Tagged: Sri Lanka War

War torn prayer

war-poems-sri-lankan-army-vs-ltte

My skies continue to grey
The darkness of night does not cease at day
The air gets bleaker, our breaths deterred
Though the sudden blazes of evil are not preferred
The pit in my stomach is infinitely deep
I’ve forgotten how to laugh but I remember how to weep
I’ve written letters to addresses to which I cannot post
I play no more though I whisper to the baby ghosts
Routines, a luxury that I’ve forgotten my own way
For yesterday’s losses are different from today’s
I see broken glass, I see fallen poles
I see rubble and blood, I see confined souls
My reaction to everything is to kneel down and pray
But the sun has hidden and the holy moon shies away
There used to be light in me, hot enough to burn
But now I am frozen and my light is yet to return

– Saduni Wanniarachchi

Sri Lanka War Poem

(“Nahi Werena Werani” – Hatred Never Ceases by Hatred)

For three long decades
the nation was beaten
in no small measure
at the eruption of the terror bomb
that dispelled mankind straight to death
in thousands
of whom the blood gleamed in the same carmine
be it Sinhalese or Tamils
So why this obsolete, spoilt stratification?

Vermillion balls of crystallized blood
mingled with white sand like carnelian
everywhere in the Jaffna peninsula
Precipitously blasted vehicles
Charred remnants of smashed houses
Sky-climbing buildings,
flattened to the ground and vanished
Dead bodies put inside
kerosene stained blackened tires
And how the roasting corpses lifted themselves
in the raging flames
mirroring the killing injuries
The day the Aranthale sky
turned grey in thundering scream
Mammoth massacre of saffron robed monks,
the earth-splitting sin
Streets studded with mounting bullets
and heaps of dagger ridden and
bullet embedded bodies
stinking with the stench of the rotting bodies
that hung in the air
Swollen, pale bodies swathed
in blood soused clothing
and prostrated on grubby pavements
Detached heads with bloody tongues
leaping out of the mouth
The parched bodies’ ashes
mixed with air reeking through the island
In concentration camps, mantraps and
human abattoirs in dense forests
death yell crisscrossing far and wide
Carious human skeletons like bogies
and plain blood blotches in them
waft horribly the calamitous terror committed

Man hunting atrocities of Tigers,
Guns, hand bombs, landmines
and multi-barrels
trumpeted the death knell of thousands victimized
Doom tumbled on the innocents
in warfare amidst
the shower of flesh
and the whirlwind of bullets
Freshly budding young ones
snatched away from their parents’ bosom
Merciless urging to rush to arms

Cuddle-some children huddled on
torn out, crumpled mats
in the darkened sheds
With their eyes tightly pressed
by soft tiny hands,
they howled in indefinable fright
scared by the rackety bellow of gunfire

Saturated in utter darkness
with his incorrigible megalomania
to approach an unreachable destination,
fragmentation of the searing island
He with his fellow Tigers
pulled the trigger to
an unendurable death toll of over 70,000
What hearts of stone they have?
Did they achieve anything
except bloodletting and
the record breaking exhibition of
abnormally catastrophic massacres?
Heavily venerated Tigers
enshrined in their heroic pantheons
with Granite tombstones
What did they really attain?
Mere decease and decadence
He is already in his
cortege to the cemetery
The masses are earnestly awaiting
to say him a big good bye
Some request to catch him
and hang him up like a dog
so that they can pitch stones at him
It is no small anguish crushed in their hearts
Yet, the Buddha insists, “Hatred never ceases by hatred.”
Think of the perennial truth
couched in the pristine, untarnished dharma
On the other hand,
would it halt the repetition
of murderous history
bloated with blighting monstrosities?
The punishment to him
will not do,
at all,
But the inculcation of peace in our minds
So let peace sweep through our minds!
So let peace sweep through our minds!

Glossary:
Aranthale Massacre: The carnage of 33 Buddhist monks, a majority of them being young novice monks, by the Tamil Tigers on June 2, 1987 in the vicinity of the village of Aranthalawa in the Ampara District of Eastern Sri Lanka

Tigers: The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (the LTTE, commonly known as the Tamil Tigers), a separatist organization which aimed at creating an independent Tamil state (known as the Tamil Eelam) in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka thus paving the way for the Sri Lankan civil war (1976-2009)

– Indunil Madhusankha

Memento

Grandma had mementos of the GREAT WAR

Her youngest brother had left his cozy office job

in quaint old Jaffna town to join the British

Army in Mesopotamia in 1914…

He had returned after four years of desert warfare

Grandma’s photos of her brother’s comrades

Before and after the war

Bright young faces had become haggard,

Wrinkled, old and weary, although still in their

Thirties…

Millions had perished in that war.

He returned to his job in tranquil Jaffna town,

Thankful to be alive…

Sri-lanka-war-poems

– Jegatheeswari Nagendran
Colombo 05

Faces many he has at his disposal,

And displays his choicest at any given time,

As deftly as any of his ilk

Pearly white teeth uttering sweet nothings,

Ears pricked at invective hurled at him,

Bloodshot eyes screaming murder and mayhem,

Pinky nostrils wide, sniffing blood yet to be shed,

Ruddy lips full, making the face serene,

High and mighty he epitomizes his five-headed

counter part…

Invisible faces - Sri Lanka Poems

-V. Thillainathan
Trincomalee
Sri Lanka

A tribute…

I was not born to adorn princesses

I was not born to adorn banquets of royalty,

I was not born to decorate royal households

I was not born to adorn lords and ladies

But

I was born to spread fragrance

Born to strew on the funeral march of a gallant soldier,

Who laid his precious life for the country,

His precious life today

To beautify our tomorrow,

I was born to decorate his last journey

And spread fragrance about

For him

A-tribute-Sri-Lanka-war-poems

-Patricia Mangalika Yahampath

Sri lanka

Golden July

They call it –

The Black July

 

I was hiding in a dark pit,

Shivering, shaking, sobbing –

Terror howling inside me

 

Young – only 16

Two hands took me out –

Soothing voice

Two warm arms embracing me

 

I was shoved into a car –

Taken to a mansion –

Fast, fast, fast

 

Behind the kitchen slab,

Hiding, shivering.

Big knock on door

“Are you hiding Tamils?

Sinhala Traitors!”

“Naa naa Kavuruth naa”

“No, no, no one here” –

Retrieved from behind the slab

 

A beautiful lady –

Brimming with love –

Holding me –

Calming my fears

Oh, Golden July…

Sri Lanka black july

It’s more than two decades

Since we were compelled to hurriedly leave idyllic Nilaveli

Hoping to return soon (a forlorn hope!);

Then, after ages and ages

A ceasefire was declared;

Everybody was eager to see Trincomalee, especially

The beautiful beaches of Nilaveli

 

So, we too set forth one sunny day

It was heart-rending to actually see the devastation;

Tears pouring down my face

We looked at the place

We had called home for almost a decade

Reduced to rubble, trees sprouting through

The remaining buildings

Of what was left of the formally

Beautiful Moonlight Beach Hotel

Which when he took charge of,

Many many moons ago, my husband used to

Proudly say “My baby”……

nilaweli-sri-lanka-poems

This Sri Lankan poem is about Nilaveli (Pronounced Nilaa-Veli), a world famous tourist destination located about 20 kilometers North-West of Trincomalee, Trincomalee District, Sri Lanka. In Tamil, Nilaveli means Open-land of the moon-shine. It is one of the places you must see if you are visiting Sri Lanka.

I remember a visit to Jaffna

In the month of April, 1983

 

Rumbling of hostile undercurrents,

Feelings of strange unease

Seeping through our communities

Did not prevent our hosts

From inviting us, nor us from accepting,

For between us flowed

Only currents of friendship and trust

we make in chatempanada.com.

 

Memories linger of vegetarian meals

Served hot from the stove

By our dutiful hostess

First to her husband, then to us

sri-lanka-tamil-food

Sri Lankan Tamil peoples’ food