Ode to walking

Streets and buses know my name,

faces recognise my face

which recognises faces in return,

for I've always, always walked.

I walk with small change

through and around puddles,

drenched in sunlight and things to do,

carrying the night in my pocket

and the political on my shoulders.

I travel light

tossing the net of my eyes,

drawing in sudden joys,

known sorrows and children,

the commerce in boutiques

the smile of a waiter,

the argument between a vendor and a woman.

I've walked alone,

moving between the I-am-dispassionate

and the I-can't-bear-the-pain.

I've walked home

carrying my diurnal collection

of people and things.

I walk still,

the same streets whose name I know

like the smile of an old friend.

My small change goes

from hand to hand

and disappear into unknown pockets,

the night of the political

the day of absorption

these have not changed.

And so I undress the disguised,

hear sounds

outside of the marked frequencies,

songs I've heard of but not listened to,

melodies familiar and yet unrecognised.

I walk. Sometimes.

[From the collection 'Threads', shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2007]

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Myself

(for all our children)

I am colour-driven and song-driven,

did you know?

I am the world you abandoned,

the dream you erased,

made of toys, sand castles

and insects,

swings, matslides and see-saws.

I am magician too;

I turn you into encyclopedia and prophet.

I am the one who fell,

who bruised a knee and stubbed a toe

tripped over a careless word,

an adult trap,

bled and cried.

I forget easily and forgive too

for I like clinging on to a little finger,

I have things to show

I have things to tell.

I am colour-driven

and song-driven,

did you know?

I do dishes and carry guns

heavy loads too,

twice my size,

look after babies

colour-driven and song-driven

just like me.

I am the you you’ve forgotten,

the you you’ve left behind,

colour-driven

and song-driven,

didn't you know?

[from the collection 'Threads', shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2007]

Ode to sterility*

Once again I find myself at the theatre,

once again the theatricals,

and in this dramatic world

of scripts and players,

dialogues and soliloquies,

tragedies, comedies and

all that fall in between,

I know I should not complain.

I know of the back and forth,

the false starts, the prompting

I can pick the sterling performances

from the pedestrian,

I know the passengers, the props,

the backstage team,

for I have played this game when I've had to,

sat and watched when I chose or could

turned and left at times.

but this,

this drama in several acts,

these players prompted to read

from a well-crafted script,

this well-rehearsed unfolding

of plot, intent and climax,

the make-up and the practiced expressions -

does not provoke disgust,

as would a poor performance.

Instead a fire is kindled in my heart,

and taking that Promethean instrument,

I steal away,

visit endless nights of discontent

lanced with the light of a firefly,

sad histories interrupted by the heroics

of simple men and women,

a railway station, a bar,

an empty courtroom,

I burn cobwebs and rehabilitate rebellion

in the faint light of this tender candle

I peer into faces aged with reason and resolve,

I mine from the unchanging gaze

the sparks of romance,

gather continents of desire

resurrect utopia,

and bathed in this moonlight of solidarity,

I reconsider the forgotten maps of freedom,

their pathways, the road blocks

and escape routes.

I visit a temple,

breathe the fragrance of Araliya,

Sal and sweet Jasmine,

untouched yet by the acrid smell

of gunpowder,

for the bombs are yet to erupt on the altar.

I take a young girl's dream and

dance along a stream,

through a paddy field

into the bluest sky

and along the curve of a rainbow.

And again and again,

as I wander,

that flame takes me home,

to a girl and a story book.

And so, inquisitor,

let me to my reading.

* Written during an ‘inquiry’ into certain allegations made by the Divaina editorial staff at Upali Newspapers Ltd., sometime in late 2003.

[from the collection 'Threads,' shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2007]

The hare and the tortoise: another version

One night the hare confessed,

"I have no ego, I let the tortoise win

just to see him smile."

And another night, the tortoise said,

"I am kind, I let her have her way

just to see her smile."

And the moon whispered:

"There is such charm

in the games that lovers play".

[From the collection 'Threads', shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2007]

A note from the Mediterranean

These waters are not our seas, nor these shores our sands

They hardly break, these waves and as for colour,

This blue-green blends a different composition,

Temperatures, these Turkish winter days, are hardly tropical

As of course one would expect.

There are other differences:

The mountains don't really roll down to the sea,

They drop

These elemental faces carved by the ancient,

'halt!' they tell the sea, 'rest awhile if you will,' they tell the sky.

No gold in these breaches, it's not fine the sand.

No shells, no crustacean crafting,

Such were reserved for other lands, other people perhaps.

Treasures now, such there are

And they speak to me,

Of legend and tragedy,

Dream and awakening,

Exploits and misadventure

And love,

Requited and lost;

Treasures made of stone,

Caressed by wind and water

Polished by time

And they come

In the colours of Mediterranean fruit,

A fermentation of heart-things,

wines spilling over,

blood drenched and sun worn.

They lie now

Baked in the brine of nostalgia

The vats in forgotten cellars

And secret caves

And I report,

I am unsettled by these histories

I am ignorant of

The men and women whose sweat I have not seen,

The territorial wrenching that gave birth to nations

The grasp and yield that re-drew maps;

Yes, unsettled as I watch these unfamiliar seas

And as I wait for a word, a glance,

A knowing about the unknowns

Associated with love,

With remembrance

And futures that will not, cannot be inhabited.

[from the collection 'Threads', shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2007]

RAIN AND LIES (after Fikrit Kizilok)

Mid-morning heat in late September,

desk top artifacts stare,

the in-tray and out-tray of my mind

play hide and seek,

ink flies from paper, from memory and forgetting,

staplers go mad

trying to pin together the untenable.

It is mid-morning here

and wherever you are,

it must be late evening for you,

pastel-coloured and soft,

and I,

I am whipped by the lies of time

of location and remembrance.

I am told there's bright sunshine

rising in a stupor from the road outside

but it is raining here

and drenched in a time-squeeze

I am visited by teardrop and sigh;

so tell me

dream-ribbon that scented time,

tell me,

is it all a lie

when you come to me

again and again

through nighttime and daybreak

and dew-laden fields?

DOORS

Doors are special to me.

Their colours, shapes, sizes

the worlds they hide

and the worlds they keep out

these things fascinate me.

Doors are special to me

because they burst with metaphor,

they tempt trajectories

they draw lines

and say yes or no and perhaps maybe.

Doors are special to me

because I leave mine open;

they can be removed altogether

but I leave them open

for this is the difference

between indifference and invitation.

doors are special to me

because I cannot will them to open

and I cannot lure people in through mine.

doors are special to me

because histories and hopes are special

and they have to walk through them.

or choose not to.

doors are special to me

because they are splendid places

to wait and wait and wait.