Twinning

And of certain leaves

it can be said

that one side shines

and the other coarse

one pleases eye,

the other too dull to note

one to touch, the other to forget

one for the mirroring of smile

and the other for spider-web ,

and time and wind

whisper and love,

dust-coat and benevolence

decree:

these un-identical twins

were born conjoined

at the hip of truth

and thus too will they perish.

*inspired by the photography of Hiranya Malwatta

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Sunlit leaves

This was un-sunlit once

and will be too

but now,

this now where chance intersected

with design,

is outlined

with light or fingertip

I do not know:

a singular eye-lining,

nevertheless.

*Inspired by the photography of Hiranya Malwatta

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Leaf-edge thoughts

So in birth and decay

and even death

there are lines that life erase

and lines that journey returns

the heart line and the head,

life line and the fortune-scripting,

Chlorophyll days are awaited, lived, lost

and longed for

in the browning of exuberance

and the greening of theft

and text gets merged with subtext

somethings get buried

and some surface

we read and read

and learn and un-learn

in the archival sunlight and funereal night

of our momentary passing. 

[inspired by the photography of Hiranya Malwatta]

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'Dismality'

Wet clay remnant on doormat and heart,

discomfiture and misfit 

in the in and out of traffic

frayed conversations 

drip word and silence 

and a pitter-pattering 

slipping into silence 

leaves no mark.  

And I remember

blue mountain on green

road-curve turning

face into countenance

voice into song

word into poetry

resurrecting life from memory

and agitating pulse 

from regular to irregular,

lifting heart 

and laying it down

in a cuckoo's nest

from which it refuses to escape. 

[from the collection 'Stray kites on string-less days']

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Word-less

My lines get shorter

and I run out of word 

as heart expands, 

explodes

and collapses:

dust to dust

and no word in between. 

[From the collection 'Stray kites on string-less days']

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Galle is literally a festival

We don’t know who imprinted

with foot and fairytale

labour and vocation

belief and self-belief

despair and decorum,

nothing either of mask and masked 

the unmasking and shredding 

and the saladizing of anxiety,

little of what was done 

by whom and in whose name,

but there were and will always be vessel,

bait and biting

a catch and a sale

and literary fragments 

to sweaten a deal

in the cultural hoax

of this annual trip

along a super highway 

of words, blurbs and blabber

bypassing landmarks of being

that have and will survive

voyeur and voyeurism 

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January thoughts

From a memory-ornament and a bird-call
flame, flame-thrower and spectacle,
photo-frame and vacancies
there were voids that were coloured by void
lives filled will lives in the come-go of nothingness;
I watched it rain, meanwhile,
watched the watching for rain
in the swirl of Dry Zone dust and rural handicap
the immemorial twist of prayer and prey
the whirl of the dervish in temples of gold
the glance of a mendicant
unswept off pavement on wet, clammy mornings
and now, brushed with name, voice and lip
name is unpinned from meaning
unfettered tags spin and float
but you remain
unmoved by unclaritying winds
that whip city and citizen
you are you
of yesterday and tomorrow
and so preciously, of today.

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