Archive for the ‘Poetry’

Three poems by Sivamohan Sumathy

[Editors note: These poems respond to Indran Amirthanayagam's poems here, here and here. They are both part of the Writers Under Siege collection on Groundviews.] 1 i am not a writer i am not a writer nor am i under siege, i do not frequent the commons, nor the poetic corner. 2 i, savage why do i write when i had promised myself aching silence after kethesh’s fall and maheswary’s stunted end? why talk suddenly of the siege now, when i have stood at death’s door, refused its dare and now can finally slumber, in a snow stirring fantasy surrounding turkey’s trouble with its torture chambers, lulled by the bewitching tones of orhan’s magic? why the artist and the writer and colombo’s array of poets, rushing to versify, riding on guilt ridden stirrings of the heart, of us and them? it’s a tale told by an idiot, and yet, signifying so much, a tale told a countless times, to still…

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Dancing In Sympathy (Mullaitivu)

Six boys from Hindu College will enter the scene from Stage Left, an equal number of girls from Muslim Ladies Stage Right. They will shake their bodies, slide and writhe, and be still to rid bones of chains and memories, and invite guests, us, to sway in harmony even if we’re away from jungles which give shelter, or ash-filled homes whose roofs are open to whistling bombs and winds that sweep left-overs clean. That Boxing Day the Tsunami swept residents out; now the Army marches in four years later to find an abandoned town, and in nearby woods yakshas howling in Tamil calling for food and water, medicine, safe passage south… while in the capital, as I imagine the performance must end, on a stage a boy and girl will embrace. January 27, 2009 Part of the Writers Under Siege collection on Groundviews. For more information, click here. For a response to these poems by award winning poet Sivamohan Sumathy,…

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Equal Treatment

Citizens of Killinochchi and Mullaitivu fled before our liberators arrived. They live for the moment in nearby jungle under a canopy punctured by shells. Some moved to a safe zone demarcated by liberators where they have fallen since to errant fire. Others ran into liberators’ arms and live now protected in large barb-wired camps. January 27, 2009 Part of the Writers Under Siege collection on Groundviews. For more information, click here. For a response to these poems by award winning poet Sivamohan Sumathy, please click here.

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Forgetting, Mullaitivu

The town is full of stray dogs, cows, ghosts, buildings pockmarked, unhinged, open to wind and rain. Soldiers patrol on foot. Trucks and tanks rumble through the center. Rebels took all the fittings to jungle cellars, and we wait eagerly to discover how the Supreme Leader makes his bed. Look at Europe today, Germany lost 500 kilometers on its eastern flank. How many young people know this history? We will disappear. The tsunami swept a lot away. Our failing memory compensates for the rest. January 27, 2009 Part of the Writers Under Siege collection on Groundviews. For more information, click here. For a response to these poems by award winning poet Sivamohan Sumathy, please click here.

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Unsolicited Advice

While the bureaucrat fulminates about the cost of hotel rooms in Geneva and the great burden placed on the Sri Lankan government to have to pay exorbitant rates, he may wish to report back to Colombo, that the most efficient way to avoid such soaring costs is to conduct a human rights policy that shows some affection for the starving, shot up, and terrified civilians— all 70,000 or 200,000 of them— caught at the moment in their ancestral lands in the Vanni, burrowing into bunkers, dying when they come out.

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The Fear of Peace

He heard that peace will be here soon He lay in six inch deep muddy water watching the enemy in the horizon His eyes watered and mind wandered who was the real enemy anyway The barrel of his gun no longer felt cold there was comfort and strength Death was his constant companion blood and limbs of friends and foes the only scenery that he knew He knew not of dry socks and shoes but of them soggy in boots with holes He knew not of the warmth of a woman but of humid days and sweaty bodies He knew not of the cool breeze of a paddy field but of gun shots froman arid dessert He knew not what this peace was He dreaded the silence that would allow the demons within to shout louder He dreaded the loving arms that would embrace the man that he no longer was He dreaded the cold emptiness that would follow when…

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Ashes at the Stake – For Lasantha

I remember the day I heard Richard was killed Almost twenty years ago. Far away in the diaspora I sat all night My back bent and still. Regimes shifted, People still disappeared into the night Witches, burnt at the stake A sacrifice, An offering.. In the name of the nation, Today I heard Lasatha was killed. “One of us” who spoke for the “them”, Burnt at the stake.. Another offering.. In the name of the nation. Far away in the diapora I have sat still With a bent back. For much too long. Slowly The Ashes Gather momentum… Francesca USA

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One of Us

During civilized periods in the history of kingdoms courtiers, or the king’s person himself, in audience with the gadfly, would offer the fellow death or exile. These days assassins butcher their fly in daylight near security checkpoints in front of bewildered subjects. My Lord, Dutugemunu, slayer of wild beasts in northern jungles, why must we kill brother Lasantha, shed our own blood? Indran Amirthanayagam, January 11, 2009

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Blood wanted, urgent!

Blood wanted, urgent! Quick, all you friends Can you please help To find more blood To immerse this whole nation In the red, life-giving fluid? The mighty Tsunami With all its geo-force Just wasn’t enough To cleanse our land. In any case Blood is thicker than water And that’s just what The good doctor ordered. Wanted, top urgent: Burgher blood, Muslim blood, Sinhala blood, Tamil blood and Veddah blood – To spill on our land By the truckload So that it’s bathed And turns everything into A deep crimson red! When our ‘patriots’ say ‘fight to the last drop’ They really count on us To keep the supply flowing Year after year! A, B, AB and O Negative and positive: These are but western myths Created to confuse our pure minds, To mislead our good people, To undermine our heritage, And our great civilisation Going back to millennia. In this resplendent isle All men, women and children Come with pure…

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Death at Noon

Today dawned Like any other morning At the other end of the world My sister sits nursing a cup of coffee Her fingers numb From minus twenty Mind numb with shock. Here, I drive to work Still swear under my breath at the driver of the truck that cut into my lane Nearly killing me, Plan my day Tick off the list of things to be done: A listening test to be recorded A lecture to prepare for A report to write A professor to be contacted Before lunch. But more than four of my colleagues Are in black and white And I realise that includes me. We stand around the Water filter Discussing ‘heroism’. And no one is in a mood to work today Even those joyous about captured Territory. Maybe we are numb too Though it’s warm and all we have today Is a cloudy sky [Editors note: A comment left on a blog I read regularly regarding…

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For Lasantha and others

Murder is a moment to point fingers Murder is a moment to crawl into shells. But moments don’t forbid, there is no opportune time, nothing auspicious about standing up, speaking out. Speaking of Lasantha now, he was not the just-another-guy not because he was right (he was wrong a lot of times; hard to agree with too), but he wrote his politics regardless he made his allegiances clear protected friends (and some of them were unsavoury creatures too); it does not matter, though. He was flawed as the next person but was more a citizen than many of us, he spoke his mind, he screamed. And I, hardly a friend or fellow-traveller, salute him, for I prefer word to silence in the matter of political engagement. There is a finger that is itching to point, let us point it at ourselves at least in the manner of a question. Who are we, who am I in these times of omission…

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  • 4 Jan, 2009
  • 0 Comment
  • Colombo,
    Poetry

In conversation with Vivimarie Vanderpoorten

An interview with Vivimarie Vanderpoorten, the Winner of the Gratiaen Prize in 2007. Vivimarie is also a Senior Lecturer in English, Dept of Language Studies, Open University of Sri Lanka. The interview covers, in addition to her poetry, identity, culture and creative writing in Sri Lanka. For a taste of her poetry, read The Day After Tomorrow. Groundviews has also published the poetry of Vivimarie’s sister, Yichaelle Devendra. Vivimarie will also be part of the Galle Literary Festival 2009.

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Tears

I have never felt the same about blue frothy waters and ebb and tide since learning how your mild self could turn and gush hiss and spit washing out her tomorrows, her child, her home and Blue shimmering water is now a memory of a blue baby shirt, the white sari that blows in the wind as she feeds the crows and dogs on the beach in their memory is the colour of white sea foam… The breeze that beguiles gulls and suspends them in mid air is now the a silence of sadness that cannot be stilled.

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Planes in the sky

My feet are tired pressed into asphalt climbing the campus hill, composing a sparer line: effervescence in mist, swirling about the stones, a girl, freckled, jeaned, auburn-haired like the leaves, walks past my shadow, a shadow, the wish to dissolve into scenery, flowering bush, wind, chameleon silent on a branch not hurt or harassed by predators swooping down from clouds : over the A-9 Highway, by Elephant Pass. Indran Amirthanayagam, November 8, 2008

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Howl for a new generation (with apologies to Allen Ginsberg)

losing a beloved on an ordinary day in Colombo, in Mannar Town, where pools of blood swell on the steps of a bus, in the market place, on dusty shell shocked streets, and the sentinels of the war stand guard, holding back our grief; only the palm thatched rooftops bear witness to departing warriors. our silence remains steadfast as the minds of my generation, give way to the rot of rabid thought tracks, and all we are left with, is denial and counter-denial, a tunnel of silence, a never ending drumbeat. somebody, take this, take my anger, add it to yours. take it simmering, a ball of blue flame, watch how it ignites when we don’t handle it carefully howl, howl to Jesus, if you want or to Allah, I don’t care prostrate at Buddha’s altar or in Kaliamma’s temple, even though we may be afraid, because we are afraid, because we know that it may end, alone, among strangers…

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About Groundviews

Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka... Free media at it's very best!"

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