The Day After

Sixty three years ago today
That brilliant summer morning
Six miles over Hiroshima
Drone of a B-san
White spot spilling away
Innocent looking
Drifting downward
Forty three seconds
Blinding flash, light of many suns
Deafening boom
City beneath was gone
Atomic age
few minutes old.
Mushroom cloud miles high
Mass of funeral pyre beneath
Black witch's brew of smoke
Dust, debris covered the dead.
Few shells of buildings stood
Gutted in a desert of ash
Wide blue channel
clogged with burned bodies.
Those survived but burned
Were like walking ghosts
Hiroshima has turned
to a city of the dead.
Human race became
a hostage of the bomb.
Big powers now claim
More than fifty thousand
with much more power
making Hiroshima one, a toy.
But the psychological fear effect
Will hold them back
Not to use these ever, again.
May the world be in peace!

K. W. A. Jayawardane

The AURA

If your AURA you could perceive,
What numerous facts would you collect,
things about you and your intellect
The reality that is concealed
You would see the colours,
how they change within hours,
Dazzling, gleaming lights shed
Brightening towards yellow, green to red,
domineering your soul,
You'd see the past,
and the future, to be called,
What numerous things would you feel!
If your 'AURA' you could perceive!

D. M. Sukantha Dissanayake

Suffering

My stay in a hospital,
For more than a month,
Gave me a reflection,
Of the suffering on this earth.
Forty beds available,
For about hundred patients,
Some sleep on beds,
Some sleeps under the beds,
Waiting for their turn.
Day and Night are the same,
In the famous ward Eleven,
In the General Hospital in the hills.
Some people come for serious operations,
While others wait for their turn,
To get a date for their operation.
Consultants, doctors and nurses,
Along with the attendants and cleaners,
Go through their day,
To keep up the arduous task,
Of serving the people.
A place of suffering and sadness,
With weeping and yelling day and night,
Some people leave the place happily,
With smiling faces and mental happiness,
But, some leave the place for good.

Edward WIJERATNA

The Mirror

Do you think a mirror is trustworthy?
As for me, ?no?, and you know why?

You go to a mirror and look for comments,
But the mirror throws back a twisted yourself!
(I mean, left turned right and vice versa).

Thus, 'face is the mirror of one's heart' means:
'Count not on looks, twisted is what you see......!

Bandara SAMARAKOON

Thanks

I do not pray now,
What have I been praying for,
All these years.
Have I not been praying,
For worldly benefits,
To receive more than others,
Even depriving others,
Of their due share,
I have now come to refrain,
From such prayers,
As I have come to realise,
Like how a mother knows,
And gives all that of her baby needs
Without it asking for them
God knows what to give me
And is giving me what I need
Like a mother giving to her baby
So my prayer now consists of
One sentence

Thankyou, lord, for all that you are doing for me It might as well become a prayer of Only one word THANKS repeated many times Like the Aum of the Rishis of ancient time. Arul

The great deceit

I walked down the road,
And saw the games of many people,
Not always misguiding and ,
Not always wrong and yet,
The games of the people are,
The pursuit of name and fame;
The games of the people are;
The pursuit of many achievements;
In all the games we can get lost;
And when the day comes to bid,
Good bye to the world,
The name and fame we have pursued,
Will not accompany us,
So the failures are we,
And not the winners.

Shantini RUBAWATHY VIVEKANANTHAN