Surveying the political landscape through poetry

B y R an g a C h a n d r a r a t h n e

Richard de Zoysa's evocative and insightful poetry constitutes a defining trait of his personality as a gifted Shakespearean actor, poet, writer and journalist whose life was snatched off at the hands of the yet-unknown armed goons and dumped into the sea to be washed ashore in a couple of days. Essentially, his poetry is apolitical and lased with multiple layers of meanings which subject them to many readings. Quintessential characteristics of his poetry is that their sheer mastery in the craft and easy yet-idiomatic diction. There are numerous instances where allusions to classical English literature were made. For him the bloody riots of 1989 was a proverbial biblical Apocalypse which has virtually re-written the political landscape of Sri Lanka, becoming a vital referral point in the protracted terrorism. Richard de Zoysa was one of the gifted and insightful poets of our time who inevitably paid the supreme price, as many great writers in the history of mankind, for his outspoken views which were not to the likings of the powers that were at the time.

Richard de Zoysa

In his poem Apocalypse Soon, Richard skilfully captures the eerie atmosphere which led to bloody riots of 1989 and how it profoundly affects the lives of the people at large. One of the significant features of the poem is that it is laden with metaphors upon metaphors unfolding of which would reveal graphic descriptions of the racial strife, described using Tarzie Vittachi's potent metaphor of 'The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse'. Richard skilfully epitomises the callous attitude and inaction on the part of the law enforcement authorities in the face of the 'racial strife' as 'and to the singing of the lead, khaki and gunmetal and iron tread, advance and take their vantage at the corner'. The poem 'Animal Crackers' is also about the riots. The poet through a lesson to a child plays with the symbols associated with the parties to the conflict. The commotion out there is captured in an evocative line " Just a party down the

lane, A bonfire, and some fireworks, and they're burning -No, not a tiger - just some silly cat". Who is burning is not 'a tiger' but 'a cat'. His skilful use of metaphors taken out of the day-to-day life is manifested in the poems such as 'Rites of Passage', '1984 - Elephant passes, GAJAGAVANNAMA and '.GOOD FRIDAY, 1975' Richard de APOCALYPSE The child plays in the scattering when suddenly the streets in waves of flaming and splintered flying shattering old amities and sharding forged (so we thought) against After sharp showers the street boys play when suddenly a flood of Zoysa SOON fire sparks erupts hate glass bonds proof heat. mud enmity

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thicker than blood descends and to the singing of the lead khaki and gunmetal and iron tread advance and take their vantage at the corner Hot August night with postulating stars burning like sores above. Love is a sweat and intercourse in shadows will beget lust only for the frenzies of a rape of sluttish cul-de-sacs and bottlenecks The bottlenecks are broken; jagged ends pierce the vitals of a nation. Death words are spoken, old familiars fall silent and retreat to roots. The junction stations soon will fill with seething hordes like ants before the rain fear-breathing herds hard-ridden to the kill and on the concrete platforms hob-nailed boots drown out the thunder of the train.

Divide and rule. And pendulous to the North hangs Jambudvipa stained with her own blood bleeding heart red as ripe pomegranate and bitter as the damson. All the fruits of hate quivering she holds. Waiting to drop into our gaping mouths. Dark faces on the city pavements pale Beneath the mysteries of holy ash. What of the roots spread wide and deep and far beyond the limestone of the North? A wind blows through the halls of high commerce the brilliant trembles at the flare of nostril flames falter in the sacred lamps of brass in dwellings on the arcades of Colombo 71 was lots of fun we had our curfew parties. 58 was not so great and now ........... What happens now? Will out of blackened streets and rubble ruins caravans ride forth into the blazing deserts of isolation, where the crack of lonely snipers' rifles fills the air and Brahmins hover, flickering in the haze of hear-filled sky? Has the Fifth Horesman come again to raise his banner, and wreak havoc on the land? Author's Note
Middeniya after the mayhem
(Dedicated to Richard de Zoysa) It was in the immediate aftermath of the mayhem I travelled through the scarcely populated, an impoverished village With the scent of death and misery Reminiscences of a shattered tribal village in the Dark Continent Wattle and daub houses with a foundation of hope laid over many decades Aging with the time and perhaps with the aspirations of the inmates of the huts The wretched-air hung all around in the land of death I listened to the woeful stories recounted by sole survivors A Mother whose husband, two sons who were butchered to death Dispatched into the other world With wetted eyes, the Mother invited me to share her lunch With mukunuvenna curry and

youngest son in childhood Time was symbolised by Burning tyre-pyres on golden paddy chaff Contrasted with bright red tongues Consuming the youthful bodies, With aspiration for a better future For the island nation The inanimate yet animated red flames Burnt the ideologies With the youthful male and female bodies You who had been a voice for the voiceless in the wilderness Cruelly became a potent symbol of the time A face to the faceless time That will etch in blood-red In our forgotten days The days that we should never forget And the perpetrators who brought about it Should never be forgotten or pardoned
Ra nga Chandra ra thn e

Mukunuvenna- a kind of green leaves Coconut Sambol a mixture of scraped coconut, chiles, salt and lime Middeniya- a village in the Southern province in Sri Lanka, where thousands of girls and boys were murdered and the Southern province was known as a land of death)