'Pathunku Kuzhiyil Pirantha Kuzhanthai’ (poems of deebachelvan) poem book was released on 12 of January 2009 by kalachuvadu in Chennai book fair. # four poems are Translated on deebam english site. # "The war begins from the Childen’s dreams" poem was Translated in some days ago on deebam english site.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

THE DREAM INFINITE OF THOSE NO MORE

A Poem by Deebachelvan titled
ILAADHAVARGALIN ALAVATRA KANAVUGAL
Translated into English by latha ramakrishnan

___________________________
They with Great Dream
kissed Death
In the end we don’t have even
tombs filled with their memories
The mothers have lost their torches
along with their sons and daughters
Wives have lost along with their smiles
their words on the tomb too.
With innumerable memories of the dream
the sky weighs heavy, looking crest-fallen.

No flowers bloomed this time
With blood oozing out of the leaves,
the roots of the flowery-trees had been torn apart
Banging the heads against the electric-post
The heart calls out to those who are no more
Sucking out the Dream and taking it off
The world has finished devovouring them.

The Elegy written on them
lies inside fire and turning to ashes.
This Day they declare
as having wiped them out completely.
The child which comes carrying a torch in its hand
digs the sand
searching for the tomb.
Even the last priced possession of our Memory
they had erased with utmost haste.
And even the right and the day to cry had been snatched
away by them
In the hearts
tombs are surfacing everywhere

Somewhere in a remote corner the Dream is raging and burning
and pouring down.
In the deserted land
Abandoned and so full of terrible wilderness
skeletons filled with the great sorrow of History
Rise up and move on.
Turning the soil upside down
the walls of the tombs
having words of heroism written on them
are further pushed inside, deep down.
The war of tombs have come to an end.
With the people their tombs too
are wiped off.

None have flowers
None have tombs
The torches extinguished keep wandering everywhere
The photographs of courageous faces have all been
dissolved.
People have been betrayed.
The warriors were won over in the end.
This day is filled with abject defeat.

From the great land where
the Dream was nourished and nurtured
the stench of the burial ground
where the gruesome genocide had taken place
gathers and shrouds everything all too suffocating.
------------------------------

THE WORDS DRENCHED AND DAMPENED IN A RAINY VILLAGE


A poem by Deepachelvan titled
MAZHAIK-KRAAMATHIL NANAINDHU OORIP POENA SORKKAL
Translated into English by latha ramakrishnan
__________________
With words stiff and frozen
the Rain is bathing in the people.

They have retrieved the
body of the little girl
who had breathed her last
buried inside the makeshift shit-pit.
The water-fetching containers
keep floating in Kallaaru River.
The Rain is drenching the
Relief –Village fully.
With waters filling inside the tents
children remain floating.

The remote forest-village
turns into a wilderness of Rain.
The thorny wires are swept away.
Washing the tired face
the Rain is filling it to the brim.


The lads who were previously
playing in the open ground
are standing huddled, away from the downpour.
The tents are floating in the water
With the rice-pot breaking and falling
the earthen stove
dissolves and
ceases to be.

The heart has turned frozen
The tent moves towards the hollow ground
Mother’s feet
that run after the utensils
which are being swept away
in the canal water
are getting stuck in the wet-sand

The waters that have washed the floor
have wandered through the
thorny wires
and have filled the village
as a pond.
Words getting drenched
remain bloated with water
All the six villages are getting
buried inside the mud and slush.
----------------------
13.09.2009
Chettikulam Detention Camp villages

Thursday, November 12, 2009

THE DISCUSSION ON WAR-TIME INCIDENTS

Deepachelvan’s Poem
Translation of his poem in Tamil titled
யுத்தகால நிகழ்வுகளின் கலந்துரையாடல்
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

________________________________
About Our War-Time incidents
They are going to discuss.
No one has committed any crime _
This is what all Enquiries say.
The children know everything.
Even the most brutally cruel nights
They call snow-covered
The hands of all do have
criss-cross lines of blood-stains.

Whether they had properly handled
the weapons
Whether they had deftly thrown
the bombs
Whether they are aptly positioned_
So, all the Commissions keep
enquiring.

All the Enquiries
that collect and hold
the blood oozing out of
the Tables of Democracy
are tricky; vicious.
In the Land for which
the boon of children is banned
They bring laws
against their rights to live.
How brutally cruel the
War-time incidents
was revealed by children
narrated, weeping,
with blood-stained faces
and deeply wounded voices.
No one seems to have
any intention of
withdrawing the Forces.

They manufactured Claymores
for all generations to come;
Bombs, for all cities
and Atom-bomb against
the very Earth itself.
it is Guns that keep wandering
against all the people.
They so brutally ruined
the World of Children.
Forever War goes on
in some corner.
Somewhere children, terror-struck,
are hiding as the
very personification of fear.

All Enquiries and Commissions
without exception
list out the victories
gained in war.
Exchanging cups they throw open
even more war-zones.
They hang on,
pondering over the ways and means of
creating Power-Structures.
They start probing the
‘Godown’, closed down
They instruct the soldiers
to have a firm hold on their riffles
that grow weak in their
hands.


In Iraq’s oil-wells
children are hiding.
The bombs thrown in Afganisthan
are still simmering
American Forces swell
and pervade
the entire world.

About our war-time incidents
They are going to discuss
For obtaining something,
and also to perform-
With smiles they gather in an
assemblage.

One and All so cleverly hide
the fact of
One and All being ‘War-Criminals.’
The Children know Everything.
---------------------------------------------------------
* America has declared that in connection with War-Crimes it is going to conduct an Enquiry on the former Army General of Sri Lanka, Sarath Ponseka,

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

YET AGAIN I HAVE LOST SEVERAL THINGS…

A Poem by Deebachelvan
Tranaslation of Deebachelvan’s poem in Tamil titled
MEELAVUM SILA PORUTKALAITH THAVARA VITTURIKKIREN
(மீளவும் சில பொருட்களைத் தவற விட்டிருக்கிறேன்)
Translated into Tamil by Latha Ramakrishnan


-----------------------------------------------------
I keep my things in a state of readiness
to carry them along at a given notice.
But, we were called at an unexpected late hour.
Indescribable illumination and joy
were standing tall in front
fading everything else.
The loudspeaker attached to the bus
which carried us along
announced that we were being taken
to our own household.
I saw the unbearable sight of
the land turned to ruins.

Last week, that too
on an evening
Nithilekha and her child
were taken in a wagon
for re-settlement.
All that she was to leave behind
she gave to me
I had to part with her dear child
which was so attached to me.

She had become accustomed
to forget her memories and to
bear anything.
She has forgotten the shock of
the way her husband had fallen a prey
to a shell en route.
She speaks everything to her child.
As she was confined on the
other half of my tent
I felt some relief.
That we could forget all memories
related to the War,
so she would always say.
That which I am unable to carry
I leave behind.

That we are still moving from
place to place
let not anyone disclose.
I keep my things in a state of readiness
to carry them along at a given notice.
We happen to migrate gladly
and sometimes come back with sorrow.
While returning, observing all routes
I am wandering
in places which could not be seen.
On the way I have lost several things.
The tent that had been uprooted
they had once again fixed.

Nithilekha is now detained in her School.
She would go to her ‘Kaani’
and return.
How nice are the dreams of homecoming-
we do know.
Nithilekha has talked a lot
about that with me.
This tent too, inclining,
sleeps with me.

These days I keep
telling tales of Land
that stands
all alone
where none remains.
Again they are distributing things free.

Yet, everything is in a state of readiness
to carry along at any given notice.

How many a longing and
anguish we have stuffed inside
our bag and baggage…
They untie the loudspeaker
and allow its
heat to subside.
------------------------------------
(30.10.2009)