He flew to our shores on the back of a black iron bird,
Immigration stamped him through on a student visa,
His mother’s kiss still lingered upon the lips of memory,
To Sheffield he came waving away Sri Lankan tears.
Life was hard, life was sleepless, life was unrelenting,
To eat his daily bread he worked long into the dread night,
By day he studied English knowledge inked in books old,
And by the arrival of twilight he delivered steaming dreams.
Every day, every single day, by the light of day, he spoke,
He spoke to his beloved mother so far away across oceans,
They had a bond true and deep, a mother and her beloved son,
But wings wet with evil were flapping closer and closer…
On the night before the Eve of All Hallows the darkness came,
As he drove through a wet night on the last shift of his job,
As he went to deliver his final aromatic pizza of the evening,
That’s when the demons of ignorance stabbed away his hopes.
They came from an infernal zone and they sliced through him,
The silent angels watched with horror stitched in their sockets,
His liquid life ebbed away at the coffin wheel of his delivery car,
The cold October moon wept milky light upon the warm blood.
The media ravens will label him ‘this’ and ‘that’ and the ‘other’,
And soon, all too soon, his name will melt into memory’s mist,
His name was Thavisha Lakindu Peiris and his life sings no more,
Under Halloween’s one eyed moon a soul kneels for justice.
(Inspired by a true story)