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]

LEAVE A COMMENT 

Ode to a snake-charmer

And in the end

once the long day's work is done
and applause has disappeared
into other conversations
and night-plans,
once snake has charmed
and monkey entertained,
does charmer steal away
into dream-box and wonder,
'who was the player,
and who the played;
who was monkey and cobra,
where are my scales,
where is my tail,
did I bring them home,
or were they used
to gift-wrap audience
and celebration?'

[Inspired by the photography of Piyumika Pathirana and taken from the collection 'Some texts are made of leaves,' shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2011]

LEAVE A COMMENT 

Ode to language

There was language before
there will be language later
but the now-language
is not language we've ever known.
This language recognises words,
moves them, empowers,
perfumes and endows with lustre
and yet is differently constituted.
This language of the now
is the private universe
where rainbows un-curve
to give colour to cheek
where flowers spray
gene-defying fragrance,
It is uncommunicable.
It is all we have and need.

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

LEAVE A COMMENT 

Strange nations

There is a country

without guarded borders,
a land that does not issue visas,
eminently accessible, one would say.
This nation
unmarked on maps
beyond the imagination
of cartographer and politician
is bathed in tropical sunlight,
watered by beauty,
chiselled with extra care,
a work of art, one would say.
It is un-peopled though
or less-peopled, shall we say?
For its entry points, so evident,
are seen only by the blind,
detected only by the mindless;
it is a place of insanity
an impossible territory
reserved, I like to think,
for those whose love
spill over the reservoir called possible.
Reserved, I like to think,
among others,
for you and I.

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

LEAVE A COMMENT

Mumia Abu Jamal*

Yo Mumia,
give us news:
type it all out
on your dread-lock type-writer heart
pin it on the memory of a radio show
fold it in a jailor’s guilt
sail it on the waves of complicity
tell me how long 30 years is like
my brother Political Prisoner,
unravel the meaning
of justice, decency and civilization
those easy alibis for invasion and massacre
the age old guns-in-booty-out of empire;
whistle your story if your fingers are tired of twiddling
in unison with the waiting-for-you
of friend and detractor;
write to us again
the love story of your democracy
your citizenship
and your freedom
that is envied so much
by so many.

 *Mumia Abu Jamal, wrongfully convicted of murder, completed 30 years in prison on December 9, 2011.  His sentence was commuted to ‘life’ from execution by lethal injection on December 8, 2011.

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

LEAVE A COMMENT

‘How did you come back from where the heart took you?’

If you are asking me,
I'd say this:

There were no name-boards

or landmarks
no road-sign, no map
for hearts
though contoured
slip through fingers
evade cartographer.
There's a price to pay
for heart:
salute love
and concede reason,
give up choice;
there's no agency.
Did not ask,
did not plan,
do not complain now;
there might have been mirror
but I didn't see;
there are people
and they never asked my name -
so i said 'conclude, as you will'.
There are no auspicious times,

not for heart,

not to my knowledge,
nor my ignorance,
as of now.

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

LEAVE A COMMENT 

Some texts are made of leaves*

They are flipped with the fingers of the eye

unwet and wet

read with care by those conversant

with the language

of colour, texture and passing

and passed over too

for there are preferred texts

and ones tossed aside

for later and never;

but leaves

come from dust and to dust they go

without complaint

through gaze and ignoring;

they conspire with sun, shade and wind

wear the garments of the day’s seasonality

without shout, let us repeat

but whisper

the eternal verities: ‘birth, decay, death’

all laid out in leaf-texts

that need no words,

not even these.

[*This is the title poem of the collection that was shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2011.  I have posted this earlier, but starting today I will post the entire collection of 56 poems, one per day]

LEAVE A COMMENT 

Conversations with Eduardo*

Yes, Eduardo, I understand,
the woman between my eyelids has robbed me of sleep.
This woman, Eduardo,
let me tell you,
is clothed in the finest garments,
she puts to shame the moon,
her glances, Eduardo,
are more serene than moonlight,
her tears clearer than dew.

Eduardo, you must understand,

I don't want to sleep again.
I want to undress this woman
who undresses me with so much ease

I confess:

there are times she reveals
and times when the mad logic of love
unclothes.

At times like that, Eduardo,

I have seen her naked,
been dazzled by that corporeal light
seen that beauty-drenched body glow,
been robbed of words.

Then there have also been times,

not very many though,
when I've undressed that divine nakedness
moved beneath the garment called skin.
breathed the air of her lungs
and seen that very human piece of flesh
that is her heart,
palpitating like yours and mine,

She's fragile, Eduardo,

like tomorrow.
and flawed like the revolution,
scarred like the map of my country
and yours too, Eduardo.

I walk endlessly in the delirium of my insomnia,

I can't forget, for my eyes are a barred gate
that refuses amnesia.
She's stuck in my throat, Eduardo,
and it is not that I want to ask her to leave,
need I even say?

*"I can't sleep. There is a woman stuck between my eyelids. I would tell her to get out if I could. But there is a woman stuck in my throat." (From "The Book of Embraces," by Eduardo Galeano)

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

LEAVE A COMMENT

Ode to Waiting

I want to know its colours,
the play of shade,
the ambience of waiting
and keeping someone waiting,
i want to knows if it has form,
whether line and space
define or obscure,
i want to know its garments,
and if they are stitched
with moon-thread,
embroidered with ripple and
washed with wind,
i want to know
if these hours of sleeplessness
give birth to sigh or smile or both
and if other unknown things
are yielded,
i want to know,
girl at the other end of a tenuous
and invisible line,
whether these words
scented with mystery and knowing
arrive as garland
or as intoxicant
or as poison,
and if
when you breathe them,
you fly or collapse.

[From the collection 'The Underside of Silence', shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2008]

LEAVE A COMMENT

Incapacitation

For you I have no words

no perfect metaphors

that pin down intangibles

into pattern and identity.

For you are not defined

not named

not captured in line and space,

word and silence;

no, you move like a shadow

and a mountain.

without intrusion

without notice.

i don't know where you go,

or in what dimensions of heart and mind

that you receive me.

i know, though,

that you exist

and this alone

gives me the right to breathe

the right to wait.

from lifetime to lifetime,

century to century,

until you come,

like a morning that dances with twilight,

an intersection impossible

except in a country called Love.

[from the collection 'The Underside of Silence', shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2008]

LEAVE A COMMENT

Ode to Telephones

A skewed and skewing instrument this,

poor, underdeveloped and weak

as most things technical tend to be,

made for uni-dimensionality,

just voice.

but communication

is about context,

the pieces of sky falling around us,

wind in the hair that is sentence and thought,

leaves made of earth, made of ambience

                                           and a teeming metropole,

gaze,

the texts sans word and metaphor,

gesture,

the play of fingertips, lips and such

and silence of the proximity

has eloquence beyond compare

than silence of distance.

telephones are useful things

for the 'now' if not 'here'

among human beings

separated by mountain and sea,

not for us,

no.

[from the collection 'The Underside of Silence', shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2008]

LEAVE A COMMENT

Last night

We talked of wind, of flower and song,

of gardens and fruits,

territories walked

regions trespassed,

uneven earth, broken continents

places unvisited by cartographer and cartography.

Conversation moved like wind and water,

redefining contour

as landscapes we crafted

with the flawed tools of the heart.

We chiselled away with questions and fear

time and life,

experience and longing.

And in the oceans within,

wave-lengths collapsed

and our lungs

full of words and silence

breathed out a miniature universe

made of you and I,

warm with the immemorial dreams

of conscious insomniacs. 

[from the collection 'The Underside of Silence', shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2008]

LEAVE A COMMENT

For the faraway one

Distant girl,

tell me,

as you move

in preferred orbits

do you encounter constellations

as yet unmarked on celestial maps,

are u bathed in stardust

and moonlight,

does it glance off your heart

in unbelievable angles?

are you accompanied by angels

or other-worldly butterflies

with luminous wings?

in that vast silence

does memory abandon you,

do you not hear melodies

forbidden in galactic commerce,

is movement slow

or dizzyingly fast?

tell me,

intangible being

that shines and blinks and disappears

and returns again and again,

are there flowers up there where you belong,

and tell me also

what brand names mark the perfumes

you will not share with me?

[from the collection 'The Underside of Silence', shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2008]

LEAVE A COMMENT

I was once mountain

I was a mountain once,

and not too long ago,

but now I am sand.

Time and people

like wind and water took away.

I had lost myself in bits and pieces at a time,

and at times entire chunks,

but I remained a mountain,

identifiable,

a mass shaken and yet unvanquished,

until a massive explosion deep within

shattered,

disrupted the known ways of movement and dissolving,

set fire to familiar transcripts,

washed away convenient equations.

Yes, that was after you took root

when your roots cut through clay

when your fires melted all shape-giving, identity-preserving adhesives, 

and your waters dissolved thought and memory.

Yes, I was a mountain once,

and not too long ago,

but I am sand now.

And as dust, I now move

with wind and water.

I settle on cityscapes and move with rivers,

I line pathways that are ignored or unthinkingly trampled.

I was mountain once,

and then was seen;

I am dust now,

and go unnoticed.

But from rooftop and leaf,

from riverbed and noonday clamour,

through breeze, with rain,

I walk this world.

Yes, as particle.

I was a mountain once,

and not too long ago either,

but now I am sand.

And somehow I do not feel diminished.

[From the collection 'The Underside of Silence', shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2008]

LEAVE A COMMENT

Of words

There will be more words then,

between you and i,

more from me perhaps,

just little pieces of sky

ribbons drawn from memories,

colours from impossible sunsets

and ordinary things

     like bookcases

     wrapping paper

     a stranger's smile

     a computer screen

     the bark of a dog

     traffic lights

and other things we pass by

as we move from moment to moment

as we switch dream for reality

and reality for dream,

and in those words

and pauses too

you may find something

something that makes you forget to breathe

something that stops clocks

and buries eternity forever.

or you may find nothing at all.

either way, i will come.

[from the collection 'The Underside of Silence', shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2008]

LEAVE A COMMENT

Peradeniya

These pinks from long ago
so fresh, so ancient,
brings back a day,
a month, a year
February 22, 1987.
Today, a bouquet for love's innocence
but for me,
a funeral wreath.

Twenty one years
is nothing for the sun
for me, a century;
a time that the colours of Peradeniya
will not let me forget.

[from the collection 'The Underside of Silence,' shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2008] 

LEAVE A COMMENT

Ode to discoveries

Isn't it also true

that it is when one stops looking,

beyond border and horizon,

at footprint and temple,

when we stop listening

for the sound of dawn

the call to prayer

the thunder of the train

the whisper of the rain

that we find

that which is rare

that which is blind to request

deaf to wish?

[from the collection 'The Underside of Silence,' shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2008] 

LEAVE A COMMENT

For the reluctant child

These are your hours, child,

dew-driven, tear-born,

these hours are clothed

in garments of waiting

old clothes imprinted with immemorial pattern

dust-dusted, star-clad,

bleeding boring histories

of request and decline.

These are your hours, precious,

heart-made, word-driven,

made of simple thing

like endearment and never-to-be

i-love-you, i-like-you.

These are empty hours now,

they are yours, nevertheless.

[from the collection 'The Underside of Silence', shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2009] 

LEAVE A COMMENT

The country and I

In the search for the perfect word,

the discovery of flawed approximation

and the awkward articulation;

in the hesitant blending of verbalization and silence;

the interminable shuttle between the said and the heard

                             the wanted and provided

                             the dreamt and the lived                

                             the you and I;

I have walked a resplendent territory,

swept with the fragrance derived from pain

caught in the glow of moonbeams on water,

a liberated, liberating country

a mischievous grin

a knowing eye

a continent, an oasis, a flower, a fragrance—

yes, best left undefined.

[From the collection 'The underside of silence', shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2009]

LEAVE A COMMENT

The underside of silence

 

When glass touches glass,
when wine meets lip,

what words curl in gaze? 

Tenderness,

eternity,

moment,

glacier,

us?

  

Pick.

And tell me…. 

What does a glacier look like from beneath the surface?

What is the colour on the underside of silence?

Is there not music below freezing point?

When you melt, does your body disappear

into cloud or harvest,

starlight or smoke-ring,

you or me?
 

[The title poem of the collection by the same name, shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2009]

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