Black Friday, Sunny Sunday
“Looking down
From this height,
Stiff as a stick,
Unable to move
I find it difficult to locate where the pain is
Because it’s all over.
This is not a time to think
But the thoughts pierce more than the nails.
It is pain that gives birth to thoughts
And I need to know why.
My God, my God……Why?
I fail though I try
To understand the numbing of the hand.
My ignorance pains me more than my wounds.
Can meaning come through
Nails in a piece of wood?
Why does pain hurt so much?
If there was no suffering
Would there have been any meaning?
In my passion I cry
For the pain of those who defy
The lies to believe
In those that do not deceive.
Carrying the burden of sorrows
With all the aches of pain
To this Friday’s end, I’m told,
Could raise dead flowers to life again.
The birds that circle over my head
Sense the foretold end of this Friday –
The closing time for the weekend
And my Death that is not far away.”
* * *
“In the distant hills, I see
Shepherds lying down
In green pastures, beside the still waters
Beyond that is the valley of the shadow of death.
Down the Appian Way to Rome
Bleeding crosses on both sides remind
Those going home in chariots
That there will be no end to the pain
Of all things to come.
Armies are moving with the times
To glorify the history of their crimes.
Rulers make decisions
On the popular will
To fill the day with thrills and spills.
Plagued by cries of public lies
Confused leaders ask:
“What is truth?”
If they can’t understand it
No amount of telling will explain it.
Words do not lead to meaning.
Words that hang in the air
Can also hang you in the air.
Words can let the guilty go free.
Words can nail the truth to death.
Remember the Word
That brought meaning in the beginning
To fill the space of time without an ending.”
Nothing has come so far
To replace what was lost
On the last eve of Easter.
And the Second Coming
Has been the wait for the letter
That was never posted.
It has been the wait for the delivery man
That never arrived with goods in the van.
It has been a tryst of one without the other.
Besides, if the First Coming
Didn’t make much of a difference
What can the Second Coming do?
“Tell me, why I should come again
When the First Coming did not ease the pain?
Tell me, why I should come again
When my wounds are still bleeding in vain.”
After the grim and uneasy Friday
Sunny Sunday is not far away.
****
Caterpillar
All flesh is green
For the fat caterpillar
Advancing on the surface
Of a lotus leaf
Like an army
Marching on myriad legs
Conquering the lush leaf
All the way.
A vulnerable lotus stands alone
Opening its looks to the sun.
I feel for the lotus.
I can relate to it
I see no difference
We both have our roots in the mud
And live at both ends,
Between the beautiful and ugly,
Between the pure and the dirty.
I derive my looks and strength
From the dregs drawn from the depths
And I shudder
Watching the caterpillar
Crawling towards me
On the surface.
****
Parted lovers
I will not send kisses written on paper
They are drunk on the way before it gets to the receiver.
I will not send kisses by post or emails
For ghosts to hail and drink my sweet ale.
I can wait – I have patience to wait –
Till I meet my mate
And grab her hair
And paste her against the wall, almost in despair,
And lay my lips upon her lips
And suck them till they drip and drip
With the love we missed
Since we both last kissed.
Mouths have no better words
Than kisses to join and gird
Parted lovers meeting again.
Parted lovers are born again
When they twine to gain
The loss of time and pain.
They are born again
On cushions made of clouds to sail
Across skies without sails.
Our feet don’t touch the earth.
We don’t move we drift towards a new birth
Where we feel the breath of a blank whiteness
Cool as a block of the Arctic seamless.
H. L. D. Mahindapala