as I move
on to the tip of my nose
they surface with gills made of spoons
stirring the broth they live in
no wonder I can’t see the bottom
this neon identity
from surface to surface
a flamboyant centipede
my breath makes beads
nose tip against nose tip
staring at each other
facing so many
I put my hand against the facade
and distorts my own self
looking
in to me
Image and poem © Malintha Perera 2016
Buddhist Poetry Quarterly Magazine (Binara Poya Issue), 27 Sept 2015
Read on line :
http://issuu.com/buddhistpoetry/docs/bp_sept_2015_issue
Download :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jj1glt1oxongixr/bp%20sept%202015%20issue.pdf?dl=0
those moments
when even the water disappears
dragging us through the cracks
your mind falls apart
wood piece by wood piece
to sawdust
even the tears desert us when we want
that moistness
at those moments
let the body be the body
formations be formations
and use even those few moments
to go beyond drought
so that you will not return
as a passenger
to tread any waters again
©Malintha Perera 2015
Watch them sink
between the ripples
Do you remember how
we used to trample their foam
when they were frothing
helpless on the shore ?
We watched them hanging on
to our sand castles
knocking them down
as they went
and we laughed
as they were dragged back
“They are just being themselves”, you said
What’s so different now ?
c.r. Malintha Perera 2015
words
can never be traced
their curves
will lead you to many doors
down corridors
painted portraits
ancestors with wide brimmed hats
and long mustaches
their eyes will swallow your
true meaning
it will be like crushing yourself
when you refuse to look into their eyes
brushing aside
looking through the spaces
words
really don’t mean what they say
forgive them
and don’t be afraid to erase
c.r. Malintha Perera 2015
Always in our search
for an audience
Down roads
dragging along a stretched out note
So many like us
we meet and part
The notes remain untouched
And when the time comes
at the river
and it’s time to sink the instruments
We will look at them
and would want to play so badly
the final chords
But they would sound hollow
and would sink
very quickly
And we will go much quicker
A stone crafted by moss.
©Malintha Perera 2015
it’s the same thing
even if you travel
through a path full of wild flowers
listening to the bees
gathering nectar
it’s the same thing
you are not free from the chains of hell,
you will again take shelter inside a womb,
it’s not the walks that we take
or where we take them
the point is
they are all thoughts
and there is no one that claims them
other than a ready made self
where are the scissors ?
©Malintha Perera 2015
A mere reflection
and even that is not myself.
A self is a tree
and my
are its leaves.
The form bursts.
I continue to breathe the stars.
©Malintha Perera 2015
Sometimes it’s a walk through the gothic forest
and my cape would get caught
and the wind would wheeze through the holes, torn
by fleshless thorns.
Shreds of my starched cloth caught among their fingers
would flutter like hearts that of butterflies
who had been forced to leave them behind.
The bats overhead gliding above me
from tree to tree would marginally miss me
and that would be my excuse to bend
and grasp a handful of parched leaves.
Some would prick my hands
when I hide them inside the pockets
buried in my long gown
and I would not mind
and I would smile at stealing
a small part of the overgrown woods.
When at last I reach home I would crush
the sand clung leaves
with a rolling pin
and burn in my wide metal dish, humming a soft song
blowing here and then
the mist out of the smoke
and out of myself,
those the parts
the light had missed.
©Malintha Perera 2015
They flutter their wings
inside its space
and lift their heads
between the lines,
turning,
circling,
the invisible self
and yet we think too much
giving wings
for the wind.
©Malintha Perera 2015
BuddhistPoetry 