Isn’t physically quick or agile.

Disappears in libraries.

Has been known to dissolve into the physical pages of books.

Is good at tucking herself into the stacks and retreating to reading nooks.

Blends in at coffee shops where her voice can be drowned out by the grinding and the steaming.

Can become indistinguishable in the dark of theatres, in the quiet shuffle of art galleries, the finger-snapping of poetry readings, the hum and jostle of the Tube.

Is indistinct. Adept at hiding in plain sight.

Why cry
This is what
The world
Has become .

Accept
We are worse
Than animals
Who **** for hunger
Or for love .

The killer
Showed his
Baseless ego
Never thinking
How he would feel
If baited and killed .

A majestic creature
More powerful
Than man
Without a weapon
Laid to rest
Brutally .

Assasins ****
For money ,
Religion or politics .
Why **** Cecil
Free of all this .

Mankind
Bow your heads
In shame .
We have reached
The ultimate
Depths
Of degeneration .


                                              Collection of Ms Kusum Rajapakse , Colombo

Her wails rent the air

O God how unfair you are
to have snatched him from me
the only man that truly cared
never treated me badly.

Without him is a life to grieve
empty meaningless
take me too O God relieve
this pain of no redress!

Shouldn't we bring a costly cot
of mahogany or such wood
asked the men what was her thought
about carrying her man so good.

Shouldn't the pyre be of sandalwood
the fuel a pure ghee
your husband ma'am was a man too good
to be burned ordinarily.

She paused a while frowning dark
a shadow passed her face
a hint of wince made its mark
a pall of uneasiness.

He's gone to never return
the onus is now on me
to run the days with meager earn
and not spend wastefully.

ordinary wood would burn as good
kerosene would do well
prudence demands not one should
be lavish in funeral.

I stand by the period bed
where Dupleix rested his head,
wondering at his kind of life,

if he lay there with wife
or some native maid.

doesn't hint his bronze bust
if he lay there bare
in ebullient lust

stirred by a girl darkly thin
bowing himself to her embrace
finding in his war beaten mind, happiness,

or, there wasn't any such thing,
he lay there staring at the ceiling
far from even one warm kiss
storming his brain to defeat the British...

I think of the kitten that survived a few days,
it still pains.

In the museum, I rhyme dust with lust.