THAMBIVAMSAand other poems

Imaad Majeed: a racialized poetColombo, Sri Lanka

“While Hip Hop, as a cultural form that articulates displacement, appears to have found resonance in multiple communities, various artists have delved into inherited traditions to resuscitate and reinvent poetic expression that cannot easily be subsumed by this genre alone.

However, these expressions cannot be categorized as reactionary returns to a pre-colonial ideal either, conceptualizing, as they do, collectivities and solidarities beyond the contours of nation, race and ethnicity. These explorations of the word, whether spoken, ranted, sung or depicted, test the limits of contemporary theorizations of culture and discipline.”

The above blurb framed the discussion chaired by Arun Nedra Rodrigo, York University, and Cheran Rudhramoorthy, University of Windsor, at NeMLA, where a video performance of the spoken word poem ‘Thambivamsa’ was screened as exemplary work, given the poet’s defiance of state constructs.

Thambivamsa

His story tells usof merchantswhose sails sought afterhalfway posts forEast Indies spicesto Euro marketswas it Jambukola, Beruwala,Samban Thurai or Hak Baan Thotawhere she let him into that sacredalter, Nature’scinnamon garden,wherein mixed blood, sea, men run races,pre-destined to chase tailsand make facesat new-borns, bright-eyedbrown-skinned,soon-to-be circumcisedsent to a different kind of Sun-day-schooled in a foreign tonguejust to help get the phlegm out

January, 2013

no emphasis on what the words were about,soon to forget aachchi, whomothered amma, given up for ummah, then sent tojummah cause now it’sFriday, jump out of classto bow your head down,touch the groundto meet the crown with the Earth-mothers tiled floor, terazzo, or a soft prayer carpet, no thoughts (of)munching aloud ‘cause it’s sacredheld back like a secret.

Don’t tell me UN gonnahelp the paksha weedout the homo, lesbian,journo, less sapien,granted, asylum like afree net-booked byChinese intelligence,sifting through ourspider-webs, the swineplant evidenceand tug at longhairs -cause that’s what a pothead looks liketo a courtroom -while monks gatherunsettled phoboplebos to takeshit in their handsand smother padlocksof shut stores wherethey’d otherwise buy their daily needs - gross?

a real big deal

But the papers didn’t print those storiesinstead, the Daily Noose had it that there’sconspiratory thambis about to wreak havoc- the FUQ: Yavanas? Yonas? One of us?like al-langar konar alakeshwaralike I’d corner you, a location wheresecurity measures society’s insecuritywhen the social glue is beingsniffed on,you tell mewhat do sea-men smell like?salt water, brine,rum & whisky?but a Mohammeddanshouldn’t be drinkingYou ask me thenwhat’s that tattoo say?Not that I’m a criminalor intend to disruptwhatever scheme youput up, just tospark shit up,when monks rallyhundreds to a church,who you gonna call?

the police? puh-leezpigs just stand therekakhi-clad, while vandals,forget white vans,and, man, handle a pastor,then send out a circular,demanding they registerat the nearestlocal government authority,as if it didn’t register enoughwhen a saffron roguechucks a stone to statethey were here firstor maybe, I didn’t hear it rightor it wasn’t written, right?

Left out the sin of omissionfrom the seven deadly we are all guilty of - gouging out two eyes for a third -collectively exhausted under post-colonial-moro-hela-eelam-ethnic-conflict,done with the Tigers, thrown to the Lions.

Post-mortem, the sanctity of a nation?

A tooth relic busted right out the jawof a Buddha.

The Evil Man

They said an evil man died todayss they flooded the streets, waving flags in my faceThey caught him in Vanni and blew off his headthen claimed it was a bomb he had set off himself

I could not laugh at the irony of those wordsbut they were all too comfortable, guffawing in burstsover the death of a man they say had no soulwho killed many innocents and broke many homes

“He poisoned their minds, only fed them lies!Sent them to Colombo with the gift of cyanideTaught them to use rifles, handguns and grenadesMade them plant claymore and wear suicide vests

“He gave them a homeland and a war of their ownHe gave them an identity and a cause that struck homeHe deluded their minds to think he was rightbut he deluded himself to think he would survive”

September, 2009

These words were said to me by a man in the crowdwearing the national flag across his crownHis eyes lit up at every mention of deathMy smile turned around as I lost my breathat the thought of the thousands that had lost their livesfighting over land that belonged to neither side.

They praised the heroes of war for their heroic featsNo, not the dead soldiers, but the kings of politicsThe President and his men, and his loyal slaves and womenfor saving his people from that evil mans planthat would only bring destruction to this sovereign land

And, once again, they spoke of the man who died todayOf how he had been killed along with those he had enslavedI could not understand how one could celebrate a deathMy friend just laughed and said, “you have to be Sinhalese to get it”

Ah, now I get it, it’s one of those inside jokesMe being a Tamil, what the hell would I know?Only of all my people that had died in vainMy little brother brainwashed to never feel pain again

I heard it on the news, how no one had escapedBodies turned to ashes, my brother’s head layon the side of the pavement, where this parade is taking placeThey stomp over his memory that will never be erased

Once more, they scream and shout,in their funeral cabaret,a “jayaweva Mahinda!”A slap in the face

The man in the crowd looks at meas though I were a fool“An evil man died today”I asked, “was it you?”

Peth

Peththak aragena vattata yanakota, kajjek indagena pethi kanava. Lansi patau gamata yanna rocket hadanawa. Pull up at a checkpoint, check the date, it’s been five years since you’ve been a threat, but the pigs don’t mind, you’re still worth a search, a pat down and a suspicious look when your jaws are gnawing, the rattle of your teeth, in their ears, perks attention, “which clubs you been hittin?”Tell ’em, “it’s alright, sir, I’m only half drunk, you see, just trying to roll these four wheels onto that there concrete, then, I’ll step into the club, and I’ll drink some more, by the time I step out, I’ll see the light of day, I’ll get my ass home safe, you’re better off letting me go than taking the time and the trouble to put me to books, I’ve got no bribes for crooks, you don’t look straight, matter fact, I can tell, from that pat on my ballsack, you weren’t checking for drugs, you were checking me out, I got friends on the inside that can turn you out, get your ass back in the closet, I’m back in the driver’s seat, pull out and forget where I am as I light the spliff.”

August, 2014

Give up the game and appeal for asylum, seeker, all you’ve ever found is a leader, follow up and fact check every last detail down to statistics, picking on nits for grammatical precision, politically correct the victim, tied to a tree by a Mervyn Silva, the story blows up on social media where twittering twats opine on circumstance. But the pigs in the ballroom don’t care for misfortune, paying their weight in gold with taxpayer’s fortunes, leaving scraps on the table for those of us unable to entice the crowd, stir up the melting pot until it boils over, spilling out the sides, burning our fingers, while thinking hats tip to the tic tac toe of a belligerent, insolent, insufferable Chinthanaya, prophetic visions of a misguided utopia, I told you, bruh, but you were busy chewing your gums, brains racked on a dose of euphoria, feeling the world lift its weight off your shoulders, bench press the jury, the judgement is bartered, another free man walks away from his fate, while the poor are left to wage war with your windows, eyes closed to the naked truth, you pay your dues and your conscience clears.

One of these days, you’re going to stumble upon your Sri Lankan accent, somewhere in the middle of the street swept by majoritarian sentiment

Find your mind in the gutter, a piece of it clogging all the arteries of a city’s circulatory, circulatory system

One of these days, you’ll find yourself in a pickleon a public transport system, a transport hating victim, paying for a ticket and not taking a seat, waiting for the right mo(ve)ment to jump across to that greener bus with the euro-pan-global conductororchestrating folk music with a loincloth string and a tree-felling b(l)owinto word smithereens that hang around the airslike glitter litter in every step, every meter,every foot, every stanza you take, even when you sit down to read between the lines, it finds you,peeling onions, weaving vowels in W(\v)ellaw(\v)attefuck is going on here?

Find Your Mind

January, 2015

I may be mistaken for a happy Lankan boy, I make it hard to like mestraighten out your ties cause i won’t swing that wayMy face is complacent, while you’re donor baitingjust because your cause ain’t worth itdon’t mean I won’t drink to your eventual fall‘cause it’s all in how you raise the stakeswhen your chance is pretty rare, you fake it‘cause everybody’s in to win overnight

Your party’s a fail but you won’t admit it nominate your best candidatehe’ll show up in bullock cart and national attirebut who you trying to fool in this court of jesters I’d propose a subtle gestureI believe the white folk call it flipping the bird

You’re crumbling, now, sweet pastry, baby, Fill me up with indecisionYour two cents are all the change my pockets can’t keep up withYour face is a place-mat, and no points for service,I’m fed up with your bitter sweet nothingsI can’t live on hand outs and gluten-free replacements‘cause it’s all in how you take it, lately,the salt’s been tasting over-rated,I’d pinch myself to wake up, but it won’t be no help

Overnight Everybody

July, 2015

They say a picture is worth a thousand words but what good is a word if you can’t see?

How do I paint a thousand pictures with a noun?

Does the sound of each syllable paint one single detail?

Should I abbreviate to compensate or write a bacronymand let the reader do the work?

Frank O’Hara said he’s not a painter, and I’m not a photographer; I take down a thousand words on a page, I call it still life, but a catcher of light traps moving life and the bird sings in the cage of your mind.

POV

October, 2014

Maya, myth or delusion, I pull aside each veil, whirling nafs bleeding into the page. I desecrate the sacred and sanctify the perverse. I am the New Age of Global Monoculture’s Lomo-swinging hipster singing showboat of Instagram lore. I hashtag #existence and Facebook “Friend” you like it’s arbitrary. You can follow me back on Twitter where I’ve got 140 characters to suit your many faces.

I leap bounds in phrases, going through the motions in phases, I’m unfazed by telepathy and crazed saastra revelators.

I’m an opinionated editorial consultant, framing each issue pixel to megapixel, a cross-wired economic analyst dressed in political ties, I’m Freud’s third eye, catching Oedipus in the act, pepperoni loving paparazzi who dances to papare at the Big Match.I’m the old school loyalist - OG of the alma mater. I stand to salute, a nation’s sovereignty stabilized by a tripod (I have three legs).

A picture of my Mother Lanka, a crocodile’s teardrop on a string of pearls.

I’m on the rise above the poverty line, I’m a social indicator of economic prowess, middle-class golden child sipping fine wine at a fine dine restaurant on Marine Drive, watching a sunset over thirty years of conflict, looking to the Far East for the sunrise, blood red, gold stars. A good boy, I have been.

But I don’t ever want to be the guy with that Prado pride and a Prada wife, getting passed around at parties like salt and pepper, sit at the head of the table with a scapegoat trophy mounted on the wall, wear heels to stand tall, corsets and Corvettes, Mustangs and spray-tans, that ain’t my thing.

I’ve got no hang-ups on moral ethical dilemmas, tight-rope balancing on a pedestal.

I don’t want that higher-than-thou evangelical ego trip, tap dancing to a preacher’s beat. No, none of that Zakir Naik nag, nose-rag, hatchuu, kacha kacha issue tissue.I won’t take Shanti’s name in vain, I’ll say Salam back if you mean it.

Give Shalom a home, but not in Palestine. Don’t mind me as I strip these Gaza lines.

I don’t subscribe to breaking news alerts, ada denagaththa, heta ath-hariya.

I don’t follow your Presidential Twitter account, oba wenuwen API, I want my RTI.

I don’t believe in LLRC, I don’t believe IOU. I don’t believe in TRC, Telecom or DialogTV.

I think Corporate Social Responsibility is a misnomer; a bad pun, unintended.

I think Too Much Information, and I speak with alliteration, to abbreviate: IMHO YOLO YMAK YGWYPF XOXOZZZ XME WYM WTTM WWJD WSU TWHE TWU TTIOT TPIYP TMALSS PMF KISS #KeepItReal #jk

We all got something left to lift the weight, the time to wait the space to make the great mistakes the waste and haste and haystack chasing pins and needles, stick it in and face the fact, your race is set, the pace is met, the stage is set the props is on the rocking chair that sways the beat the name repeats, the face recedes, the cross is bare, the hairline fracture in a time-space fractal I wrote your abstract in Homerun pastels load this shotgun with pen torch batteries ram it down your throat like you needed roughage swimming through your bowels like an unexplored passage through the time it takes to reach your centre argument or are you mental?

QUOTA

April, 2015

Are you meant to be living in a concrete jungle, asbestos roofs and cats on hot takarang take a quick bite of this bittersweet naarang ambarella leaves and fresh coriander garlands popping minty fresh verbs like spinach to a sailor got the mouth of a marakkala mark of a Macan Markar someone hook me up with the dome on top of Galle Face Court 2 you know, the room with a view the room with an event horizon the groom with a plus one and the bride who takes pride in the prejudice of caste based specialisation of labour

let the Tamil clean let the thambi sing and let the Malay burger kings do their thing and charge an excise duty on the exercise of civil liberty

beedi beela bulath kamu

Have you met your daily buddha quota,smokin all that golden leaf, sweet bo kola?

If I had to write a #selfierap I’d think twice on that my frees are loose so I keep my writtens close learn to tie a noose in case these fools come knocking the day I’ll be dropping the night I’ll be stalking the dawn I’ll be donning the dusk I’ll be dust in the ashes - aghori creme caffeine is boring my mind needs exploring, I’ll take your hand through it you stroke endoneurial fluids spinal tap that ass and SMAK the mixed fruit off your face in a Minute Maid in the kitchen, your sandwich wrap reeks of balsamic leakage you might wanna look up the meaning of village cause. in this global sphere. we’re all kings if we will it in this causal ocean, we’re all queens if we sing it in this clay pot dream, we’re the collective Fresh Prince of Mother Earth’s cleavage

The sons of 1983 are clothed in saffron robes, armed with a media held by the throat, their colours have changed but the blood still flows, red life down the gutter, stoned and set ablaze, an identity called to question, don’t ask for directions, lead you to the doorstep of Temple Trees where a symbol of authority is a Bodhi leaf, four to a flag but only one true race, the lines are drawn on the lion’s face, kicking sand in our eyes while the cost of life rises, reaching out as the flames lick the horizon, in the light of recent events, the past has found us, putting lives to an end, tires to flames.

Sons Of 1983

July, 2014

Begging for change in the month of July, the war is over but the battle is within, we fight over the origin of skin, while the plantations free their minds, fear is the only message preached by Dhamma’fuckers that lay claim to sovereignty of a tooth, a noble triple gem and a Bodhi tree, but since when did being Sinhalese equate to equanimity? Whatever happened to magnanimity? The Compassionate Buddha slept through 30 odd years and awoke with his robes in flames, his heart enraged, they’re putting lives to an end, tires to flames.

Recycling karma in history’s washing machine, Vol 24, 1956, Parliamentary Hansard is where you find the answers, in the words of Richard De Zoysa, between the lines of our constitution, in the statement that there is no minority, in the protests of Diaspora, in the Gajagah Vannama, the elephant show at Dehiwela, but not in the Mahavamsa.

We are the poets born of politicians,who stood at podiums addressing their people,sons of fathers who built whole communities,who forecast the weather by ear,levelled land by their own device,who set aside acres for the yet to be dead,whose names cannot be forgotten,etched into the ancestral domainknitted into the skull capthat holds this grey area captiveto the imagination,the mages of the word,who could change realitywith a blue pencil,underline not undermine,quarry not quarrel,query not trouble, answer not ignore.

Patta Peyar

Recycling karma in history’s washing machine, Vol 24, 1956, Parliamentary Hansard is where you find the answers, in the words of Richard De Zoysa, between the lines of our constitution, in the statement that there is no minority, in the protests of Diaspora, in the Gajagah Vannama, the elephant show at Dehiwela, but not in the Mahavamsa.

March, 2014

We are the poets born of this earth,this plot of land, this mound of hurt,the lashes drawn in the sandetch the sketch that defines the linethat is set into stone, carpeting road,our names the gravel held together by the tarsmoked by the lungs of a tribe’s desperation,gifted not by god but by those who believedin signs read between the lines of palms,fate written by saastra, read in the mirror,blooming palm fronds in frowns,croton smiles growing into skin,birthmarks for economic indicators,a symbolic logic that need not make sense,requiring only a suspension of this beliefthat free-will can change our oddsand even out a level playing fieldwhere our descendants will play elle,transmuted by the magic of sympathy,tears flooding pages when sluice gates are closed,the catharsis of levees breaking,the pent up frustrations of dams,this plot of man, this house of birth.

We are the poets born of, for or by citizens,who write poems on ballot papers,with metaphors of bo and arrow,leaving nothing to chance,outspoken, outnumbered,but never outrun,the gatekeepers, the lordmen,the BAs, the PAs, the UNPs,the hummingbirds, the snake-killers,the single seed of chili,the gunmen, the loaders,the sweet, the fat, the egged lawyers,the cat’s teeth, the beautiful namesgiven to the behaviours,humours of men, matrilineal markersof tribe, dress and time,not to be forgotten,but to be rememberedfor how we lived, our culturein stories never read but always toldbetween two lips that fold.