The murder of a writer
By Basil Fernando
(A poem for Lasantha Wickramatunga)
I do not cry
for Lasantha
my tears are for you
Lanka, Lanka
Of the real ugliness
Lasantha wrote
his death
told it all
Surrounding a car
gunmen and guards
hunted a man
and revealed the nation
speech connects citizens
silence kills the nation
Lanka, Lanka
death now is your game.
Mahawweli,Kelani,Walawe
polutted rivers
carries to the seas
your shame
Shed not Lanka
crocodile tears
have remorse
for letting your children die.
You held the gun
you killed the pen
Lanka, Lanka you made
the land go barren
I do not cry
for Lasantha
my tears are for you
Lanka, Lanka
Solidarity
By Basil Fernando
There was an old star
That never slept
And there was a younger star
That always wept
The younger one asked the older
“why do you never sleep?”
Older star asked in turn
“why do you always weep?”
The younger star told the older
“I had a mum and she is no more,
So I weep.
Now tell me why you don’t sleep.”
Older star told the younger star
“I once had a daughter
I have her no more
Ever since, I cannot sleep.”
That day the older star
and the younger star
became friends
talked ,talked and talked
So now the older star sleeps well
and the younger star smiles so often
Dilemma of the against people
By Victor Karunairajan
Everywhere we find the against people
Nightmare to others when they relate
Scourge unto themselves they are too
Being against is their mind and nature.
What does make these against people?
How I hunger to know their thoughts
They think, behave and act most oddly
E’en when faced with minimal matters.
They are among us Tamils and Sinhalese
Muslims, Burghers and Malay folks too
For thirty terrible blood-splashing years
We thrust our land into chaotic doom.
Hatred has no class or communal divide
For Tamils hate Tamils Sinhala likewise
Tamils hate Sinhalese, they too as well
The is factual for other Sri Lankans too.
What really causes such a terrible state!
I do wonder whether it’s our own ego
Determines for ever our frame of mind
Maybe ignorance or lack of confidence
What should we do with against people?
Keep them, love them and or trust them
And award them chances to come clean
Banished of ghosts that do power them!
Surely I do not like the against people
But they are us too, ours, kith and kin
They all have civil rights and liberties
As much we do wherever we are too.
What such against people need to do
Accept we are all their kindly beings
And this land of ours and wide world
Is our own great eternal inheritance.
We have to protect and cherish them
For our own many generations to be
Over years, epochs, and eons of time
Thus we ought not be against people.
