A rendition of PoetryP's November's session:

The typically tenuous tranquillity of PoetryP was much tested when an earphone-clad cigarette-puffing economist nervously clutching onto his butt-ends lurched through the thin glass doors of the cafe and declaimed, "Api kanneth hulang, bonnenth hulang, parliamenthuvath hulang.... - We eat the emptiness of air, we drink the emptiness of air, parliament is also empty air: what they say they do not do, and what they do they do not say!" He then harassed some of the other poets and cafe workers, repeating that Shakespeare did not repeat himself, yet insisted he could since he was not Shakespeare, which he repeated, over and over again, until circuitously seen to the door...

It took a few moments for PoetryP to gather itself together, but it was a house divided with some feeling that we maybe need more such interventions from the street, and, "He meant no harm and had he been able to vent some of that disappointment in him even at our expense - then it was worth it." One poet suggested, "Let's organize another character to walk in next time too!" The 'economist' had appeared two months before, praising the existence of PoetryP to no end, so this humorous (some thought, rancorous) reassessment was to be expected...Economists are a vacillating lot, rising and falling with their pendulous indices....)

PoetryP continues into its 6th year, with some claiming it a bourgeois salon of sorts bereft of the heartbeat and drumbeat of the 20 millions, and yet others pointing out that, despite the rhetoric of being inclusive of many languages, it is largely an English-only racket even if it strives to be more inclusive than many other art farces in town...

Still we always read poems in English, Sinhala, and sometimes even in Urdu and Chinese, and we do not depend on the sponsorship of merchants, moneylenders or resident cultural attaches.

Manhattan-based lost-Armenian Ohan Hominis seeking happiness in the world joined us and declaimed A Poet's Poem about Poems and Poets... He insists, "Poetry isn't just for 18th century frilly shirts sitting under trees writing about flowers and heartache...contemporary wordslinging is much more than rhyme schemes and structure."

Imaad Majeed extended wordplay on the theme of poetry about poetry with Pictures Pay More than Words. He also presented the 6th volume of his Annasi and Kadalagotu anthology chapbooks.

Yoga exponent Ishwari Pieris offered a poem on feeling "good about one's natural body and how one is born into this world." She added, she's "learned a lot from native Americans and African Americans...," calls her work, "expressive artistic rhymes...since 'Poetry' seems to come with a set of rigid rules and regulations..." Her The Message of Melanin states that her "melanin allows the Sunlight on Earth to be reborn"... "my flesh turns into darker tones" - That's the Sun speaking in Color Codes...There was discussion on how Sri Lankans living in white countries are reduced to epidermis....While Asgar Hussein suggested the poem was too rhetorical, Krisantha Sri Bhaggiyadatta suggested Asgar had an allergy to the declamatory!

Seshadri Kottearachchi read her wry poem She, with the narrator waking up to a still sleeping lover: "her breath harsh and strained, stained with the smell of last night's cigarettes, the taste of my bitter mouth and the lies I whispered against her lips.../ I hope she doesn't expect me to bring her breakfast in bed..."

Altaf Ahmed read an poem inspired by an Urdu song, with a very ghazal-ish feel, Once... again about a man who keeps returning to a courtesan...it begins, "Our union is cursed by the Heavens / Yet here I am at your door..."

Krisantha read, Crusoe Got the Weekend off Only After Friday on the 'human rights' industry....with the lines "One day you're for slavery, next day anti-slavery, and the day after that finds you bombing Baghdad...." He later read out a song in progress, Galpothuyaya about the mountain of the sleeping warrior beside Kandalama Lake...with the chorus: "Sleepless in the headless shadows rousing the dawn."

Asgar, referencing the works of archaeologist Senarat Paranvitarane, read his moist To a Sigiri Maiden recalling the inscriptions of poets expressing admiration for the murals on the walls of the Lion Rock.

Sudheera Weerakoon (who holds the 100m record at his high school) read a sweet poem of a father to a young son who one night declares he wishes to sleep alone, and the father is sad yet senses the child's first steps towards independence.... (... a new little step for a long journey)-(It seems he's moving miles away from me) Sudheera also read a 1st-love poem written on the scrap of A-level exam paper. Menaca Calyaneratne translated it all off the cuff....

Anupama Godakanda read her contemplative Wisdom, Today, suggesting to "Dear Siddhartha of the shorn locks" that the prakgna of today may force him to fill Yasodhara's womb to save the Sakhya from extinction, and resort to Reuters, Jazeera and CNN to enlighten the masses... She also read: Samanola, Out of Season, a paean to those few who ascend Samanalakanda (aka Adam's Peak), offseason when the mount is "enswathed in her seven veils" to offer their "untamed will".

Book editor May Yee read I Return to Myself, a poem by Lam Thi MyDa, from the anthology Vietnamese Feminist Poems, From Antiquity to Present, The Women's Publishing House, Hanoi, ...." Free the moon to be full, / Free the clouds to the winds, / Free the green for the grasses. / I return to myself...." May spoke of her visit to Vietnam and lunching with the poet on New Year's Day 2008, the 40th anniversary of the Tet Uprising; and the still evident sad legacy of the US War. Stefhan Sebastian suggested that the line, "Free the green for the grasses," perhaps referred to the yearning for a return from the green of military uniforms to the hues of peace and nature.

Pankaja Kariyawasam read two short shorts: his sinister, Trains Are Unlucky for Germans, and witty How Lawrence of Arabia Fell down the Twin Towers. When questioned about his 'mashing' of historical persona, he insisted on the "power of fiction." However, his main (resident) critic Gaya Nagahawatta suggested that he check out the "power of fact!"

Paleo-artist Vasika Udurawane read his rendition of Oedipus after the mother's suicide: "Madness grows inside like a child. / The wind sings one final hymn / divine voices recount his sins." He also read a note on the funeral of King Dutugemunu and the reflections of the priesthood. Vasika designs T-shirts and greeting cards with his original dinosaur artwork on them. (Info: 0778880772)

Harsha Aravinda read two delightful poems: you are...: "you are a saree that cannot be draped perfectly / keeps on falling to the side / falling, falling, falling, endlessly falling"....and "you are the muddy bottom of a poem / fog in the morning sweet...." He also translated the poem Masha and the Bears, by Sandun Priyankara Vithanage, based on a famous Soviet cartoon. In the middle of the poem Masha suddenly turns out to be "Shanika" who commands the "customer": "Don't come here ever again" but then "Stood on her toes / To kiss my shoulder."

The Marquis de Sadique Salih, read the existential While I Defecate on This Page, about taking control of his "meandering life", ending with the realization that he needs to "look under the hood / Like trying to fix a car / at a 100 miles per hour, / pressing the accelerator / to prove I'm in control / when death jumps out and shouts / "Game over"!

Menaca read the sardonic Heroine about the young Pakistani Malala's exploitation by the media, "Because the world needed / to raise funds , /To write a book on, / to award prizes....Child to Adult / A scripted life." and Rich, about the sacrifices mothers make.

Stefhan wished to record that Rothko's abstract monochromes are more complex than Kasimir Malevich.... He also suggested that people writing in English here tend to mimic advertised trends in poetry and art elsewhere, like the US Beatniks, without understanding the political context from which they derive. Krisantha suggested, the Beatniks themselves were middle-class white boys appropriating the urban struggles and 'cool' of Black peoples. RocknRoll in Sri Lanka is "brown boys mimicking white boys stealing from black boys trying to drown out white noise."...etc. etc...

If we left out any proceedings or fabricated the record, please respond...

The next PoetryP is on Saturday, 2-6 pm, December 5, 2015!