Jaffna, Peace and Conflict, Poetry, Vavuniya, Writers Under Siege

Confessions

Stop this struggle
He pleads
Of his comrades
A revolutionary leader
Broken in pain
In State Custody

They set me on the wrong path
He blames,
pointing to his friends
A young rebel in a
Lonely rehabilitation camp
Dreaming of a quick release.

He frets about the cruelty
of his Organization
on Rupavahini.1
Thinking
some good may come of it
An old retired warrior
Now surrendered into
Military Custody.

Praising the military loudly
He serves
sambhar2 into Sinhala plates.
A Tamil waiter
in Colombo
fearing his own
Sudden Disappearance.

The Sad Truths he brought
from a forbidden war zone
are untrue
He recants
to the Rupavahini amidst
a circle of
Military Weapons.
A doctor
who treated
thousands of wounded.

Her daughter was a traitor
Disowns a Sinhala mother
of her daughter who died
of a Sinhala bullet
for a Tamil homeland.
an elderly agitated voice
amongst those celebrating an
Ultimate victory.

I see
the desolation of
an Abandoned
Cause
beneath these
Renunciations.
and read
through
the distance
eyes
heavy with
guilt.

Yet..

If only these
spoken words
had remained Silent…

I sigh.

Authors note: Originally written in Sinhala and titled Papochcharanaya. The translator wants be appeared as unknown.


1 National Television of Sri Lanka

2 A soupy dish considered to be Tamil

Writers Under Siege

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