Poetry

Tissa

Can't bear you're dead
Don't hear you're dead
Flood of tears within
An intellectual gap
Atop visionary lap
Leaves me benumb breathless
With hoards of words countless

E.M.G. Edirisinghe

The gaze

We stood there, I remember vividly, waiting by the gate,
Chatting merrily about the good old days;
The start of our friendship, a splendid twist of fate,
Which made me a poet, penning romantic lays.
I watched your brownish eyes, my ever-loving mate,
Like those gallant heroes in Shakespearean plays,
And heeding your sweet words warbled with delight,
Wondered in fear if our happiness time should blight;

First, you looked me straight in the face and then you looked down,
Again you'd look up at me, and after that would blink.
You'are real beauty, I knew, and the greatest flirt in the town,
'Still, you're an inviolate dove', I'd always think;
And I remembered how I first saw you dressed in light brown,
And how our hearts, through words and glances, with each other did link;
Yet, scanning your eyes to find out if love was really there,
I fathomed but little in your penetrating glance, so strange and rare.

Again locking your eyes in mine and trying your glance to construe,
Certain was I, I wasn't going to fail,
But felt I was mistaken and wrong as my disappointment grew;
As the clouds of despair, my heart, continued to veil;
Your gaze is an enigma, a great enigma my belief I started to prove,
But soon, very soon, I found it all so strange a tale,
That versifying it, even today, I deeply ponder,
Over its depth and beauty and intensity and wonder!

Jayashantha Jayawardhana

Intrepid sons

 In the so called impregnable domains of the LTTE
Our victorious troops consolidated their stable position,
Most decisive victory our heroes have yet achieved;
Depriving the terrorists of Killinochchi, Mulaitivu and Puthukudurippu

Our strategy and tactics have won the cruel battle field
Forcing the brutal LTTE retreat and headlong flee,
Hoist and let flutter the Lion Flag and the flags Regimental,
While the accursed assissins be hoisted with their own petard

Show the separatists your inherent valour my intrepid sons!
My lions of valour !! your courage is inestimable, nonparils
Behold the grievous havoc carried out by these hideuos savages
Against the Nation and its innocent civilians as well.

Sanguinary battles we have fought since the era Dutugemunu
Crest-fallen, after a Sisyphean Assay for three decades long
Present day Elara flees, equipping you with modern armaments galore
And leaving behind his underground castles and equipments invaluable.

Search for his lair and offer him some Podu-Kudu-Parippu
Or let him have recourse to a usual capsule cyanide
If not, let him surrender and face an execution public
Failing which,coup-de-grace and Nishprabhakaran...Finale

Had it not been for our President Valiant
This final battle might have not begun
Hence, all the honours of these glorious victories
We lavishly bestow on the present day Gemunu
Mahinda Rajapaksa, His Excellency the President.

Jayaweera D. Gunarathne

Evening

I see the forest
In evening light
I hear the birds
Returning to nest
Above the green
Circling the sky
I see some bats
A large mass flying
When the sun
In red yellow haze
Challenge vehement
The impending night
Dark grey clouds
Hide many stars
The moon escapes
Until its time
To glow down at night
Sun disappears
Leaving light shades
Night emerge
The victor of a duel
As stars applaud
The moon queen reigns.

Miran Perera

Floating thoughts

As the blowing wind,
As blooming flowers,
From one place to another place,
Leisurely like a feather,
Float our thoughts.

Like a bright candle light,
Like a cold dark night,
With love, joy and kindness,
So purely like a dew drop,
Float our thoughts.
So let them float,
To the sadness and happiness,
But they'll bring new thoughts,
Which will..... Also float.

D.W. Lilani Anuruddhika

The Zoo

The zoo is a place
Where animals live,
With names
From the letters
In the whole alphabet,
The agile antelope
And the black Bear,
The enormous elephant
And the humble hippo,
The pink parrot
And the rampaging rhino,
Along with the zealous zebra,
Sit in their cages
And wait till we go by
With great patience,
They have not been
Turned into bags and shoes
True, but.....
Are they happy,
To be sitting in cages
Looking at the parade
Of humans that walk by
Day by day.

Nillasi Liyanage