Indika

Temporary white flags have been gathered 

and yet in a corner of the mind a terrible loneliness 

when now and again the eyes close

you still come to mind Indika

Is memory amenable to cut-and-paste

of searching for ourselves over wine 

of a debate heated and yet rolled out with love

when amid cataracts lie hidden the lotus that bloomed ?

In a moment by the hands of a clock narrated

all this will come to a stop by and by 

this is known and very well too, and yet

machang, it is so hard on the heart. 

[Translation of Wimal Ketapearachchi's poem 'Indika'] 

Mercury Girl

Mercury must be her element
for nothing,
not fingers, hands or words
can catch or keep

Sure, she holds my hand
but only if I ask
and even then
I wonder if I've intruded
exceeded invitation

She says she feels small
but I feel smaller

She thinks I want to give all
when little is all I have to give

She thinks I understand
and feels safe
when I am ignorant
and the only think I know
is that I am happy

She thinks I can't wait
for heaven to arrive
if just once a month
when heaven she delivers
without a word

she frequently confuses
regularity with frequency
calls for randomness
but insists, 'once a month'

'You talk, I listen,' she says
and so I listen to silence
and wonder if she hears at all

But she's all about ephemerality
of strawberry sundaes
used books and children's stories
destinations she has never heard of
and futures I am not a part of.

Ode to a silly girl

She loves soccer

and has her favorites
eyes glued to the screen
a half-smile on her lips
she knows stuff
like the inevitable penalty shoot-out
regardless of score line.

She loves humor
loves to laugh,
and most times
she laughs twice;
she admits,
'tube-light'.

She knows the textures
and fragrances of love
but gently disavows:
"I don't know and I don't want to know."

So I ask and she says "no"
but in her sweet silly way
trips over the "no" that means "yes"
laughs and reaffirms boundaries.

And we talk of things known
and unknown
bend conversations
into safe houses
and comfortable spaces,
she does not dismiss
and neither does she embrace
"not underserving, but still, 'no'" she says
but she does not know,
this silly girl,
that proximity or distance
metaphorical or literal
no difference makes
for silliness is another word for wisdom
and label means nothing
for one who has abandoned mind
and swears by the heart

Eternities

There are magic words
lines of poetry 
that write their continuations
and then we have a book
written for a single reader
which in writing re-writes writer
and in being read
re-reads reader
and a terrible confusion 
where words dropped on paper
and those gathered by gaze
collapse into maturities 
that break into stardust 
collated in hearts
where identities disappear
or merge 
and the only clarity left, love,
is love.

Waiting for you on the Kala Wewa bund

Obliterated footsteps speak to me

they rise from dust and longing

soar into irrigated conversations 

and the small talk of small men;

there’s a canopy of chanting 

hovering over the Kadawara Devalaya

plaintive beseeching and fervent vows 

consecrating with divine blush

the ethos of agrarian solidarity;

the loquacious sun 

titillates with humor the trees 

and far away mountains burn blue 

in perennial boredom;

I know that from somewhere

the Aukana eyes watch 

and as the ripples come to me

for a moment I linger 

upon thathagatha gaze;

I’m waiting for music 

that has detoured perhaps 

armies march to paddy-field and war

a saffron sweep floats by 

the past conjugates with the now

retires into night

and there I stand

contemplating a defiant tomorrow

that restates the order of the earth

rearranges the sky

and divines a moment or two

with you.

Theft

She wrote of journeys and turning points
sameness and change
the unnoticed that leave marks,
she wrote of roses
that into dandelions slipped
of feelings that
new residences found,
she wrote and wrote
and traced underside of heart
not to me
not of me
not for me,
but I took it all,
all for myself.

Ode to Nostalgia

Ah! Nostalgia!
The underside of all tomorrows
save haven for the timid,
for the averter of gaze
of those momentary eyes
that with fire consume
and with dew drop resurrect;
a place to go but not to stay
in this universe that is unparalleled.

I read the script
which as I read blurred
and disappearing left her behind,
alluring in reticence
mortal in the pinpricks
of enduring presence,
and thus tattooed
I move among the mysterious
an alien planet of curiosity shops
and bottled vineyards 
violins melting into absurd pianos
raindrops on windowpanes
and a storm-wind comforter,
a cleft chin that cuts through ambivalence
rearranges a fruit basket,
lips that smile to a world forbidden
and words that must say something
but remain unread
in the illiteracy of the heart.