Independence Unlimited

Pic by Hiranya Malwatta

Freedom is a name
of many syllables 
places and people,
a leap of faith that defies
constitutional edict 
executive directive
judicial verdict,
it takes restrictive arm
as dancer takes partner
takes rule and bends with smile
takes book and scrambles
chapter and verse
reconfigures flag-color
re-mixes anthem
without proclamation 
without anger or regret;
freedom is another name
left out
of the Dictionary of Being
to stop definer
to stump purchaser
to trip destroyer.

LEAVE A COMMENT

A prisoner’s love song

There are walled cities
I am told,
marshalled by regimen
where minds open
and doors close
at appointed hour;
where life ebbs
as in other cities
as splendid and poor
as structured and free,
moment to moment
task to task,
where custom rules
and custom-break
subverts unyielding earth
for root to seek
and leaf to upturn 
decree’s hard unsanctioned soil,
but here
the apparitions of the forgotten
recovered corporeal form
flattened barbed wire,
rose above wall
to ask
‘who among you is free
and who among us is not?’

LEAVE A COMMENT 

This other ocean

Not king-made
but king-envisioned,
speaks of eyes 
that drew from contour
drew for lay-of-land
and lay-of-life
that saw land that would grain
people who would sow 
and reap
from century to century
and today we stand
on history’s shores
and are stilled by the blues
and so standing draw
from the tap root 
of heritage
resolution and magnitude
humility and pride
as we cross the hour-to-hour
in the vessels of choice
and fashion a next moment
as wholesome, as tender.

LEAVE A COMMENT

Interface

Open eyes
and then enters
rock, pebble, sand granule
blue, red and yellow
in their specific intimacies
lines that curve
with and without light
shades that toss and turn
in anxiety and agitation
mystery and bewilderment
surprise and sorrow
but framed
always and always
by eye-limit
and poverties of imagination;
and in the long corridors
and vast halls of extraction
there’s a world that bends
to lens and mouse-click
warps known dimension
finger-flips the heart,
still even,
and there
in interface and union
we are cursed or blessed
by and eye and world
now and forever.

LEAVE A COMMENT

Ode to a finger-nation

Ours is a finger-nation
at times clenched
at times open
to hold
to give
to take
ours is a finger-nation
that can index anger
that can accuse,
but a five-finger land
is hand
because thumb
must break bread
with other digits
or starve
because hand is not hand
that is all indexed;
we were always fingered
in our horror
in our recoil
in our accusation
in our grief and remorse,
fingered
in recovery too.

 

LEAVE A COMMENT

Ode to courtesy

Love is an arc
a toe-nail trace
softer than yesterday’s admonishment
harder than tomorrow
for hearts tarry
at ironwood resolve
and woundable blade
not out of fear
but courtesy.

LEAVE A COMMENT

Anura’s World

[For Anura Srinath*]

Which world is this
of line and paint
curve and smile
abandonment and play;
these children
who are they
that run over page and heart
tickling memory
pointing finger
turning page
from yesterday
to today and tomorrow;
do the creatures and portraits
come alive at night
dance in fairy rings
and are they wrapped
kept safe
within an unnamed flower
and a tender petal embrace;
is what's being saved
our yesterdays
or the delightful tomorrows
of children yet to come
and adults whose hearts
refused to grow?

*Inspired by the work of Anura Srinatha [see http://www.nation.lk/edition/photoscape/item/14226-anuralokaya-2.html]

LEAVE A COMMENT