THE TROOPS DEVURING A BIG CITY

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by deebachelvan

the days of carrying
Your baggages
have come again
the troops encircling
the big city
return with corpses.

what load are you carrying
on my old bicycle?
I left it the day
the troops entered
now you are using it
to cart my belongings.

the day snakes surrounded
the margosa tree
the day the mango tree
shed bullets
the courtyard was riddled
by firing.

the kid which lost its mother
in the shelling
is crouching
in the hole
under the guava tree.

since yesterday
the troops have been
gnawing the city
in whose dust
you used to roll

the town
where I used to roam
on my bike
has lost the feet
with no space to loaf
the paths under seege

float in the jungle
heads glued to baggages.

in the lakes
leading to our homes
lie the carcasses
of cattle
wells lie closed.

the tank approaches
bulldozing the recently
built town
the bagger
the pipelines
and the power supply
in the sky appears.

not the sun
but the heli
the dawn corree
through the smoke
rising from the bombs
oblivious of your wandering
without even water
I exist.
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18.09.2008

THE OPERATION AFTER THE RESPITE

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by deebachelvan

you’re tired
using the lone phone
in the deserted city
dialing numbers
the calendar and the clock
on the mud-wall
of the roofless house
lie turned.

your very last hope
is dying out
under the poovarasu tree.
you’re counting the days
of your return
on the abandoned gates
and the belongings left behind.


couldn’t figure out
a word from your lament
but your language
was mutilated
in the president’s UN speech
as the sounds of the wail
and the pavements you
trudged on.

are interpreted as laughter
heads nod
finding the fowl
and the chicks left behind
dead
the bats hanging upside down
weep.

everyone evacuated the city
by yesterday.

the hungry boy who chased the UN
(relief) vehicle
was detained at the
oman thai checkpoint
your hunger was written
on the flour bag
that hid the bomb.

you look up
as if the sky has deceived you
not realizing
that your time is up
with the resumption
of army operations
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THE CITY’S CONDEMNED CHAIRS

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by deebachelvan

there was love of life
there were dreams about flowers.

after demolishing
the walls of this town
the announwment
about the burial of the houses
as dreams about flowers wither
the solution is reached
by smashing the rows of chairs

when the procamation
to demolish
the flower growing city
was announced
the ancient great walls trembled.

in the blasted glass mansions
consecrated to bombers
lie broken tables
still wet with
tea stains.

when everyone had gone
leaving the chairs broken
the neighboring mango trees
fell down, broken.

the rules of the war game
kept changing
being revised often.

in the mansions erected
at the end of the third war
lay hidden
the fourth war
that would demolish them.

02
in the hospital
at the centre of the city
which experienced
showers of shelling
the injured patient’s moan
encapsulated.

the wail of a population
while the flowers’ dreams.

are supposed to vanish
with this city
its citizens deaths
and the slain fighters
the nation dances
to the rolling war drum.

the time all are declared terrorists
the remaining flowers wither
and the order given
to destroy the city
in the broken arms of chairs
sprout arms.

there was love of life
there were dreams about flowers.
------------------------------------------
05.10.2008