ONE WORLD

A COLLECTION OF POEMS
BY

ROMESH SENEWIRATNE
2000

RomeshSenewiratne@gmail.com

HUB76 publications

www.hub76.com.au

CONTENTS :
ONE WORLD ........................................................................................................................................................... 3
AMAZON AND TIMOR ............................................................................................................................................... 4
SADNESS IS A LONELY WORD .................................................................................................................................... 6
OLD SCHOOL TIE ....................................................................................................................................................... 8
MAGNETIC FORCES ................................................................................................................................................. 18
INDIVIDUAL HUMAN MINDS ................................................................................................................................... 20
ALIENS .................................................................................................................................................................... 22
BLACK AND WHITE .................................................................................................................................................. 24
THE ENEMY............................................................................................................................................................. 24
SUN ........................................................................................................................................................................ 25
BIRDBRAINS ............................................................................................................................................................ 27
ANIMALS ................................................................................................................................................................ 28
TELEVISION ............................................................................................................................................................. 29
RADIO ..................................................................................................................................................................... 30
THE DOCTOR .......................................................................................................................................................... 31
DEAN ...................................................................................................................................................................... 33
JOHN ...................................................................................................................................................................... 35
ANDREW ................................................................................................................................................................ 37
MICHAEL ................................................................................................................................................................ 39
FRANCESCA ............................................................................................................................................................ 41
JOE ......................................................................................................................................................................... 42
CHERIE .................................................................................................................................................................... 44
RETROSPECTIVE DIAGNOSIS ................................................................................................................................... 46
CRUEL BETRAYAL .................................................................................................................................................... 49
THE DOCTORS AND THE WAR MACHINE ................................................................................................................. 53
THE SOUND OF YESTERDAY .................................................................................................................................... 55

ONE WORLD

People speak of different worlds

Different races in different places
People speak divisive words
Different cases in different spaces

But here we are in one world

In one verse, one universe

People speak of victory

Of conquering insanity
People speak of enemies
Murderers of humanity
People speak of eugenics
And warfare undeclared
People speak of economics
But are no longer scared

For here we are in one world

Unrehearsed, one universe
Here we are in one world
One verse, one universe

AMAZON AND TIMOR

1999 Romesh Senewiratne

Ive never been to the Amazon

But I know that it exists
Ive heard that little will be left
Of the forest if we dont resist

The chainsaws and the burning

The turning of the wheel
To which are shackled
Slaves with broken spirit
Children with no hope no home
Weeping folk whove lost their friends
Weeping for peace and making amends

Ive never been to Timor

But I know that it exists
The forests there will soon be gone
Unless we all resist

The warfare and the looting

The mercenaries loaded with money and weapons

The soldiers trained in torture
Who call themselves peace-keepers
The neo-colonial armies
With weapons of stealth and cruelty
The programmed order-takers
Making deals with the undertakers

SADNESS IS A LONELY WORD

Sadness is a lonely word

Empty rooms with broken toys
Lonely in a world full of people
Sadness is a lonely word

Sadness is a hopeless word

Busy streets with noisy chatter
Singing songs like migrant birds
Fleeting memories of things that matter

Sadness is a strange feeling

Mixed with other emotions of suffering
Pain in mind brings pain in body
Peace of mind brings rain to deserts

Cancers weeping
Children undeserving
Cruel fates
Warfare serving
Greedy demons

Promoting depression
Sadness surely comes from repression
New names for old obsessions
The economists call it a recession
The leaders of the slavery trade
Say theres not enough money to be made
The leaders of the slavery trade
Say theres not enough money to be made

OLD SCHOOL TIE

What lies ahead tomorrow?

Will it all come crashing down?
The bubble of economic growth.
Money made from corruption, seduction
Slavery, exploitation.

The people in the machine are dead inside

But like heartless robots they go through the motions
Mechanical, propping up a bizarre bureaucracy,
a hierarchy
Of buffoons in suits and old school ties
Speeches and a parade of lies
Blind and deaf to beauty and music
To happiness and life

Will the clocks stop and the computers break down?

Will the fuel run out and the oil moguls frown?
Will the conspiracies and delusions
Be known to all as madness?

Real madness, its all around

Greed and aggression, ignorance and apathy
Trivial crap on T.V.
The news of the day
Banal abuse in parliament
What kind of immaturity keeps a grown man
Preoccupied by old school prejudices?
The boys from Scotch College
Fighting the boys from Boys Grammar
The opposition taunted
They taunt back like school-boys
The girls from Grammar the premier cries
Misogynist and tyrant, advertising lies
The girls from Grammar the premier cries
At the leaders of the opposition
In a State that defies law and order
Preoccupied by orders but not law
And not justice

The girls from grammar

At the age of seventeen
Could teach Mr Kennett a few things

10

About humility and wisdom

About creativity and wit
About listening in silence
And not speaking shit
The girls from grammar
At the age of seventeen
Could teach Mr Brumby
About what theyve seen.

So will it come crashing down tomorrow?

Will the stock-market crash
Will the Dow Jones crash through the floor?
Will the deluded men in business suits
The nutcases with briefcases
With blank minds and blank faces
Reach for their mobile phones
And hear the message?
Mobile phones cause brain tumours!
Will they go home and see
The message on T.V?
Television causes madness, sadness and delusions!
Will they reach for their newspapers

11

And read the headline

Weve only told you what our bosses
Wanted you to know!
Will they go see their doctor
To prescribe them a pill?
For their ulcers, their impotence
Their lack of free will?
Will they panic and repent
When they find and they hear
That their brain is dementing
And theyve been dead inside for years?
Stressed, impatient, angry
Chasing numbers and plastic money
While the rest of the world has been
Getting happy and wise
Sharing and caring
Analysing the lies
Ridding itself of the old school ties
That tighten around the necks
Of the old school boys
The rich old men in their limousines
Whove kept the rest down with their

12

Shiny machines
With guns and tanks, bombs and mines
Who sent their daughters off to war
And their sons to die for the queen
Of another country and a long line
Of has-beens

Who locked up their children

And said that they were mad
Because they stood up to authority
Because they stood up for peace

Maniacs, witches, radicals, fools

Cried the old men with dead minds
Ruled by their tools
Nymphomaniacs they called them
Their daughters confined
To prisons and asylums, confined.
The greedy old men have always been there
Wearing the judges wig or the generals uniform
The inquisitioners cloak or psychiatrists gown
The faceless business-men

13

Who lie through their teeth

Who stab in the dark
At all those beneath
In their hierarchy of brutality
Their towers of greed
Stuffing themselves while millions die in need.

The man without ethics

Who makes the best decision
While those with real morals are
Treated with derision
The best decision
The best decision for his company
And himself
Dare we call it conspiracy?
His old mate happens to be
A financier for the military
Dealing arms, drugs and death
To the Third World and the First
What happened to the Second?
Well, they coined the words
Another mate owns a University

14

A place to train bright young minds

To give in to authority
And worship the hierarchy.
They like to share a glass of port and a cigar
In the Melbourne clubs of the world

But they have no love

Only fear and hate
They hate the young people
Who wont fight for the queen
Corporate structure or capitalism
They hate their long hair
Their nose-rings and tattoos
They hate their indifference to entrenched taboos
Drug addicts and hippies
Theyd have the whole lot put down
Euthanased, put away, at least controlled
With an armed police full of young thugs
And a judicial system that calls people mugs
A psychiatric system that tortures and torments
Philosophers and artists, tell me, who is bent?
They tell me WHO is bent.

15

They say its simple, these people are mad

With an incurable illness, a defectiveness,
it really is sad
What can we do in our position of control
But label them publicly and give them
The treatment they deserve
Electric shocks and humiliation
and drugs that cripple,
encouraging them to kill themselves is surely better
Than losing our position.

Our position is this

The lies at the root of the Eugenics movement
Are delusions of grandeur that justify torment
Stigmatised youngsters suiciding in masses
The murderers make sure theyre seen in the churches.

But when will it end

This illusion that theyve built
An illusion of fairness, justice and freedom
In a land where one leader told us

16

Life was not meant to be easy

Another I am an Englishman always
Yet another No child will live in poverty
No child will live in poverty
When will the illusion be revealed as such
An illusion shown to be running amok
Down narrow corridors with narrow minds
A preoccupation with statistics and meaningless
Point-scoring
A preoccupation with slavery and debt reduction
A debt to whom, Id like to know?
Exploiters, enslavers, mass-murderers and worse
A debt!
A debt to these men?

The madmen in office continue to argue

About which party is better
Witch party
About marginal seats while marginalised people
Weep silently for what was once a lucky country
What was once a lucky country
Before it was colonised by barbaric people

17

Who shout at each other

Shouting theyre the best
That theyre the strongest, beating their chests
Like baboons
Baboons in ties
Old school ties.

Romesh Senewiratne
11.11.1998

18

MAGNETIC FORCES

Magnetic forces
Caused by electrical movement
Causing electrical movements
In our nerves
In our brains
In our blood
In our heart.

Magnetic forces
Caused by electrical movement
Causing electrical movements
In our rooms
In our streets
In our cities
In our land
The Southern Land.

Magnetic forces
Caused by electrical movements
Carried by water

19

Through the air

Under the ground
We walk upon
As we seek our lost
Sense of direction
Our friends who went missing
Our families that we loved
But became confused
Because they were confused
By a scientific philosophy
That denies animal magnetism
And the gentle spirit of nature.

Romesh Senewiratne 1999

20

INDIVIDUAL HUMAN MINDS

An open hand
An open mind
An open world
A mind in ever changing mood
A happy mind
A creative mind
A mind thats free to soar
With thoughts of happiness
Generosity and love
Revolution is constant
Evolution is constant
It continues in our brains
Always
New emotions
New connections
A new unfolding panorama
Schizophrenia
Mania
Hypomania
Prejudiced labels used in denigration

21

Used for control

Used for killing
Used for drugging
Used as an excuse to build more prisons
Used as an excuse to increase surveillance
Used as a reason to torture the young
Who cant survive
If theyre killed by the old.

22

ALIENS

Aliens
The cyborg is with us
Alien
To the natural world
Of trees and bees
Birds and seas
Aliens
On screen
Aliens to scream about
Watching spellbound
Hypnotised children
Exploding
Star Wars myths
While NASA scans the skies
For radio waves from aliens
While millions pontificate
About strange abductions
While alien channels
Claim contact with extraterrestrials

23

I sit here and wonder

Whether the aliens are already here
In our homes
Their faces peer out of the TV
For so many years
They radiated into my mind
That I too became an alien
Alienated from life
Alienated from people
Alienated from birds
Alienated from beetles.

Romesh Senewiratne 1999

24

BLACK AND WHITE

Is white, the absence of colour

And black, all the colours superimposed?
Or is white, all the colours combined
And black, the absence of colour?

Or is it not as
Black and white
As that?

THE ENEMY

The enemy of the needy

Is fear of the greedy.
The enemy of the greedy
Is fear of being needy.

1997 Romesh Senewiratne

25

SUN

Sun
Provider of light
Energy
Life
Yellow
White
All the colours of the spectrum
Fire of many hues
Burning all day
And all night
Illuminating the moon
And those who walk beneath it

Sun
Warm and comforting
Nourishing our skin and bones
Promoting growth
The gentle evolution
Of a new type of human being

26

Sun
Rotating gently
Beaming its kind rays
On eager faces
Turned towards the sun
Loving the sun
Glowing red at dusk
Casting shadows in the early hours
Telling us about time
Affecting the seasons
Without disorder
Unless we create it.

Romesh Senewiratne, 1999

27

BIRDBRAINS

These fools
Who laugh
At the spirit of birds
But cant sing
And cant fly
Who dont see beauty
And dont love.

28

ANIMALS

Just a bloody animal

A fucking animal
A violent animal
A pissed party animal
Liberal party animal
Imperialist party animal
Labor party animal
Slavery party animal
Cannibal animals
Murderous animals
Disconnected
From reality
And other animals
Of a gentler
Kinder
Nature.

Romesh Senewiratne, 1999

29

TELEVISION

Telepathy
Telecommunication
Tell me
Tellers
Tales
Tall
Tales
Terrible
Tales from
Television

Repetitive patterns
Bright colours
Mesmerising music
Hypnotising
Advertising
A philosophy of greed
Suggestions of madness
Mass delusions
Buy, buy, buy.

30

RADIO

Radio .frequency
Waves.crash
Sky.unlimited
See.hear
Romesh Senewiratne, 1999

31

THE DOCTOR

The doctor struts his stuff

He carries his head high
He carries his opinions
Over those who ask why.

They ask why his patients weep

And why his patients cannot sleep.
They ask him why his wallet swells
While people dwell in living hells.
He justifies with lies and tricks
To prove his victims are really sick
That those he tortures truly are ill
And in dire need of a poison pill.

With self-fulfilling prophesy he tells

Why the mentally ill will never be well
Its in their genes
he says with glee
thats accepted at my University

32

Good for research funding

In this age of eugenics
Theres no simple cure
Theres no easy fix.

The doctor sucks up to the professor

The professor has been indoctrinated
The professor doctors his statistics
The doctor swallows his medicine
They both become more sick.

33

DEAN

Dean is just a child

A just child
Misdiagnosed as
Defective
Because he twitches
When he talks of
Atoms and music
He has a tic
When he talks of
Time and history
Mythology and cosmology.

Tourettes syndrome
Claim the experts
Is caused by chemical imbalances
With genes
Behind the scenes
A pseudoscience lurking
To label Dean inferior
And bring him under

34

Control.

Independent
Creative
Witty children
Can be better treated
With love than labels
Music than medication
Hugs than drugs.

1999 Romesh Senewiratne

35

JOHN

John studied philosophy

He wrote throughout the night
He wrote about freedom
Freedom of speech.

John went to University

To the Philosophy faculty
To develop, he hoped
His mental faculties.

His mental faculties were full of freedom

The University faculties were not.
John felt free to debate
He felt free to argue
The point of freedom with his professor.
The professor did not agree.
The professor became angry.
The rule here is clear
Students respect their elders
That is the unwritten law here.

36

John was diagnosed

He was institutionalised
He was drugged but not broken
He now shows compliance
He complies with the poisons
Under threat of injection
But waits for the day
The day he will be free
To speak his mind
Without dribbling
And walk steadily
Without shaking.

1999 Romesh Senewiratne

37

ANDREW

Andrew is a gentle soul.

He plays guitar and worries
About the state of his mind.

Andrew is a gentle soul.

He philosophises and worries
About whether he has been logical.

Andrew is a gentle soul.

He converses honestly then worries
About whether he has offended anyone.

Andrew is a gentle soul.

He swallows his tablets and worries
About why he feels so ill.

He thinks about his memory

Concerned he cant remember
What happened when they first locked him up
And gave him electric shocks.

38

Andrew wisheshe wishes

That his brain would recover
From the cruel torture
He doesnt comprehend
And I didnt have the courage
To tell him about.

1999 Romesh Senewiratne

39

MICHAEL

Michael was shaking

He was sure he was divine
He sang about smiling
Colours and the fine line
Between madness and sanity
Compliance and control
Treatment and torture.

Michael was shaking

because the drugs made him shake.
He was suffering
But laughed at the poison
Zoo-penthixol he chortled
they think were zoo animals
But they cant put me down
They know that Im special
They know of my power
My special ability
To make people laugh and sing.

40

Im a musician, he said
they can cripple my hands
but they cant cripple my head.

1999 Romesh Senewiratne

41

FRANCESCA

Francesca was labelled schizophrenic

Francesca was seventy
She was Spanish, she spoke little English
She was devout, she was pious
She abhored violence
She loved the sound of music
She hated television
The shouting made her weak
She feared the radio
Full of angry music and angry young men

So they locked her up in a room

With five young men, a TV and a radio
They poisoned her aged body
With injections that made her stumble
And slur the words she still had
No wonder Francesca thought she was in hell
No wonder she cried
And wanted to hold my hand.
1995 Romesh Senewiratne

42

JOE

Joe was once a scary man

He said he was a criminal
He said that hed been violent
But now he wanted only
To be left alone
Just him and his tablets
Just him and his methadone

Joe asked for some tranquillisers

All six foot six of him
All 200 kilograms of him
He leaned across the nurses station
And begged for something to calm his nerves
The doctor said I could have some pills
I need them to stay well
I need my sleep
I need my medication
I was once a child, you know
I was once loved
You know

43

Joe is still a scary man

To those who fear the huge and sullen
Joe is still a scary man
To those who fear a man who swears
But Joe knows no other language
Than the language of prison and drugs
Joe is the result of violence
And torture.

1998 R.Senewiratne

44

CHERIE

Cherie thought she was a prostitute

Because she didnt recognise she was a writer
Because no one recognised she was a writer.

Cherie thought she was a junkie

Because she hungered for relief
And someone to listen to her poems
And someone to share her grief.

Cherie thought she was a loser

Because people stole her closest possessions
Her virtue and her pride;
But her virtue can never be stolen
And her reputation cannot be further tarnished
Cherie has been labelled and put down
Drugged and crippled
Robbed of her dignity.

Cherie has been diagnosed and put away

To keep her from society

45

To keep her problems to herself

To keep her life in downhill spiral.

But her poems sing of freedom

And beautiful places
Her poems reveal truth
And tender compassion
And she throws them to whoever
Will catch them.

1999 R.Senewiratne

46

RETROSPECTIVE DIAGNOSIS

I ask as I read
Your diagnoses of the dead
Of the madness of artists
And the ravings of poets
Do you consider whats said?
Do you think any poet sane?
How can you understand such a brain
When you treat metaphor with disdain?

I ask as I read
When you speak of Van Gogh
Diagnoses are made
And his brilliance fades
Viewed as a freak
Diseased imagination
That glorified sunflowers
And saw beauty in the mundane.

I ask as I read
The criteria you make

47

To call artists mad

Synonymous with bad
Prejudiced rules
Constructed by fools
Your stupid textbooks
Created by crooks
With hidden agendas
Arrogant and friendless.

Do you consider any poet

Chemically balanced?
Do you consider any artist
Appropriately behaved?
Or are poetry and art
Themselves the diseases
That you would
Rid the human race of?

The human race

Tired of running

48

Round in circles
Driven ever faster
The human race
Sick of competing
Climbing the ladder
Deeper into the sewer
Of greedy profiteering
Relentless careering
Artists exploited
Poets tortured.

The victims cry out

But fear to be clear
They speak in metaphor
To hide their horror
They have seen the world as poets
As sensitive people
Not schizophrenics.

Romesh Senewiratne 1999

49

CRUEL BETRAYAL

Escaping in terror
from Nazi eugenics
the bewildered were herded onto the ship

The British Empire promised

to provide full protection
asylum to those called insane
defective
greedy
degenerate races
judged by murderous monsters
according to face, race and colour
judged cruelly
tortured
prescribed euthanasia
mercy killing by the merciless
poisonous chemicals
outright mass-murder.

The poor people fled

50

to escape the dread

weeping as they left their dead behind
weeping with their dead in mind
they prayed for relief
they trusted the soldiers
his majestys army
who told them they were safe
told them theyd be safer in the great southern land

Betrayed by the Red Cross

they suffered more torture
guinea pigs for ICI
martyrs for humankind.

Australia the scene

of countless betrayals
but none forgotten by the
true eye of history.
The news now resurfaced
fifty years later
army used disabled soldiers

51

and interned Italians

and also used Jewish refugees
to test out new chemicals
drugs to make profits
for British and American
Pharmaceutical companies

The victims were tortured

infected, injected
with no less than malaria
a fatal disease
a disease that kills millions
they now have a cure
but far too expensive
for nations kept poor
by debts they incurred
to the countries that raped them
enslaved all their people
destroyed all their treasures
or took them away
to keep in museums
and private collections

52

The Third World cries out

but nobody hears
the stifled screams
of children in horror
the terror of war
brings profits for companies
producing the treatments
for the problems they created.

Romesh Senewiratne 1999

53

THE DOCTORS AND THE WAR MACHINE

The machine was designed

To drive people mad
The greedy demons in the money-spinner
Tales wagging the dog
Bombs raining
On defenceless children
The machine cannot be satisfied
Because it has no soul
It feels no hunger
It is programmed
It operates
It takes its orders without complaint
Its resistance is inbuilt
Its wires generate radiation
Radiation is good for business
It generates disease
It creates revenue
Income
Tax for the poor man
Bonus for the rich man

54

Charity corporations
Enslaving smaller nations
Marlboro country
Speed kills
But Coke adds life
Smoking kills
But needles are promoted
Profiteer professors
Dangerous doctors
Advising generals and presidents
Treating kings and queens
Operating on cardinals and archbishops.

1999 Romesh Senewiratne

55

THE SOUND OF YESTERDAY

Yesterday I laughed and I wept

I talked and I slept
I listened with enjoyment
I listened with love
I listened with anger
I listened with dismay

I observed in silence
And spoke out loud
I spoke from the heart
Things I hadnt said before
I spoke from the heart
Because my heart was sore

I spoke of cruel man-made disasters

I spoke of AIDS and population control
I spoke of eugenics and euthanasia
I spoke of largactil and chemical warfare
I spoke of the prisons they build in our city
I spoke of freedom and I spoke of peace

56

I spoke of revenge and reconciliation

I heard what happened to the Aboriginal Nation
I said that I thought they deserved compensation

I spoke of mynahs and their place in the Southern Land

I spoke of uranium and mining for sand
I spoke of the times that I played in a band
I spoke of relationships and marriage and children
I spoke of dishonesty then I spoke of Bill Clinton
I listened in anguish to new talk of war
I closed my eyes to the headlines I saw

But most of the day I sat there in silence

And thought about ways we can stop all this violence.

Romesh Senewiratne 1999