That other country I’ve left

I left a young man in Peradeniya years ago.

Can’t remember date

can’t remember place.

Perhaps it was not Peradeniya

but Dumbara
mist-laden memory land
first-hurt-place of sorts
first-death too
valley of robbery
and loss
untraceable now. 

I left behind a young man

in the Sarachchandra ‘Wala’
playing to an empty theatre,
left him
in a circle of death
seventeen severed heads
around the Alwis Pond
1988 or was it 89?
 
I left him in the gymnasium
balanced on a badminton net
bested by weights
lost in a dribble,
left him
on the rugger field
after a single-match season,
collapsed on the cinder track
5000 meters after the starter’s gun,
among conversations
without beginning or end
and voices crushed
by ear-drum bursting
ball-point pens.

I left him

in a mountain of love letters
in heartache’s undeliverable pulp,
kisses blown away
by death and distancing
the heart-smouldering nights
trapped
in the giraya
of have-to-do and no-escape.

I left him on the Akbar Bridge
and the lines of a song
lost among the reeds
and broken cadences
in the going waters
of an upstream time.
 
I left a young man in Peradeniya
a century ago;
and I am told
his is a laughing ghost
smiling at dawn
chuckling all day long,
and I am told
also
that on certain nights
he recites the story of his time
in Iambic Pentameter
in a voice so clear
that it goes unheard
at Marcus and Ramanathan
stopping now and then
to sigh the sigh
that ought to melt mountain,
but does not.

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Another option

My poetry  you can turn around,
and fling back;
embroidery-reverse
is no less perfect
and is as pure
and you can claim
that I was 'reverse'
and you the original and righteous 
weaver of tale and tear.  
time saw this, as they say,
and that is all that can be said
or needs saying.

[From the collection 'Some texts are made of leaves', shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2011]

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Shoe flower mornings

Life is a seed and a flower,
petalled and coloured,
tiny and amazing
ebullient and pitiful
made for bloom and withering
but shoe-flower is all this
and none of this
and earth-bed for dew drop
refrigerator for butterfly and bee
subject for photographer
inspiration for poet
offering for the altar
eye-widener for child;
it’s a pollen-life tale
it is love-peel if you will
made of chapter and verse
of all grand narratives
that count;
the morning glory we no longer see
for having lived and seen so much
the so much that blinds,
but this is redness un-ignorable
it is tap root of tenderness
the call to prayer
and weeping,
uncontrollable laughter
is scripted here
and so too
the half-smile
of a girl sworn to silence
in the cross-fire
of insecurities;
show-flower tortures
in many way
and in many ways
heals;
it is yours
to read as you will. 

[inspired by the poetry of Rukshan Abeywansha and published in 'The Nation']

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Dolls

They don’t knock on doors not all of them
familiarity is password enough
family is licence
after all
and they come
and they come
and they take and take and take,
and little dolls
don’t know how to cry
not always -
they stay crumpled in a corner
they just die
they just die
they just die.

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Song of the endless chess game

Heart played mind
sometimes with the white pieces of clarity
and sometimes with the black
of unreadable heart twinge,
and mind, playing heart,
likewise played black now
moves wrought in the fires of known-rule
clothe in the dark ash of logic,
or white
in the simple clarity
of as-is safety.
They played and played
and neither won
and neither lost
and never did they agree to draw.

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Dayadi

She measures height
how far she’s come
this magic-bean baby
playing with theories of relativity
not saying but wondering
'When will I catch up?'
in the ways of sisters,
measuring the timber of rivalry
against me;
but she’s come far
from cradle to crawl
stumble to sprint
from lift-me-up
to ‘I will reach your shoulder soon’;
come night, though
she turns into baby
takes womb-shape
and I can't stop kissing
this made-for-love girl. 

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Word-people

Men and women come with bone, vein and sinew
and other corporeal parts:
that’s biology.

Men and women
are often hurt-made
and love-seeded,
colour and flavoured
ideologied too. 

But men and women
are but words
or letter combinations
burning unpredictabilities
and punctuated out of season.

And those rare creatures
slip through wire
fly through screen;
doors don’t stop them
and they are invisible
to the sentinels of reason and rule.

They dissolve the universe
and re-draw sunsets
in the colours of their choice.

Some call them children

and they wouldn’t be too wrong.

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