THOSE LOST ON THE WAY, ON THE LAST DAY

This day is miserably brimming with
the tales of lambs that have been lost on the way.

This Radio* is broadcasting the Programme which still keeps searching
for those who had lost their way.
Every mother laments in that Programme wailing
“Oh, how did you slip through my grip and fell off?...”
From that last day till date
your Mother** is searching for you**.
The shirt I have, in your memory,
How can that be advertised in any journal?
And, another page of an other journal keeps on writing
about the tales of those frozen bodies of those
who had been lost along the way
just the way the photographs had been lost.

Another journal keeps enquiring after those lost,
with so full of letters…
Bringing letters filled with words of great sorrow
each week keeps arriving

All these letters read just hope that they would all return.
How would have been the cry of the child that had slipped and fallen
turned silent?
How would have been the night of the little girl
slipped from the grip and disappeared once and for all?
How would have been the path of the lad who had been lost all alone?
What would be the pain of the mother who has lost her children?
What would be the direction of the wife separated from her husband?
How would be the anguish of those forced apart from their brothers?

The letters loaded with the sorrow of those who have been
separated from all near and dear ones
keep swelling and weighing the density of Separation.
With questions that have no answers
the night lies there completely shattered.

The wait and the hope that they would return keep growing.
With the paths where they had been lost shutting down
the letters that underline the lasting separation dumped deep down
and the sand is poured upon and spread even.
Unable to disclose that none has returned
the Night Programme of Radio melts into a close.
And, for a letter written by someone lost
filled with words of hope and happiness
Your Mother keeps on waiting…

______________________________
09.12.௨00௯ * SURIYAN F.M, ** Gajaanandh’s Mother, *** Gajanandh, *** Sudaroli Weekly**** Mithran Weekly

A Poem by Deebachelvan in Tamil
titled IRUDHI NAAL VAZHIYIL THOLAINDH POENAVARGAL
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE DECLARATION OF WAR PURSUING THE YEAR

All the years
scatter just the empty nights alone.
Just like the yester year when I didn’t meet you
nor shared anything with you
this year is
lying in wait to come at midnight
and wake me up.

On the day when it was declared in advance that
War would destroy our village
and bring our dream to an end
all that have been captured so far
are going to be displayed.

In the space where You and I are
so easily ignored
and where War is drawing near,
stands writhing in pain
Our house sans celebration.

You , Our Words
and all the Spaces where we are to be
sharing them in joyous togetherness.
are being devovoured by a creeping serpentine
all too quietly.
The year is pursued in a hot chase
by the Declaration of War with further wanderings and displacements.
_____________________
14.04.2009
(This poem is for recollecting the yester year)

A Poem of Deebachelvan in Tamil
titled வருடத்தை தொடருகிற போரின் பிரகடனம்
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE SECOND DIOLOGUE ON THE STORY OF ‘APPAM’

You would always be reminding and recollecting the first dialogue.
On that semi-wall where cigarette pieces would be
neatly piled up in one corner
we had ever and again conversed
umpteen number of times.
Each night had in the end
made us converse with each other.
Your leg which would be carrying the Appams
and the evening when the flour for that would be ground
we have indeed lost.
as a result of the War we have lost our very lives.

In the stream that stands next to the tea-shop where we used to smoke
rows after rows stand the sediment of ash.
In our city which had developed by leaps and bounds
we used to go wandering
relishing bear.
When holding our glasses aloft
We used to sit there and share our experiences of selling the edibles
our city was glowing in
an enchanting light.
We have toiled for our city.
We have held it close to our heart.
When we used to sit behind those shops
deep in conversation
when we were hiding there
fearing the terrible air-crafts
You were close by my side.

My dear Friend, we had always been those
getting a good thrashing for the sake of cigarettes.
Just like all other things
now, our beautiful city is not there
for you to shout and sell the edibles;
nor your tasty Appams
and the cigarettes;
nor the evening hours when you would be
grinding the flour.
But, as the mega dialogue of our intimacy,
the cigarette infinite
you keep simmering inside .
In that debris of the semi-wall what have the cigarette –pieces turned to?
The War has destroyed everything.
Oh, we should not have lost you.
With you we have lost everything.

When it is said that your dead body, lying abandoned
had been identified by somebody
your second course of dialogue about Appam
begins all alone and
goes on and on and on…
Where did you get lost?

I wont be returning to the all too shattered city.
Will there be someone calling out and selling ‘Appam’?
Who at all would be waiting to buy them?
Every cigarette I light keep
burning for you.
The cup filled with liquor for you
is always there in front of me
____________________
08.09.2009. That, my very close friend SriGajanath, who was my dearest pal, one who was closer than all the others hailing from the city of Kilinochi had caught in the vicious attack of the final battle and breathed his last and that they had seen his corpse they say. Even after searching all the Detention camps it was not found anywhere.

A Poem by Deebachelvan in Tamil
titled APPATHIN KADHAI PATTRIYA IRANDAAVADHU URAIYAADAL
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE MONUMENT WHERE DREAM HAD SPROUTED

They have fortressed the Monument with terror
not allowing anyone to approach it
the Mothers who have buried their children
keep saying that in those burial-grounds
dreams keep surfacing, being pushed out.

All the Mothers pay their homage
To the Monument Tower
Where Souls reside.

The Monument of immensely terrible hunger
with Dreams sprouted
was shockingly damaged on a night.
Who destroyed it?
Oh, why?
In that night which still remains a mystery
the anguish and sorrow of Dream overflows.

On that very same night when those men
stealthily coming
had dragged away the children
this Monument had been damaged.
When that child, searching for its parents
cried in agony unbearable
the lap that cradled his dreams
was cruelly attacked and destroyed.

Who at all could forget the face
filled with the great grand hunger of Dream
In our cups full of hunger the torn flesh, broken bones
and clothes of our children alone
come to be.

To say that we are being killed again and again
there are absolutely no other words.
In the city where the children dread
the prospect of coming out, stepping into the street
in the bones, broken to pieces and thrown away
the fear-filled blood of the kids is wide-spread.

Destroying a dream
and strangulating a child
cause the same unbearable sorrow.
The Mothers come and see
The hunger of Dhileepan burning in the heart still.

_________________
A Poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled

KANAVU ARUMBIYIRUNDHA NINAIVIDAM

Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE SAND WHERE WORDS TURN DECOMPOSED

I am listening
Please speak
As it proves impossible to share
the way Sorrow keeps pouring and overflowing
in the woods with no words
I swallow the words that keep breaking into two
and turning decomposed.
Don’t mind me.
Keep telling about yourself
In the Woods sans words
My ears get filled up with sand.

Except the noise
of shells falling down
planes roaring above
gun-shots going on everywhere-
Absolutely no other sound at all.
Your phone-call.
The sand-dam surfaces.

Except being alive
there is nothing else.
Even the life reduced to half
the words getting decomposed come
one by one.
Except one or two words of yours
being scattered by shells
I have got nothing.
The sandy floor begins to burn.

In the conversation that hangs suspended midway
The fear for your safety resurfaces
From the moment you had disconnected
I keep waiting for your words
after the terrible battle.

The hollow sand opens its mouth all too wide.
How long I would be swallowing
my words being decomposed,
hiding myself from you?
The phone remains there weighing heavy.
The sand stirs up and blows.
__________________
(May 2009)

A poem in Tamil from Deebachelvan titled
SORKALL SIDHAIGIRA MANAL
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE IDENTIFICATION NUMBER

In a solitary island they have confined you.
The Identification Number stamped on the back
remains stuck on the thorny fence.
The watch-towers atop the trees
are going past myself.
In the spaces where the wind keeps wandering
endless vacuum keeps swelling.
In the house built of thorny-wires
the cock writhes and moans.
With the sky melting and filling up the rice-pot
You stir up the Hope of
living for the sake of children.
Of those streets and lanes that you know not
I won’t be saying anything.
Time is going past us all too hurriedly.

The thorny-fence is worn round
the child’s person, as attire..
While I was coming through the green fields
the usual shrieks of unbearable torture could be heard.
Many a penis and vagina keep floating
in the Sea-Lake
The watch-towers have thronged the old bridge,
devovouring it.

Caught between Night and Day
You are crushed and torn apart.
The Identity-Card is hanging in my neck.
In the relief-food that has come after a long time
You calculate the Modern Economy.
In the house with no walls wherein dust enters
The colonial cities
are coming and installing themselves.
Words are there still.
You leave without saying something.
Your words are piled up in the emptied cartridges
of the shells that have dumped us here in a heap
are neatly kept in rows.
The poem that you are unable to write -
Please read it to me.
Words keep pouring down behind.

When the time allotted for me gets over
the noise of the cock comes to be.
Now I recollect once again
The Identification Number of Yours.
_____________
(May 2009 )

A Poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled
MUTKAMBIGALIL PADIGIRA ADAIYAALA ILAKKAM
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE DREAM OF ARULLAMMAA WHO HAS WADED THROUGH THE SORROW-STRUCK SPAN OF TIME

In the face-to-face session with this old lady
who has lost all her precious times
in incessant and irreparable destruction
Words have turned frozen.
The dream of life that lies dormant in her voices
and her hunger that remains
non-satiated
She keeps telling again and again

AruLlammaa who had escaped from dreadful moments and returned
has her eyes filled with God.
In the Land of immensely deep perils
they have brought her times in a chair.
Arullammaa’s ever elongating prayers
grow bigger than the size of God.
The dream for Life remains frozen in the words of Life
that has come to its close with nothing but disappointments.

The tales she has in store
laden with the cruel experiences of War
And her body that has refused to
explode and scatter into bits
Her long, full-fledged life that has
refused to be silenced
keep nurturing never-ending dreams.
The old lady who has defied the War
keeps sharing with the kids
the Great Tale of Colossal Destruction
Arullammaa is speaking to the children about nothing else
but the unrealized dreams
______________

A poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled
THUYAR MIGUNDHA KAALATHI KADANDHA ARULLAMMAAVIN KANAVU
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

(Thanks: Pongu Thamizh)

THE GREAT LAND : WEARING ALL WOUNDS IT STANDS THERE SMILING

(A lot more news yet to be accessed lie there, buried deep in that Great Land)

Deaths that none have yet realized in full
Keep seeping on the seashore of Nandhi-Kadarkarai.
The cassettes that entwine all kinds of tortures in a long chain
The troops watch in their exclusive night Channels
as a great pastime.
In the great land captured by the accused and criminals
all that are desired are being carried out.


In the ground where men, holding tight their dreams
were so buried
they have planted the soldier who holds the gun
that reminds everything-
the soldier filled with venom and violence
keeps showing his gory face on all sides
of the Great Land

He keeps elaborating on his glorious tales
of defeating and annihilating the people of the land.
Splashing his victory song up above the sky
He drenches the whole land with it.
In the region where entry is prohibited to children
With Death oozing out and pervading
The demonic women having skeletons tied in their legs
keep performing their terrorizing dances.


Wherever the Emperor of the Song of Valour and Victory treads
Death and Blood are being felt.
With the voices murmuring and turning silent
everything is buried down under.
The soldier who is made to stand there by the Emperor
adorned by the garland of victory
Is busily giving out the tales of those fallen
and the ways in which they were made to fall
releasing their visuals in photographs

Wearing all wounds the Great Land stands there smiling.
_____________________
9.12.2009 (Thanks to Pongu Thamizh)

A poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled PERUNILAM: KAAYANGALAI ANINDHU PUNNAGAITHUK-KONDIRUKKIRADHU

Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

WHAT DO THE CHILDREN WANT?

The children have got their wide range of responses
from the query of the Emperor.
In the street elongated in a maze
all the children entwining their hands, ask
what the children want
Listening to the query
The Emperor responds saying
that it is the Time being offered by Him.
With he saying further that
it is prosperous and so full of Liberty and Equality
the Children begin their queries
from the very words of the Emperor.

The Emperor has applied his smile of absolute power
on all the syllables and words
and he turns towards the children
the face that turns them terror-stricken.
In the book designed by his numerous brains that
exploits and swindles the world of children
He speaks of children and children alone.

He who had snatched away and plundered everything
from the hands of children
He who has shaped the monstrous Time
that has plunged the children in terrible gloom
declares that he is going to gift the prosperous Time
of Cruelties to the kids.
The children know everything.

The children do not want
that Power that shrouds everything
and allow them to rot
all the while scattering on all sides
a Smile
The children do not want
the aims and objectives that
devovouring one’s natural self
imprisons with all too evil schemes
The children do not want
those thoughts that have gifted Curses
and destroyed Histories
and have become so wide-spread
The Emperor keeps wounding
the children’s tender hearts
with his responses
and their eyes
with his smile.

________________________

A Poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled

KUZHANDHAIGAL AASAIPADUVADHU ENNA?

Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE BOY WOULD COME BACK

Just the way his mother believes
Just the way his father and brother believes
Let us also believe that he would come back.
But, where are those ways today?
It was with many children
many little boys
that he had disappeared.

My dear friend!
The whole stretch of the Great Land
has tasted defeat
with the blood of children everywhere.
In the elegies and obituary-notes being written
all too unexpectedly
I had to write one for him too.
Having to write elegies for kids and little ones
causes pain unbearable as a terrible Curse.
That your words were waiting for him, I know

You were searching some detention camp
and some prison
running from one to other.
Someone had seen
his torn pants.
That the shells would swallow children
and kill them
That boy knew very well.
Witnessing all the deaths taking place
right in front of him
He remained terrorized to the core.

Will our little ones smile again?
In the land where he was dissolved
Ii what hues and shades will the flowers bloom
Hence forth?
Oh, where would he have taken and preserved
His face and smile?

My dear friend!
Please keep the books for him.
Completing all his exercises and home-work
He would return to class.
That he would return, retrieving all that had been kept hidden
Let us also believe.
____________________________
(To Dharmegan who was killed in the War)
A poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled
ANDHACH CHIRUVAN THIRUMBI VARUVAAN
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE PAGE THAT WAS KEPT CLOSED FOR THE BLOODY DIOLOGUE

A poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled

RATHAM VADIGIRA URAIYAADALUKKAAI MOODAPATTIRUNDHA PAKKAM
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan
___________________
O1

Though I thought of
writing down in some form of note
the all too secret a call
that shuts all the doors real tight
I wrote and sent it in a brief sms
which would reach belatedly
and I wiped off
the blood streaming down my face
in utter secrecy

covering everything with the help of very thick ‘padangu’
I remain quiet, not revealing any of the
actions being initiated against me.

For three hours networking was closed.
Yet again I searched for
Real dense words.

That the drawings in our ancestral house
and the big bold words engraved there
are indeed very peace-loving
- so I have told them.
All the telephone-calls that came my way
I was sending back.

Hereafter nothing will be told to you
Through these Poems.
The dialogue that I had in that blood-sucked and dried-up carpet
The blood that flowed in the words and lost for ever
I have no intention of sharing any of those things.
This page wherein the explanation is to be given
remains empty.

02

My friend and Myself went on laughing
during all those
terrible words
we were throwing away the eyes
and the misery of defeat
that have come to spread upon our face
under the fence
and through the thorny wires
into the adjacent ‘Kaani’.
They were swallowing us
in a demonic speed.

The way the riffle piercing our face
tearing and engaging us in a diologue
sucking our blood
We won’t tell these to anyone.
That none threaten us
- so we have issued a statement on our own.

After the dialogue
for how long
these all too terrifying words
would be seeping behind this Motor-cycle.

That the actions initiated against me
proved so very sweet -
I had written on that late evening
at length in this page.
My friend and Myself
are not going to tell anything about the blocked website
That we have observed about Time proving
real sweet and great
for all things concerned –
so they hold about the bloody dialogue of that day.
-----------------------------------------------------
(25.11.2009)

YET AGAIN MOTHER HAS ANNOUNCED A DATE

A Poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled
AMMA MEELAVUM ORU THIGADHI ARIVITHIRUKKIRAAL
TRANSLATED into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

___________________
The dates marked in n the calendar having days utterly spent out
Are losing the hues and shades applied on them.
That arrangements are made for home-coming -
Mother has announced yet another date.
In the house of someone
Our food is being cooked.
On the evening of the day before when it was announced
that Mother’s application to leave was accepted
I bought and kept ready the rice and
vegetables.

Along the path where the rotten buses that have
long since completed their life-span
covered from head to food in dust
keep coming along
In a bus that refuses to move ahead
Mother comes
Tying tight her hair that is yet to grow
comes kid sister
This city is singing about their smile
that has been eaten away by the scorching Sun.
The paths of the city branch out
in different directions.
While bringing Mother along
who keeps on waiting
with the dates going past
holding the refugee-bags
verifying the landmarks
bearing the burdens of Time
the people of the Great Land keeps wandering.

That there is no home to return
nor any address for letters to reach -
Mother keeps saying.


As a wandering refugee with no home
Nor address
I bring the bag with my attires which was kept
in someone’s house
to another someone’s place.
Each and every house
Each and every street
turning into miserable refugees
we keep wandering.
While coming from one city to another
I am getting displaced again and again.
In the earthen pot of someone unknown
the lunch is getting ready.
Right from the heavy carry-bags
everything is sharing and distributing words.

In the city full of wandering refugees
Mother says that we would surely return home
and gives yet another date.
In the evening hours the dust-covered bus collects
the refugees
and sets out in the direction of
the detention camps.
______________
(From the city of Vavuniya – 16.02.2010)

THE HOMELESS CHILDREN SLEEPING IN THE GARDEN

A Poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled
POONGAAVIL URANGICH CHELGIRA VEEDATRA KUZHANDHAIGAL
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan
__________________________
When their eyes are filled up with sleep
the children come to the garden
where entry is free for the kids.
The boy who has lost his hands
begs for an artificial limb
with the remaining bits and pieces.
He keeps wandering, carrying along
the dream for hands.
Converting into photographs his mangled face
and the fragment of his severed hands
He goes on asking for help
Everything remains deep in slumber
far away.
That boy, added to the loss of his hands,
has lost his smile too.

When the nine year old little girl
who has gone to School
is being gang-raped by
wild animals called army-men
these children are fast asleep
in the garden en route.
Text-books and note-books of children
are all blood-smeared and drenched.
These children eyeing the ice-fruit
are wishing with all their heart to have it.
With blood dripping non-stop
the fruits are being eaten away by Time.
They keep sharing among themselves
the whole lot of violations.

The world snatched away from the children
in a terrible scheme
of too great a magnitude
and sabotaged beyond repair
The world of children torn and thrown away
so thoroughly destroyed,
their dreams nipped and ripped apart
in an all too expensive plan
are being torn and thrown away gleefully
by the Monkeys
that keep telling tales in the garden incessantly.
When evening sets in
the homeless children
keep going back somewhere.

Throughout the day
the homeless children were playing
by my side.
With their Smiles and Hopes and Mercy
for the new world
they went on filling up
the applications.

And all those appeals
that the children were
writing and forwarding all through the day
have been thrown away in great haste
as part of the heap of garbage
into the disintegrated railway-lane.
Seeing the way blood seeping
out of the books brought by their off-springs
the Mothers begin to agonize.
The trees of the garden
where the children slept and left
are withering away and falling.
_______________________________

SHE HATES THE ROTI-SLICES

A Poem by Deebachelvan in Tamil titled
ROTTITH-THUNDUGALAI AVAL VERUKKIRAAL

Translated into English by latha ramakrishnan

________________________
She tells those kids holding ‘rotis’ to shun them.
Whenever they raise their food-bowel
‘rotis’ alone come to fall right in front of her eyes
The rotis rusted and frozen are smelling there always.

The whole night they had to be in the bunker
With the blood circulating dangerously
fast
“The children could have stayed behind
not wanting the rotis’’
_ So observes the mother.
None stepped outside.
In the very second steps of the bunker
the stove remained burning.
Writhing in hunger
The children were waiting for food.
Ma was preparing, one by one,
the rotis.
With the first roti roasted
One by one the children were getting their share.
Then, mother’s roti was getting roasted
On the tin-sheet.
All too easily the shell tore apart
The roti, tin and dad.
With father’s blood
the night had turned all drenched
and bloated.

In the ‘rotis’ of one and all
Blood came to spill over and scattered everywhere
The children listened to those tales about rotis and turned shell-shocked.
The children who have read
different tales in different forms
go on staring at them, not eating.
_________________________
(12.11.2009)

THE DAY WHEN I SET FOOT IN THE CITY SANS SHADE

A Poem by Deebachelvan in Tamil captioned
NIZHALATRA NAGARATHIL KAAL PADHITHA NAAL

Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan
___________________

In my city where flowers have ceased to be
just today I have set foot
In my city where I used to wander in
gay abandon
after the period of time
loaded with the sorrow of annihilations
I wander a little distance
I search for the things I had
Left behind
some people have returned
Collecting the ashes in their hands
They have returned

That night, for the second time
I had set foot in my city
I was all the while searching for the faces
The soil proved unsuitable for kissing
mixed as it were
with blood and flesh
The walls of my home-town
which have lost their beauty and luster-
I read as a lonely soul.

That the spirits of those sacrificed
hovering everywhere
writhing in anguish, hanging suspended
above the city
_so saying an old lady lies
beneath the wall
The city filled with darkness lay plunged in
nothingness.
The semi-trees and fragmented structures
would sprout again
_ The old lady keeps saying it aloud.

In city torn and ripped apart in curses
Wherever I tread the Earth caves in.
Slowly, inch by inch, I would retrieve my city
from the thorny barbed wire.
From the hands of decay and destruction
I would nourish it and make it prosper
step by step.
In the city of flowers dreams would bloom
My hope that everyone would return
in the coming days
I chanted in the well of night
when I left my City.
And, the City sans shade keeps counting
the footprints of me, the lone visitor.

_______________________