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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Tripped in and out of my mind

The lights are out --

the trip-switch has tripped

taken out the walls

the furniture and known corners

neatly placed stool and shoe

just where the wide-eyed blindness

prompts foot-fall ;

the candle-lit re-decoration

repaints household

and a strange after-smell

lifts me from floor and stupor,

but Tutu knows --

the square-inches of his kingdom

are not yielded in light or shade

or the pitch-black of human oversight –

and so I scramble through scrambled memory

into moonlight familiarities,

yearn for a family gone a-visiting

scatter thoughts like seed

on garden, leaf and treetop

discharge insecurities into rain-pools

remember a girl and a doll,

a book of verse and a short story

fingertips and the principle of gravity,

pat Tutu on his head

and retire.  

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SIMple days

The heart that was mine

finds new body

with artery, blood and oxygen

fresh, exciting and more

much more

twin,

same SIM

different cage

and so lovers move

from one to one

perfection to imperfection

to perfection again

as we do

in the order of kleshas

one cage to the next

lifetime to lifetime

or moment to moment

and what we left behind

and what we move into

those real twins of our humanity

we just don’t have eyes to see

or lips to kiss

this egalitarian proportioning

of incarceration.

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Reflections on unities

“Unity = Kneeling down 'together' in front of freaks, trying to intimidate others who have different views 'together', and waiting 'together' silently until perverts shit on their heads ! :))”

--  Lasitha Yasanga

You are not the you of yesterday

and will not be you tomorrow

cells die and are born;

water comes, water goes,

breath too,

and the thought-train

and thought-drain

make, shape and change

the ‘Opinion I’;

they come from unknown body

and to unknown body move,

some made of light blue

and some of mud-night hue:

and so we stand together now

rub shoulders with ourselves

selves that were and selves to be

in uncomfortable, disconcerting

togethernesses

in the name of objective

in the thrill of objection

in the holy matrimonies of struggle.

You could do less and so could I

but we don’t;

sometimes we make the desert bloom

sometime we make it bleed

in our ignorances

and in the purity of intention.

It’s good to fight

the good fight

against all odds

against all reason

and it is good to know the odds

and be reason-powered too,

for tear and shout are photo-ops

and mind is uncapturable.  

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Ode to a saucer

There’s a saucer

but no apple

nothing to spin

nothing to ask for,

just saucer

with wash-remnant drops

bordered florality

nothing to write home about

nothing for a fairy tale

no children’s story

no adult theme

just saucer and I

this slow Wednesday

of a cluttered desk

and diurnal insanity;

modest ceramic

cup-less and content,

twin

of a kind.

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