THE LAND BUTCHERED

A POEM BY Deepachelvan in
Thamizh titled KOLAIYUNDA NILAM[கொலையுண்ட நிலம்]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

After the entire stretch of Land has been captured
The roots of dreams are sought to be destroyed.
In walls pierced by shells
In houses eaten away by bombs
In fields demolished by aircrafts
Dream sprouts from wounds.

In the maimed land so barren
The tomb-stones of Buddha forcibly broken
and brought forth
become the walls.
With Poovarasam trees killed
Arasamaram is planted
the land which escapes the hand and is oozing out
The sleeping children
Grasp in their hands and retain
The land drenched - oh, when will it dry?

Fences Walls and Roofs
grow differently
and annihilate the Land.
In this time when guns go grazing the land
the lives buried for the sake of Land
are on the verge of sprouting anew.

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IN THE CAPITAL CITY THE GHOSTS EAT THE MOUNTAINS

A poem by Deebachelvan in Thamizh titled
THALAI NILATHIL MALAIGALAI THINNUM PEIGAL
[தலை நிலத்தில் மலைகளை தின்னும் பேய்கள்]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

The mountains too remain fallen.
So does the Land.
Can’t wash the face in the pond
Ghosts remain with eyes closed in the lotuses
Wandering without vision we go
banging against the ghosts and fall down.

A mammoth ghost is sitting on ‘Trincomalee’.
The king has ordered the ghosts to eat the capital land
daily.
And, in this time when the ghosts eat so and revel,
dancing in the capital city
Faces wither, unable to bear the ugliness of it all.

In the ancient city there is none.
Those who had been chased away
from the all-beautiful city
are yet to return from refugee camps.
In the City of Mountains, under the mountains
the ghosts sleep with cunning schemes.
Slicing the mountains and land they send it to the King

In the shade of Buddha who keeps wandering
with his feet on the mountains
the Buddhist Flags fly.
In the streets where Sinhalese is being applied
the towns being killed and converted into new ones.
With our faces go rotting along with our eyes
in the pond where eyes sprout, riffles swim.

With Butham Saranam craving cruelly to eat away
the Sacred Land
The ships that steal the mountains surround the sea-port.
In the ‘Mahavali’ river ghosts come in boats and settle.
Our lives thrown into Maavilaaru drowned deep into the sea.

The flag of the ghosts that are eating the flag of our fort
has covered, along with the State, the capital city also.
With dream never-ending becomes the delicious food of ghosts
the mountains with the people of the ancient land
where the flag swayed fell off.
and the State too.

27.02.2011

CHILDREN ARE BEING BORN IN THE LAND THAT CAN’T BE DONE AWAY WITH

English Translation of Deepachelvan’s poem in Thamizh Titled ‘ KOLLA MUDIYAADHA NAATTIL KUZHANDHAIGAL PIRAKKIRAARGAL [கொல்ல முடியாத நாட்டில் குழந்தைகள் பிறக்கிறார்கள்] Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan


Yesterday also some children were born.
They cry
They laugh aloud, making a hell of a noise.
The children keep growing
The children view this Land
with their eyes.
Swinging and swaying their hands
they begin to walk with their legs
in the Land that cannot be done away with.
Even after a hundred-thousand had been dead and gone
the children of those maimed
are being born hale and healthy.
These children
start speaking straightaway.
Questions in thousands unasked by me
would gush forth out of them.
And they would see those aspects of life
that my eyes have failed to see.
They will earn their Liberty.
For, they are born as the seedlings of the
Land that cannot be done away with.

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PLACE

English translation of Deepachelvan’s poem
in Thamizh titled IDAM[இடம்]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

Always I remain non-being
As an animal wandering in the woods
with no place of its own
As a bird roaming around in the great grand sky
having no place
I fall upon the Directions
And upon the galaxies too.
All my belongings have been thrown away
In the photographs that lie with no wall
the decaying memories keep flying away.
I have lost my antiques; archives
Nothing I have collected; stored
In this Great Grand Earth
I remain without a place of my own.

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GHOST CITY GHOST TOWN

Translation of Deepachelvan’s poem in Thamizh titled
‘PAEI NAGARAM PAEI OOR’ [பேய் நகரம் பேய் ஊர்]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

Ghosts destroy the City and the Town
Sitting atop the broken houses
they eat the walls turned debris
They keep going inside the holes made of bullets and
surface.
In the house deprived of the smoke of cooking
the odour of ghost becomes all pervading.
With the tales written with charcoal-pieces by the Ghosts
Our city and town remain shell-shocked.
No children
No bicycles
No bullock-carts.
Blocking the way to all
the Ghosts reign supreme.
Converting all places into Ghost City and Ghost Town
climbing atop the destroyed buildings
with the delirious dances that the Ghosts dance
our Land remains shaken to the core.

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CAPITAL PUNISHMENT ANNOUNCED BY THE MURDERERS

A Poem by Deepachelvan in Thamizh titled
KOLAYAALIGAL ARIVITHULLA MARANA THANDANAI
[கொலையாளிகள் அறிவித்துள்ள மரணதண்டனை]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan


The feet of buffaloes that carry along ‘Iyami’
who keeps throwing the noose
that is ever thirsty to taste the necks
stamp on
and destroy us.
With a lakh skeletons buried inside a headgear,
in a lone tomb
is created the dream of an entire populace.
With a cruel smile
the murderers have announced capital punishment.
Red pieces entwine into many a noose.
Plucking out the eyes of the race, that
lie writhing, with undeclared capital punishments
‘Kombarasi’ is eating them to her heart’s content.

The nooses keep swallowing those voices
which when kept inside prisons well-covered
come out piercing through the iron-bars.
With hunger that remains raging even after the killing spree
‘Iyami’ dances deliriously.
Fixing the time,
killing and feeding on-
in the nooses of those murderers
We are being wasted away.

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THE MOTHER OF THE ERA OF TEARS

Translation of Deepachelvan’s poem in Thamizh titled ‘KANNEER YUGATHIN THAAI [கண்ணீர் யுகத்தின் தாய்] Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

With children lost and wandering
when the light went out of the Earth
the Mother of an Era had died.
The Earth trembled in shock unbearable.
In an Era where children weeping non-stop
for their mothers
shedding tears torrentially_
a House turns heavy.
In the walls built by the mothers
Dreamy visuals criss-a-cross
The foot-prints that prove elusive to the fingers
of Mother who wash the ground
anguish faraway.
Sorrow swelled to the brim in the hearth.
When a hundred-thousand children
lost their mothers
a hundred-thousand mothers
lost their children.
Who has cursed the world where Mothers weep,
turning into hapless children?
Oh, who is it that gives the Mothers
children burdened with fear_
eyes filled with longing_
words writhing in pain_
face, tear-spread_
Time-sorrow-struck….

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THE SHADE OF PEACE

A poem of Deepachelvan in Thamizh titled ‘AMAIDHIYIN NIZHAL’ [அமைதியின் நிழல்]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

When death becomes the weapon to kill and silence
All and sundry begin to battle
People would bring in again
the shade of peace someday.
In times of darkness
I pen these words
When you wipe your war clean
and chase away the shady dominance
light would spread on this land.
Oh, this unfortunate era
comes to a close without seeing the shade of peace
full of flowers blooming,
without blood-shed and wounds.
How lovely it would be?

THE LONG PASSAGE AND A CUP OF TEA

A Poem by Deebachelvan in Thamizh titled
‘PERU VAZHIYUM ORU KOEPAI THAENEERUM’
[பெரு வழியும் ஒரு கிண்ணம் தேனீரும்]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

In the long passage how many thousands of people
kept on moving…
None had cups
Time held the sorrows
Those who were returning and migrating _
what at all they could share?
The roads that spread across thousands of miles_
Wherefrom they were created and how?
In the town where nothing save the remains of destruction
exist
machines were sown.
At the end of endless wandering
the people had been mortgaged for a cup of water.
Mother remained all hungry
Loads became dried up
Turning weak, on the verge of falling down on her land
She asked for a cup of water;
And also, a way out of the barbed wire.
In the night shrouding the Land,
from beyond a thousand miles
came I running, with a Cup of Tea.

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THE LAND WHERE BIRDS HAVE FALLEN

English translation of Deepachelvan’s poem in Thamizh

titled PARAVAIGAL VEEZHNDHA NILAM

[பறவைகள் வீழ்ந்த நிலம்]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

Till how long I would be singing of Land alone?
Till the time I am uprooted
Till the time I keep the land safely held in the hands of children
I would go on singing the Land alone.
In the woods of birds
the children have kept hidden the words of the Land.

Today in that soil
with the birds falling down, writhing in pain
alien clans have planted themselves.
The children who keep searching for some birds
still to be hanging suspended from those trees
felled and wounded
keep Falling into the Pits-Politics of Land-Grabbing.

When we were being chased away from the Land
all the birds too had fallen.
The alien-clans that eat the heart of the soil
swallowed the seas.
The lions that entered as machines hunted down the Land.

With the tales written by the feet pressed afresh
on the seashore
the fish of the boy’s pond
suffered a painful death.
In the villages vanquished with foreign names
Peace is being eaten away by the wisdom of Buddha.
Even after having experienced the worst
and have come to fall
the children keep singing
the songs of our Soil.
How can I remain silent
without singing our children’s loss of the land?

DEMONS DEVOVOUR THE CHILDREN

A poem by Deepachelvan in Thamizh titled ‘KUZHANDHAIGALAI THINNUM BOODHANGAL [குழந்தைகளைத் தின்னும் பூதங்கள்] Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

Deleting the tales read by children which know not anything but fear
the cruel Demons come and shake the very Life.
The Demons that drink blood slice off the breasts
that nurse the children
and swallow them in one gulp.
The Devils search for kids too along with the Land
and swallow them.

In order to pluck away the eyes of little children
hiding the army uniform and the red leather-box
and wearing cruel attires,
with razor-edged knives fixed to the nails
the Demons sought entry into the world
and floated.

With acts yet unknown regarding the Demons
the children are terrorized more and more.
The kids fear visualizing the demons
near the compound wall and behind it
and behind the door too,
devovouring the houses without a care.
With the demons that reside inside the well
and turn delirious by the hour
the children spend their time
in hunger and horror.

The demons that spring from the seats of power and dominance
that dance in frenzy
rise up in full view of us and go out of sight.
With the Demonl reigning supreme the devils wander
With Devils on the throne the demons have a hay day.

In the street where the Demons wander in hunger unleashed
throats lie slit and cut.
The Demons that along with blood gulp words too
climb up the trees and hide themselves,
from where they shake everything along with
the land.
Demons that no mothers nor children had ever seen nor read
Oh these children are cursed to come face to face.

THE ‘SENKAANTHAL’ FLOWERS

A poem in Thamizh by Deepachelvan titled *SENKAANTHAL BLOSSOMS [செங்காந்தள் பூக்கள்] Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

When the stones with Memory bloomed upon
were uprooted and broken
Our Land swayed.
With the Land burnt
the tombs were smashed.
For those who had fought for a Life denied and
breathed their last
a resting place was refused.
Despite the mammoth Demon
entering into the Land and devovouring the roots
the trees which couldn’t be done away with
begin to sprout again.
In the corners of our dwellings
and at the lanes of our streets
over the cities
and in the villages
the fountain of light springs
In the Land where the Light is extinguished
lamps glow.
When the live trees were being felled
the mothers’ hearts were on fire.
Time keeps swirling.
In the Land sabotaged
the Senkaanthal blossoms have surfaced.