Free thoughts on free

 

We want more!

And more and more!

And why stop at 6% of GDP

(the equivalent, that is)?

We could go up to 8 or 10,

or the whole hog,

right up to 100 per cent.

let’s have free rice

and free rides,

free market free-for-alls,

free falls and free sex,

free books and uniforms,

free milk too (why not?)

free speech and free insult

freedom to pilfer, freedom to cry

let’s free ourselves from free-misery

and why not, free extraction too,

like teeth, labor and love,

let there be ‘free’

in a free float state

free currencies and free smiles,

let there be so much free

that free comes without price

and like air is freely spoiled;

let’s have free

free citizen friends,

and let’s lynch

that two-tongued, ill-bred

uncouth and ill-willed crook

Responsibility.  

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Caramel

I don’t know ingredients I don’t know recipe

I know name but that’s nothing

for me it’s flavor and hue

texture and fragrance

something that comes wrapped

comes cupped and frilled

as after-taste consolation

or flavor-eraser

those little tidbits

that cure miseries

remove tumors

of nights and days

the unrepeatable delicacies

that come and go

or never visit,

and an eminent reason to smile

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Luminescence

It is a heart attribute

innocuous absorber of love light

innocent filter

of world, universe

and definitional inconveniences

holder of immeasurable treasures

the thin, rare light

of hope and the unbelievable

just to exude at night

and bathe in after-glow

of what is

what might have been

what isn’t but imagined.   

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Fireflies

Day fugitives,

night conquerors:

proof positive

of extra-terrestrial life,

recognizable in blink and blank

and our ephemeral commonality

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Gammaduwa*

A lot happens in ‘village-huts’
for commonality spills out
of household and hearth
the domestic angst bows low
to collective prerogative;
and so they come together
to celebrate and lament,
heal and exorcise
the devil and devilment
those very-human dramatics
that consume and reveal
brush and burn and drown,
and so in our cities
and citied-comforts
we check it all out
these heritage remnants
tradition-preserves
entertainment exotica
outside the traditional paths
of diurnal density
so blind to A.M. Jayantha Siri
and the centuries that birthed him.

*Inspired by the photography of Hiranya Malwatta and published in the UNDO Section of 'The Nation', September 23, 2012.

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White is for open-season

Multi-coloured, did someone say

with hues reserved

for love’s unbelievable

and believing eyes?

No, love is white

a fresh page canvass

where eye and word

despair and bliss

conjure their primary colours

sketch and paint and fine-line

but cannot replay

the moving heart-finger’s trace

like a Disney cartoon

in line by line and tiny curl succession

narrating the history

of journey and disintegration,

yes an open space

for colour dance and illusion

tentative footprint and perceived perfection

drawn with flourish or soft touch dab,

and unrecoverable file

at closure:

a lot of colour

between open-season white

and the white at world’s end.

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Thief

Because arrival was soft 

Because silence was solicitation enough

Because word and kiss

turned blood, pinched vein, twisted valve

Because fingertip touch stole breath

Because smile broke slow

          slower than flower-bloom

          eternal-slow it seemed

Because residence was not asked

          or given

          but as natural as wind,

          came without knock,

swirled, swept and dusted

Because rule was not obeyed

Because dress code was violated

Because tag was no-thank-you’d

Because those who came like wind

          went like wind

          without notice

Because when realization came a-visiting

          there was no sign

          not of come, not of go and nothing of passing,

Because of all this and more

          a bold-lettered banner was tied to a thousand arrows

          a mind-bow shot them all in all directions

          so one might target find

          and name

          forever.

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