Twilight at a window
A funeral procession
Only the dead person's Kith & Kin?
No long hearse and they carry the cardboard casket
on their bony shoulders towards the pauper's graveyard!
And he sees through his shattered window
Perhaps the poor man's wife cries behind
And the children not aware of the mysterious death
play on the road?
A radical film maker with his Cinema team
Takes pictures for his documentary film
'Poor man's rich funeral'
And he gives few notes to the widow as a gratitude,
She must have seen for the first time in her life
That tricky big colored notes?
[How could I have come so far
(And always on such dark trails!)
I must have traveled by the light
Shinning from the faces of all those I have loved.]
-Thomas McGrath, American,1916-1990
nimal dunuhinga
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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Related quotes
Malani Senehelatha Fonseka
She's listed among the best 25 performing Artists in Asia
And won numeral international awards for her best perfomance
in our local cinema.
I liked her best roles in 'Nidhanaya, Bambaru Avith and Akasa Kusum.'
Many Rolled Gold film stars approached her to be prominent
and failed.
Wife & myself saw her day before yesterday at La Mirada Theater.
[Udeni Liyanage's 'Swarnamaya Rathriyak(A dazzling night) ]
She's still photogenic and I think of her recent award winning film'Akasa Kusum'.(Flowers of the sky)
The entire role gives an exemplary of uncertainty of the mysterious life.
*Sri Lankan film actress named as Queen of the sinhala cinema.
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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An old promise of my friend
One of my friends a documentary film maker
Who promised me to give a role in his latest film.
The saga of an uprooted family live in a remote village
And I am their great grand father.
My photograph with a lame horse was hanged on the wall
That remained in the entire film.
At the end of the movie,
The camera focused on me a close up
And they found tears in my eyes.
I was the nominee for the best supporting actor.
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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Why you so inquisitive of my whereabouts?
My night school's still dark
and the road I walk
Tar always black!
On the way,
I see rare night flowers,
They too have pearly white teeth
when they smile?
O the white Goddess
as passing clouds.
The white board in the gloomy class
Colored teacher writes on
with a piece of black chalk
A poem to recite;
'When forget-me-not
covers the old pauper's graveyard
Everybody thinks
It's the garden of Eden?
But in cruel Autumn
When the flowers withered
It's still the pauper's graveyard? '
[ From Father have I my stature,
my zest for earnest living;
From little Mother
my gay nature,
My love of story-telling.]-Goethe
nimal dunuhinga
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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Unity Of The Elements
It was a pompous show,
For everyone should know,
The funeral procession
Of a rich man of the town.
Inch by Inch, the funeral cart moved.
Step by step, the mourners walked.
In black costumes, each one was dressed.
Front and back, march passed the crowd.
At the gate of the burning ghat,
The procession came to a halt.
Each one spoke, in praise of the dead
And tears flowed, for what they said.
On the sandalwood bed,
The body was laid,
And his son lit the fire,
That engulfed the funeral pyre.
The dead man's remains,
In the form of ash and bones,
To the sea, were consigned
As a finish, at the end.
At the bottom of the seabed
The bone of a poor man dead
Addressed his bone and said
'Welcome to this silent seabed.'
'The difference, when we were alive
Is no more with us, now let us live,
Not as poor or rich, but as one element,
No hatred feelings to foment.'
From the elements, man comes,
And back to the elements, he goes.
In between arises a low-high status,
That brings a world of differences.
poem by Rajaram Ramachandran
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The isolated Stable, My hardbitten days with a Pony and Cinema Theatres!
Whenever I pass the old stable here
While dropping my beloved wife
To the Day Care Center,
On the way back I stop for a while.
Oh! Poor Race Horses in the Victorian Era
Now very old and hard to neigh
Really I could count their ribs.
I am sorry That I couldn't bring you something to eat
Because I am out of a billet now.
Looking for a job and ckeck the vacancies everyday
That's written in the sky?
Not much Horse dung here otherwise I could have clean them voluntarily.
I flew back to my hard days Pony in an Amusement Park.
Borrowing my brother's Nikon F2 Mechanical camera
I took photos of the flowery children on horeseback
Developed and printed them in my life's dark room
Sold them cheaper at their doorsteps.
Out of few Rupees a lump sum to poor jockey
And a bag of brown sugar to the Pony.
Besides my beloved's pregnant for the eldest
And hardly she made snacks with wheat flour, slightly mixed with chillie powder.
Midnight we packed them into our friendly cellophane bags
And early in the morning I jumped to a Double-decker
Carrying the stuff in my old haversack to the Magnetic Cinema Theatres in the City!
* To my poet fiend Premji!
Here's my poor film script for your true-dream film, hope that should go to all the film festivals Worldwide one day!
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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The song of Isolation
Horizon is the name where the home for elders is situated near by the Tattoo river, besides you could see the range of singing mountains.
When the passing clouds touch the peak you could hear the melancholy songs.
The old bearded sailor sits on a bench and takes out his miniature compass from his baggy pocket and search the true north, where he suspects the loved ones and kith & kin live there.
The eldest son does a research of Anthropology in a reputed University
And the one & only daughter who acts small-time parts in Western theatre.
He is not worried about money they send in every month; The colored notes with dead faces of bygone presidents.
The berserk sailor see the far away flock of wild geese in twilight sky and he cries; 'Hey! My little migrant birds I am bit scared as the bombers are flying around and when you could release from your dungeons? '
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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Night Funeral in Harlem
Night funeral
In Harlem:
Where did they get
Them two fine cars?
Insurance man, he did not pay--
His insurance lapsed the other day--
Yet they got a satin box
for his head to lay.
Night funeral
In Harlem:
Who was it sent
That wreath of flowers?
Them flowers came
from that poor boy's friends--
They'll want flowers, too,
When they meet their ends.
Night funeral
in Harlem:
Who preached that
Black boy to his grave?
Old preacher man
Preached that boy away--
Charged Five Dollars
His girl friend had to pay.
Night funeral
In Harlem:
When it was all over
And the lid shut on his head
and the organ had done played
and the last prayers been said
and six pallbearers
Carried him out for dead
And off down Lenox Avenue
That long black hearse done sped,
The street light
At his corner
Shined just like a tear--
That boy that they was mournin'
Was so dear, so dear
To them folks that brought the flowers,
To that girl who paid the preacher man--
It was all their tears that made
That poor boy's
Funeral grand.
Night funeral
In Harlem.
poem by Langston Hughes
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One Day Someone Will Say The Same Of Me
The hearse through the main street is passing slow
With the funeral cars following in a single row
Is the dead person a he or a she?
One day someone will say the same of me.
And did that person die young or old
And will her or his life story be told?
To the departed that does not matter 'twould seem
As the dead do not have a sense of self esteem.
The funeral towards the cemetery winds it's way
Up through the main street at noon of day
But on the cortege shoppers no interest show
As in and out of shops they go.
The dead from the Land of the living gone
But life for the living must go on
And the same fate surely awaits you and I
As the dead person in the hearse going by.
poem by Francis Duggan
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If trash bin could speak?
Why not?
Yes, Trash bin talks
very politely.
When I do the garbage in the gas station
I heard; 'Hey! Chum gas price goes down
Isn't it?
It seems that you're not happy
and must be tired counting money
and collecting the garbage?
If you prefer we cold have exchanged our status
But I am not familiar with those colored notes!
They never peep here? '
Then I replied him; 'Dear friend!
Your position is better than me,
when the truck comes
totally you're empty,
But I always count this mystic dirty notes
That belong to the others
And really it burns?
[The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.]-Thomas Jefferson
nimal dunuhinga
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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My Dream Car without a Number Plate
My brakes won't applicable to these mockery roads
As it's too old they say.
I keep my both hands on the steering wheel
But it goes to its own consent.
I am scared if it stops on a hill side
As my poor torn wallet doesn't contains
Those tricky notes to refuel.
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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A handsome beggar
Under the burning Sun in a corner of a busy road
He begs with a smile like an actor of a movie
And his till is full of notes,
Someone painted the money in different colours.
But the guy isn't happy like
As the soul is still empty and he doesn't know
What he wants?
The painter who knows about these mysterious notes?
* Really what the man wants?
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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A Homeless writes on the Ballot?
O the rich Winter comes
Poor Man's eternal enemy?
I have to move from my cardboard house
Nearby the Railway Station.
A hole in my old boot
and a penny stuck in the wallet?
I have to skip fish oil
the doctor prescribed for cholesterol
But I have to fill my miniature empty bottle
with that weather-beaten Elixir?
For decades I just dropped my poor vote
to every Tom, Dick and Harry
But still it's a dream
The handsome politician's usurp Utopia!
nimal dunuhinga
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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The prisoner of his conscience (Story Poem)
He was very poor and he married a rich woman
So he got money but he became a very sad man
She couldn't have children, even it wasn't his game plan
One day he saw a widow walking down the street ''It's later'
He told her calmly and begun to discuss about life with her
He didn't know why he suddenly felt to touch her so tender
He understood her when she confessed her cried coeur
Saying that she had three grown children and she was very poor
And she had to work as housemaid at a loudmouthed boor
She was in pain and he felt that and to help her was his concern
He wanted to take care of her family asking nothing in return
He thought never to dishonor her acting as a father to her children
He begun to understand how unhappy was the woman he loved
When he left her for another one and she became so grieved
He asked her to talk about his feelings for her and she approved
He wanted to divorce to marry her and take care of her needs
Certainly he wanted to become an adoptive father of her kids
To make her the mother of his future children he made a bid
His wife didn't agree to divorce but he left her on her demand
He took the widow and went to find their soul in a far away land
His wife got crazy and she killed herself they found her on the sand
He went to her funeral to see her last time without annoyance
He begun to scream releasing something deeper and fierce
Without his wish releasing the prisoner of his conscience.
poem by Marieta Maglas
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Needlewoman
I see the fading light of my neighboring Seamstress's room.
The poor widow does embroidery of the mysterious life pattern.
I too have some darn work of my patchy clothes
And I want to borrow a needle and a thread from you.
Is it too late if I knock at your door in the midnight?
And I am sure the evildoers definitely chatter a gossip
When a bachelor meets a widow.
* I dedicate this poem to all the widows of this oblique world.
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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My fears...
I am not afraid of dying,
But ' twould be no falsehood to say I am afraid of death;
This is my life, this is the irony, the satire-
I can be nude and plain in the concluding embrace of death,
Yet I cannot don the funeral attire.
I am not afraid of committing sin,
Yet, I am afraid of forgiving those who err (and then admit) -
I condemn hypocrisy and all that lies within,
But yet I fear I am a hypocrite.
I am not afraid of the flags in a funeral procession,
As long as they drag behind a coffin within which it is I who is sheathed;
But if I were the driver of the hearse of another,
The flags would signal the toll of one's victory and the silence of another's defeat.
poem by Samah Khan
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Withered grass on the playground
In the morning I dropped my grandson
to the Kindergarten
And I watched a Father plays football
with his daughter.
My inquisitive mind traveled
to the bygone years,
How my poor Mom was sitting in the tuck-shop
and watched my acrobats in the playground?
I like to go to school again
But my loving Mom I don't know your whereabouts
with my old books?
I am old now and see the nearby burial grounds
Some stray dogs play with their puppies?
'No man is poor who has had a godly mother.'
-Abraham Lincoln
nimal dunuhinga
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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Master Key
The poor locksmith who makes
master keys very skilfully
on a street corner
under a shady tree.
Different characters visit him
for urgent matters
offer him a small note
praise his work
and run away.
The poor man's shack is unlocked
nothing remained except a rickety bench
and few rusty padlocks.
His beloved wife left him a long time ago
and rest in peace a nearby graveyard.
His well-to-do children forgotten the domicile.
I am sure that one day he makes a master key
to open the door to heaven.
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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My payroll, pulse and the puncture
Oh! it's a sad tune as usual
When I touch these colored notes
The burning sensation what a pity?
My poor lungs try to fill happy air,
But always a puncture along this tiresome journey from a cruel thorn?
I am not a stripling to bear this stretch
And this tattered piece would break if you pull fast.
* The annoyed alarm clock wakes me up to fight with the life.
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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The road named Blunder
Who knows if the brake is applicable or not along this greasy zigzag road where he drives his tumbledown car?
The color blind pedestrians carry heavy bundles of hopes and they cross here and there without an aim.
The poor driver too doesn't know his destination well
But he has a fair knowledge from where the bright Sun rises and sets mysteriously?
* This poem is dedicated with love and gratitude: to my beloved wife, daughters and their loving partners too.
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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Earth is a graveyard
A pauper claims his baroness mother was buried
in this aristocratic graveyard.
But he doesn't have any relevant document
to prove that.
This seems to be a restricted place
as they were buried with their wealth.
The guard explains to the poor man
'I am sorry sir, unless if you have an authority
there is no way to trespass.'
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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