Baghdad

By Ronny Someck

With the same chalk a policeman outlines a body in a crime scene
I outline the borders of the city my life was shot into.
I interrogate witnesses, extort out of their lips
Drops of arrack and imitate with hesitation the dance moves
Of pita over a bowl of hummus.
When they capture me, they will take a third off for good behavior
And will lock me up in the corridor of Salima Murad's throat.
In the prison's kitchen, my mother would fry the fish her mother
Pulled out of the river, and she'd tell about the word "fish"
Displayed on a huge sign over the new restaurant's door.
Whoever dined there got a sliver of fish until
One of the customers asked the owner to reduce
The sign or enlarge the fish.
The fish will prick his bones, will drown
The hand that plucked its scales, and even
Boiling oil on the interrogation pan
Wouldn't get an incriminating word out of its mouth.
The memory's an empty plate, scarred with a knife's scratches
On its skin.

Mr. Wiseman (homo sapiens) in a quandary

by Kalakeerthi EDWIN ARIYADASA

Mr. Wiseman held the Cup
But, it did not win his favour.
He winced and grimaced, frowned and scowled,
Repelled sorely by its odious flavour.
Legatee of a hoary, rambling Ape
(Charles Darwin averred) was he.
Fossils, on the contrary, hinted at
A legged-fish ancestor, out of the sea.
They thought him noble. faultless and bright
Built and led by powers ultra- wise.
Freud, though, said N-o-o-o and posited Id
A blind fish deep in a sea of sighs
Harried by soul-searing angst and pain
H.S. quaffed to dregs, full many a vial .
His heart for ever rings the wrong number.
He has forgotten how to dial.
World is propelled by wayward whims
The Tribe is troubled and conflict riven.
Decreed luckily, by Seer Arthur C.
Family is united, satellite-driven.
Irked by his greedy ecological crimes
Polar caps peel, in an icy rage,
Drowning the lands of the warming globe
Ushering, if unheeded, a demolishing age.
A hate- spawned mushroomy, Nuclear puff
Could, soon wipe out Mr. Wiseman's race.
But, Hope stirs, with water on the moon
His progeny may people the outer space.

In the poem, the poet virtually sums up the entire history of mankind. The poet citing the great men such as Charles Darwin, Freud and Arthur C, traces the important developments in the history of mankind. However, he worries about the future of humanity on Earth because of man's insatiable greed which would eventually destroy them. The poet envisions mankind's future in outer space. It is a futuristic poem with a profound vision embedded in the meticulously chosen lines. There are instance where the poet sums up the entire era in one or two lines. Indeewara

`HOMECOMING'

By Sunil Govinnage

(For Edwin Thumboo)
Qantas is an eagle
Flying high
Above the mute Indian Ocean.
I'm halfway between two adopted *homes!*
I gaze at the digital map
To get my bearings;
Only passing clouds
Between Perth and Jakarta.
I'm coming home
To be with my friends ...

Just after midday
I reach your City Country:
Singapore.
This is not Down Under!
This is not Perth!
True multiculturalism thrives,
Tamil and Chinese characters
Hold hands with English words,
Even at the airport.
I breathe pollen-free air and
Dream of familiar faces.
No four seasons here
Only humidity walls.
Real orchids smile
As in a picture post card.
Tropical thunder roams;
The welcome songs.

(Visitor's Lodge, National University of Singapore) (2003) Sunil Govinnage is a bi-lingual Sri Lankan- Australian poet and author. He was one of the few invited poets to be read at the SWF 2009. Sunil left Sri Lanka in 1986 but still publishes poetry in Sinhala. His third anthology of poetry in Sinhala, `Mathaka Mawatha' (The Passage of Memory) is due to be published in Colombo soon)

While on flight, the poet is between two adapted countries, Australia and Singapore. In eloquent terms the poet describes the multi-cultural Singapore where diverse cultures and ethnicities grow in harmony which he symbolizes by the use of Tamil and English which is the lingua franca of Singapore. Though the poet jotted down the lines at the visitors' Lodge at the National University of Singapore, it expresses one of composite experiences of diasporic life. Indeewara