuguese in Mulleriy]

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