Two Poems
by Chandi Sinnathurai
Terroristic Practice
You torture my mind
And treat me as de-human
You kill me daily
Handing me an AK47 and a hand grenade
You tell the world that I'm a " Tamil terrorist"
Hence I was shot dead: you lie.
No Court of Appeal
None so far,
I lie dead as a door knob
My Blood pleads for justice!
The Bishop refused to speak out
When I offered myself in the Cathedral
As a bleeding Eucharist.
A symbol of resisting evil.
The Court is full of jesters
And the lawyers are greedy bastards
I lie dead in peace;
While my blood pleads for justice!
The prostitutes speak the truth
Much eloquently than the destitute
The poor die the death of horror
In the hands of rapist rascals.
The bar-tenders deal in Molotov cocktails
The pimpernels and pen-pushers
Bargain their corner in blood money
Neglected truth gives up the ghost with cuts and bruises.
Screwed up vagabonds and armchair pundits
Whisper wayward-words in secret chambers
Public Conscience is languishing
On a life-long rigorous imprisonment.
Anarchists sing their melodies
In blood-soaked street corners
Truth could be heard in their lyrics
But none would listen to these unauthorized voices.
The Media would publish stories only with their slant.
Written off Napkins wipe the lipstick
With the Nicotine arm patch .
Freedom of speech?
What is it? In a dog-eat-doggy-bone world of politics?
No court of appeal
The chief-jester is gone on tranquilizers.
I rest my case under my beloved natal soil
Unperturbed, my spirit locates Liberation.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oriana Fallaci
With passion
You spoke;
For the repressed and the oppressed.
With fire in your belly
You wrote;
You lived with brutal honesty.
You were a prophet with elegance...
Even with the audacious atheistic bent.
You mocked at hypocrisy
Scoffed at the scoundrels
who came your way in various stripes
with pretence of "intellectual bull-shit."
Your politics was truth-telling
Reckless at times in courting controversy!
Even that meant you might be killed by a hit-man.
None could silence your voice of reason.
With razor sharp intellect,
depth of compassionate fearlessness
Poesy and protest; logic and critical analysis
You were the steel.
The iron.
Gone through the fire of the furnace.
You remained forever young
And have gone when the storm clouds are gathering.
You will be seen lightening the pregnant skies
And the showers will follow after the thunder.
------------------------------------------------
Journalist- Author July 29,1929 - September 15, 2006.
Oriana countered the Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy of false politeness. "I am the judge," she argued, "I am the one who decides. Listen, if I was a painter and I was doing your portrait, have I or haven't I the right to paint you as I want?"
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