Helping IDPs - Ongoing Projects

http://rebuildlanka.wordpress.com/projects/

Anthem

The war is over

Blogs, newspapers, my
Gmail inbox
alive with

Bravado

Only patriots and traitors
now.

Ripe
jackfruit juice, sound of tabla music smell
feel of milk rice wattalappan
after breaking
fast, sound
of Tamil guttural
to my ears but full
of memories
my fathers friends
of trips
in the rickety old van
with the loose seat through
tea estates. Big
chariots wheeled deities in a
Kovil with the hundred (thousand?) steps in
Hatton town. I was
in a Sinhala version of Macbeth
once I liked the way my worlds mixed
came together in an island the bard had never
heard of...
Like the wooden
stage of the Lionel Wendt
the soil in Madinnagoda
is full of the past. Warm
between my toes
Through my fingers. Young priest
in the Wattala temple
didn’t shave too often chewed
betel his sermons
in our living room…
In college my team-mate prayed
prostrate Mecca-wards 3
times a day, memories
of my father struggling
to explain children’s stories
in Sinhalese,
my mother
treating an injured
man on Hatton estate
Dettol, gauze &
broken Tamil

I’m angry

Trying
to hold on
to dreams of rainbow
nation (s?) fusion, compli-
-cation, inter-
racial
marriages… hybrid
island
at a cross-roads, time
to forge, (iron's-
hot), grab this
chance for a melting pot, enough
monoliths, scarred lathe!
enough tin-pot-
monarchy-math,
time to play
with our United-Colours-of-Benetton-
clay, mix-match-
make hay
before the sun fades
to a mono-chrome mono-
tone 'with-us-
or-against-
us'

There's
no disloyalty
in refracting light,
no necessary
treachery
in devolving might,
no need wipeout-(by-
white-van) lives
because they turned-on
a flashlight on
the maggots in the machinery
of state

Seamus Heaney wrote a poem
once, about a Republic of
Conscience, whitens
my knuckles
yearning for a
benign Babel, a
home an anthem public
offices of many
tongues
Songs…

See

I'm listening
to Outlandish
they
sing Hip-hop,
from Morocco-Paki-
stan-Hondu-
ras-Den-
mark
they
are Muslim-Catho-
lic. The lyrics
wash over me.
RacismpovertyH-
IV, a
hint-of-a-
-possibility
raises Goosebumps. I
wonder

what if

A Tamil
and a Sinhalese
bought an exercise book. One
with lines and a little square
on the cover
which said 40 pages.
like those
we used
for tuition classes
after school.
wrote songs. Beautiful
songs.
jammed
together into the wee-
hours, T-
shirts saturated
with the sweat
of creation.

scribbling

If their
Instruments were to mi-
ngle and
the beats
entwine

would girls
still
be told to marry "OUR
people"?

Would
history books
and poli-
-tical
crooks

still
spout
Aryan-
-Dravidian-
-Yin-
Yang
sh*t?

Would people
still sing
of bombs exploding
so
proud-
-ly? Would an airbrushed
Dutugemunu
return
to the movies?

If the hybrid melody

Was heard by a
roomful of
kids

mebbe
mebbe!

they'd take the colours
smells, letters, the
different feels
of
different types
of sand

ENERGIZED

to the light
of a lamp
(no
rubber stamp!)
round-which Meroo
fly

as
the
bass
tremors the
air, memory
darkening the stare,
of those who
sit

in a circle on the floor
who

SYNTHESIZE

take the chances take the
Stances that my
generation
Failed
To take.

Can you? (can you!)
Can you

Feel the beat?