The Destroyed Temple
The house at the end of the road, the giant multiple-walled house at the end of the road without a telephone, or internet, without a satellite dish, without rubbish—the residents burned what…
Poetry
A Plea from a Muslim woman in a Western Country
Now that the men in black Have descended the machines Silently, Like nocturnal birds of prey And stalked and slain the beast That taunted them For a long, miserable decade, Now that…
The Right to Respond
: The numbers do not add up. Census says 430,000 people resided in the Vanni mid-2008. A year later, 290,000 are shepherded by the Army into “welfare centers” where one hundred men,…
Cricket, Lima
In the mist that blows over the field at Lima Cricket near the Pacific, moist, cool air lets the wicket breathe and the crack of bat on ball sing like a memory…
I am one of 80,000*
Though the barbed wire, I am looking down the road of memory. Selvam, my Selvam, I am waiting for you To bring back our lost life. You grabbed my hand hard and…
Party
To spoil a party, call the police to enforce noise laws or prohibitions against drinking by minors, we can understand as a necessary if unpleasant right of a neighbor who cannot sleep…
The Tamil Man’s Genes
My Tamil DNA, inherited from generations before, and the genes lined up along it, have now been analyzed: 99.99 percent the same as a Sinhala fellow’s 99.90 percent the same as a…
Now our New Year has no moon
The moon rises to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Dreaming, I take the rifle and shoot my own heart. Now our New Year has no moon. The streetlamps of La Chappelle…
The Offer from a Sri Lankan Tamil Man
My King! I propose a deal with you COMPATIBLE with my Membership of our country I hold so dear which you do not wish to deny. My King! Here is your part:…
At Your Service
Islanders always like to baila, party, party, nibble the ear whispering, pump themselves with arrack and go courting on the Green, but in these holidays at year’s end dedicated to forgetting the…
Thanks, Guys
Liu Xiaobo , Winner of Nobel Peace Prize 2010, “ CHRD Vassals, serfs, dependent states, including erstwhile defenders of human rights, we appreciate and respect your well-considered decisions to absent yourselves from…
my teacher talks of a sri lankan english-poem ii
my teacher talks of a sri lankan english-poem ii (a responsive thing) by sumathy ooo, how sad that thing called a sri lankan-thing who thinging this thing of of englees or inglisss…
Inheritance
There is no rule written in an enormous ledger by an acolyte angel that says a poet will write every day until death. The uncivil war will end according to absence of…
Compilation of special edition on the end of war in Sri Lanka
Download the 162 page compilation of content as a PDF in high quality (25.4Mb), or low quality (3.7Mb). The low quality version is good enough to read, but the photos will look and…
Hand Washing
Murder cannot be hidden, bodies decompose but skeletons remain; certainly they can be washed from beach into sea and stripped clean by carnivorous fish yet the panel requires just a few examples,…