The Road

As we drove through that ochre dust
Reverberations of an old life
Howled through the marrow
of my bones.

Those bare footed escapades
through the unforgiving savannah,
Tethered only to a yearning
to follow each honest impulse,
From heart to limb.

We lost no sleep
to the howls of beasts,
We were the eyes of the night
and knew that the roads were
trails of where we'd been,
Not paths for where we'd go.

Two Worlds

Halcyon

An ancient drum beat heart,
tuned to mother's rhythm,
Our sound travels through
this sea's caress in waves,
Soft against new skin.

Ripples of wonder in dark sanctuary,
Of my lot in the world outside,
Between love and indifference,
till flesh and time collide.

A return to forgetfulness,
a new seed of the universe,
Yearning to be expressed,
felt, heard and caressed.

Mother... Father.... Oh the dreams I've searched for your hands.

Garissa Massacre in Kenya : Where is the outrage?

This absolutely horrific mass murder by Al Shabab at Garissa University in Kenya. 148 young lives were taken in the most brutal manner on the 2nd of April but the news coverage and outrage beyond Africa and those who hold it dear... has been minimal. In more recent times the media storm and outrage over the shooting at Charlie Hebdo in Paris and the Lindt Cafe Siege in Sydney would indicate that there is no shortage of interest and compassion for people who are victims to these heinous acts by fundamentalists. Yet the requisite for intense media attention and expressions of outrage and solidarity by world leaders, dare I say it, seems to be that the victims must be white and that said act should occur in a Western cocoon that is typically free of the scourge of violence. The authenticity of said compassion is a related but separate discussion.

I long to be free of distinctions in terms of colour, sexuality, nationality and religion but it is hard to do so in a context in which it is blatantly obvious that we are not all equal. Across my years in Sri Lanka both as a resident of Colombo and as an aid worker on the East Coast, acts of violence were a norm. Suicide bombs taking hundreds of lives was so common that we had peace doves as markers on the streets that attacks took place on, fading with each passing year. This violence was largely viewed as being an internal matter. That it was our fault. Until exposure taught me that it wasn't as simple as all this. I learnt that sympathy and intervention was firmly tied to colour and a colonial mentality of what could be extracted from the situation, or perhaps more explicitly as evident in recent times, from the ground. That the violence of the present is inextricably tied to others and to the legacy of the past.

We have so much to transcend and unlearn as a species. There is still a vile underbelly of ethnocentrism that permeates and often renders our bold ideal of equality, opaque. Rife with conditions. I have grown up with what seems like overwhelming evidence of the fact that white lives matter far more than that of men, women and children of colour. It is a paradigm that I will continue to rail against. In the midst of our claims to sophistication, we are so deeply estranged from all the threads, biological and spiritual, that bind us together

Note: The heartbreaking image featured in this post was taken from this article by the New York Post 

Here is an article (finally) that looks at the victims of the massacre.

Through the Lighthouse

Like the songs of shells in the ocean,
The past feels like an inconceivable dream,
Breathing beneath this lighthouse
as its eyes permeate the night.

Lost in the shadow of a family tree,
I was but a struggling amnesiac.
Till I felt the weight of my bones
and learnt the art of breathing,
through the length of arid days.
Till I learnt to be of service
and soothe the pain of vanity.

Now through these stone walls
and this sword of light,
Free of the borders of skin,
A stranger no more,
I am found upon those waves
that carry the lost home.

The Tipping Point

Our patience with lizard skinned schemers,
The humble turned decadent,
entitled, malevolent and arrogant,
Insidious architects drawing margins
to elevate their earnings.
Preaching equality from throne rooms.
Their words of peace birthed
inside the barrel of a gun.
Those extractive, exhausting reprobates,
Those green card patriots,
Those "virtuous" devils who hide
in the shadows of faith.
It wore thinner than a razor's edge
and we turned livid.
Furious with them, then ourselves
for having ever fostered their ilk.
We stared out our windows,
then walked out our doors,
peered above our fences
and cried"no more. No More!"

Brothers

Brother, my eyes swim in a retreating light,
between the shadows of our twin plight.
our hearts gripped by winter's collar,
furious and blind, bleeding summer.

I ache for a return to those times,
when as brothers we'd trace
those hills and rooftops,
unknowing of this end.

For were our lives not writ
with the ignorant ink of men?
wrapped in traps of intellect,
wearing muted masks to cast illusions
of strength that fool none.

Hostage to our tragedies,
only to find fleeting solace,
at the bottom of a bottle,
estranged from feeling.

Yet even as we raised
our walls and our voices,
we were loved.
By the casualties of our silences,
beyond our deepest afflictions.
May we be candles to our children...

Unpacking the Ego

An excerpt from  my  speech on “Enabling Self-Determination” at the National Student Leadership Forum  2013- Canberra. 

Why was I doing this? What were the roots of my intentions? For while I still maintained a deep desire to lead a life of contribution …over the years, it seemed that my approach was contradictory.

It became clear to me upon examination that it (working on social projects) was an escape – a drug of sorts. My intentions on the surface were good…but the internal drivers of this call to action were not entirely altruistic. Quite simply I was doing it because I felt ugly, unworthy, small, insignificant, incapable…..working on these projects took me away from this personal reality. My father succumbing to alcoholism….my own depression…were all tucked away …unprocessed …because I felt good about myself when I could help others. It was distanced from my own self-loathing. Of course I started to see the toxicity of this approach both to myself and to those I purported to help….it was a dependency on dependency.  One ultimately blind to the real needs of others.

This period of personal growth was instrumental as I started to see how my own beliefs about myself were a fundamental contradiction of the change I wanted to see in the world. For who was I to speak  to anyone,  let alone  the most disenfranchised,  about self-belief, capability and hope if I had no authentic belief in it for myself? So if I asked myself what it would look like if I were to serve authentically  and this ..in short involved a lot of conversations…arguments…reflection and meditation ….and as a result some deep insights for my own life. A love and appreciation of myself…scars and all.  A sense that while  I wanted to live a life of contribution ….I wasn’t what I did …it was who I was that mattered. Layered into this was the realisation that I have many roles and relationship  in life…with myself, as a son, a brother, a friend, a partner, a…as a human being.

As I draw my sharing to a close I have two thoughts I’d thoughts I’d like to share ….

I have no doubt that contribution has been a major thread in the conversations you have been having here in this forum. In all my conversations with people across faiths and cultures, it seems clear that this is the key to living a deeply fulfilling life, one with meaning and purpose. Yet in the passionate pursuit of ways to contribute we need to be vigilant…mindful of our intentions.  We need to slow down and be real with ourselves, look in that metaphorical mirror and  exercise compassion towards ourselves ….this is a process and it never ends but I feel it is the most liberating , necessary action.  I do not feel there can be true love for others unless one loves self… I do not simply mean this as an intellectual ideas but as deeper acceptance . Look at ways to practice gratitude towards yourself and the very fact that you draw breath. Articulate your values and beliefs, share them …with complete honesty….be open and vulnerable. This gives others permission to do the same. In my case I maintain a personal mission statement that captures this the essence of my values and the roles I play I life.

Then we can consider the second part ….when contribution is no longer the central feature of one’s escape or psychological identity….it is an expression of purpose that can take so many forms. To use the idea of a mirror once more, I see deep contribution as being a process through which you can  hold a mirror so that others can see their own greatness. Their own power and vulnerability. Then it is not about you as a leader, an individual seeking fulfilment or identity through your own creation or achievements. It is an authentic exchange of our humanity.  This does not need to be an organisation, a project or a career…but it can be all of those things…there are opportunities for such leadership in daily living….right here in this room.The choice has been …is and will always be yours to make. So I urge you all to be a light on to yourself and thereon to others. Lead …by being.

True

Love... Do I even stand a chance?

Beneath your glowing veneer,

Where I meld with old fires

and those vapors of doubt.

For here I have been...

Suspended in forest green,

Watching timid hopes wake,

deep in the sweetest ache.

Tell me true...

Is there a tender thought of me,

safe from those flames?

Or is this a dreamer's lot?

For with you,

I have no bonds of breath.

These Streets

This evening as I walked along streets I've traced countless times before, a thought took hold. 'How wonderfully fragile and changeable the human mind is'. Years ago, upon these same streets I'd nurse tales of woe and be unkind to myself in the basement of my mind. As those streetlights glared back at me, I was a particle of dust , bereft of hope and significance. Even contribution was an act of existential guilt. All this heavy on my spine as I wearily trudged through the days. Yet through the days, the months and years that were to unfold... Came a new way of being. Seemingly through attrition, the roots of despair came to wither. Exposed by questions. Starved by the ascension of gratitude and choice. No longer frivolous intellectual notions but palpable truths of the day to day realities of living .As the grip of victimhood unraveled, there was space for new things to grow. New colours where there was only black and white. New layers above a greedy undertow. A life richer than binary choices. The capacity to receive love.

What contrast upon the same streets, within the same skin. What capacity we have to shape and shift our perceptions. But is not only human to forget this power we wield? How vigilant and compassionate we must be to ourselves and others as we scale the mountains and swim through the oceans of circumstance.

The Divide

Who decides which side of the divide we reside in?

Were the lines drawn on primordial earth

or is this the unfolding of the lottery of birth.

Collapsed upon a chair, gripped by fever

The scales of justice weigh down against her.

A statistic in a maligned welfare trend.

Name tarnished, fate condemned

Single mother of two on minimum wage,

Piecing together a dream in a sweltering cage.

For young that can rise  & be proud to stand

Above the  cost of  birth with a poor hand.

Outside malls, crowds line up for iphones and ipads,

Willing hostages,  to marketing and expensive fads,

A  generation raised by TV on ritalin and  fast food,

Proud children of Gekko because "greed is good"

Self worth outsourced , income outspent

No time for introspection , to examine discontent.

Some claw  up the rungs , no values to represent.

Inherit the keys to palaces, pull the strings above the scene,

Ancient story on repeat,   power a drug  through poverty obscene.

On the corner across a street

Where they say the" vagrants" meet,

With  hands stretched out towards a fire,

A  community in these times deemed dire.

A brother questions  the point of it all,

This business  of  robbing Peter to pay Paul,

Through  jobs with no meaning

for  debt with no ceiling.

I killed in Afghanistan for peace at home

Now I'm forgotten , my welcome worn,

Tell me it's true, this spin about a meritocracy,

Show  me a place where sweat and blood is currency.

Oh who decides which side

of the divide we reside in?

Were the lines drawn on primordial earth,

or is this the unfolding of the lottery of birth.

Black Mirror

Themes of death seepedinto my dreams as a child. Streams of existential guilt flowing into scenes of judgement and descents into an eviscerating infinity. Over and over.

Maturity first bred weariness, Deep in teenage flux, twisting through the purpose of my time, Preordained or to be determined? My thoughts anchored in morbidity. "For I did not choose to be"

Alas I did not implode, but rather, Surrendered to the fevers of thought, A victim reduced to mere survival, till the burden set me free. Now impassioned by mortality I see...

It was a black mirror to peer inside, To find joy where I once cried.

Identity

The endless possibility of my identity,Bound by a chain of bittersweet recollections, Am I a mere vessel for the past in the present? Like an oak adding layers over years, Tall and mighty yet clinging to sapling dreams.

Am I bound by your memories? As a son, a brother, a friend, a lover. Time can be the mind's corrupt governor, Knotting memories into your being, That occupy the present and taint your heart with the fear of repetition, And an unjust weariness that belittles life's essence.

Am I a memory of self-unfolding?

If I am to be a vessel, May it not be to ancient whispers, lacquered with incessant after-thought. May I instead be a host to my own humanity, Alive to the decay that darkness brings Through shadows that impersonate life.

You've been hiding in the undertow, Let me see the face hidden from my own eyes. May I be ever present in the now, For that is all there will ever be of me.

Melpomene

Drawing breath from the depths of a dream,
you swim beneath the solitude of skin,
to the primal pulse of my mind's eye,
where I yearn for your fugitive lips.

Your language, not of the tongue,
swells with the promise of home.
And my eyes hunger upon wake,
through the doubt of day,
for the mere sight of you...

Yet words are but the surface,
shimmering arrows to the wind,
there is no labour in tenderness,
only the ache of our separation.
For your beauty is a feeling that flows,
like the seasons through the trees.

Of Blank Pages

The blank page before me is a white ocean of melancholy. Do I dare fill its expanse and deprive it of its gleam? For it is a mere mess of words that I have to offer, the scribblings of a pen. As I sit here in this park, starring at this page, a strange automation takes hold. One where one's mind is beset with the relentless emotional spectrum of days gone by.How laughable it must be, at the age of twenty four, reflecting upon life as if it's zenith was an exclamation mark that I never caught sight of. Or perhaps it is the inevitable damnation of the thinker's soul, to examine fruitlessly, the beauty, the pain and the deficiencies of the past. Yet it is in this arrest that I often feel more alive, more so than when called upon by my name in this peaceful but stagnant present.

This bench has known little but quiet accommodation and these blades of grass are green with purpose. The afternoon sun's dreamy glow filters through the canopy as dust dances through its beams. The air is patient with me, keeping me company with its gentle cooling motion.

I am not detached from this beauty, at least not as much as I suppose. Contentment is the colour absent in this palette and I miss it's serenity with each passing moment. In these moments of stillness, when honesty fills every pore...I contemplate the source of these shades of dark that render me so desolate. And it spills before me, in a wave witnessed by no one but this page, no longer blank.

It would be easy to imagine. How my heart could cease to emanate love as it does in my daydreams. For what we call a heart is a mere space in our minds and our minds are volatile. If love is sealed within us, protected from harm, how many cracks does it take? Before it leaks out and that sacred space is parched and replaced with sorrow? I know not...I tremble at the thought of such things. I see my bruises, they are in my eyes as they glisten and my voice as it softens. I can speak of the toll of years and it would mean little to anyone but myself. But life is such, our stories beneath the skin.

I want to love another without refrain, how plain it sounds, but inescapably true. To feel alive as I did long ago...no..more so...but free of my shortsightedness. I feel it bottled inside me, caged in suppression, oh the passion beneath. I smile to myself, a smile of self defeat. How strange it is, how the intensity of your own confined passion can constrict you, to the point of utter desolation. A desire to love another that escapes rational comprehension...with the sole hope of them realising...that this is the pinnacle of life. That come what may...there's a center that holds firm. Yet there is no trace of a recipient, is this caged luminosity so far hidden....clearly so...as I walk alone in wake and sleep.

These afternoons, I hear it clearer, the cries that missed my listening, speaking through the calm. I feel a lightness of being as when the truth is surfaced before your very eyes. The very truth that I have concealed in seek of strength. For to admit to sorrow and loneliness would seem to be a sign of defeat. But if the truth is defeat then I am lost...for I cannot bear this self deceit, this race I run, sullen on the inside. If I were to have my own time, if only. But time is but a mechanical measure and it has no command over my emotions.

These memories may never fade but I long for new ones, a cerulean sky I can touch and remember for an eternity. For a kiss that is immaculate in recollection, free from the reach of regret. For my words to have substance to another upon reading.

I dream...for that is all one can do...I dream of these pages I fill being the light through the catacombs. and the sun through summer. That upon their reading, an understanding so powerful is reached...a deep gaze of recognition would follow. Bound to each other as these beams are to the sun above them. These blank pages will hold me till then, or till my passing.

May I never forget the gracious space you allow for the shades of my soul. I am a host to words - no more, no less....they are my surface and my center.