For Simon

Life was a twirl of smoke
and madness
black, white and shade
word-weave was your thing,
wasn't it Simon?
In the sacred groves
you make your tracks these days
does nihilist meet lover,
does Yasa toss the burden of memory
at Suba
and Suba throw back?
Is the Afterlife Mullegama Galkanda
as silent with history
as it was this side of death?
Does it get covered by wilderness
uncovered by civilisation
and re-covered by the eternal verities?
Did the dadayakkaraya forgive caricature
and the heart,
does it gasp
in love's breathlessness,
still?
And is the golf-cap
lighter
than the lightness of your being
and loving
here on this earth you walked
so many centuries ago?

Malinda Seneviratne

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This evocative poem is a requiem for departed literati Siomon Navagattegama. The poet traces the literary legacy of Siomon Navagattegama through short but powerful lines. Navagattegama's life was turbulent as was his controversial literary practice which took the Sinhalese literature into hitherto unexplored areas. Nawagattegama through his work tore into pieces a prototype idealised image of the village and 'the unassuming and innocent villagers'. The poet recalls some of Navagattegama's works and characters peopled them. The poem is a fitting tribute to the late literatus. -Indeewara Thilakarathne

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Coming Home?

Once again-
After Summer rain,
Coming home, by the plane.
Mixed emotions-
I can't retain,
Keep me locked in an awful mundane.
"It's over, it's over," the voice so plain
Keeps screaming, over and again!
For once for sure, this time I know,
Life would change from the Cock's next crow!
But it's like walking to a void well known,
To accept it without any grumbling I've sworn.
Accept change, like every man that's born;

Without just crying like a broken gramaphone!
Like an orphan disowned by his adopted home,
I'm sent back, to Home Sweet Home.
'Amidst pleasure palaces, at home I may roam,
But the heart I've forgotten at my adopted home....

G.C.Priyangwada Perera

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The poem is woven around a Sri Lankan student who returns home after years of education in a foreign soil. The student comes as a changed person. Though comes home on every summer vacation, this time, it's for good to be settled down in Sri Lanka. Though the student loves motherland, the change is inevitable. She feels sad to give up the adapted land and the fond memories of student days will be etched in the mind for ever. The poem is noted for its authentic voice capturing the disturbed state of mind of Sri Lankan a student returning home. Indeewara

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Her poem

Loneliness is stuck like a pencil in the belly of the sharpener. Its shaven head is lead and its tip stabs the skin of paper stretched across the girl's face open to her notebook of poems.

Where are the gold mines, I want to ask and she turns the page, indicating the rust stains of the words she parks, line by line, in the parking lot of the sunset, the tear and the arm torn from the shoulder of the boy who once embraced her.

I've bought, I want to say, earrings and a gun to pierce ears,and meanwhile, beneath her brow her gaze is tortured by the inquisition of the eyes. Ronny Someck Translation:

Vivian Eden

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The poet peeps into a drawing book of a lonely girl whose face is full of sadness. He has brought earrings and a gun to pierce the ears but poet is shocked to see tears in the eyes of the girl who turns over the pages of her drawing book. She looks at the image of the boy who once embraced her. Through a commonplace incident, the poet has showed the terrible social scars of the war on the civilians who were sandwiched between war and peace. The poet sheds deep insights into the cruel nature of war from a humane perspective. -Indeewara Thilakarathne

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