Us And The Modern Monsters
Basil Fernando
Kavi Kola – Poetry Sheets (1): Us and the Modern Monsters
Cry, my beloved country, cry.
Loudly ask why
Do not let the monsters
Smash out the light.
Look at those three hoodless vans
In the thick of darkness coming,
Keeping measured distances.
They move slowly.
One in front carries
Young prisoners from a camp
And a few soldiers.
They each take a prisoner
Throw them into the air,
As children throw balloons.
A marksman takes aim,
Moving his expert fingers.
A few soldiers rush out of the third van,
Pour petrol and set fire
To the wounded youths.
Three vans move again,
Keeping measured distances,
Till the next prisoner is thrown like a balloon.
When Kerosene runs out,
The van begins its return, taking back
A single surviving prisoner.
In a mass grave at Matale
Remains of one-hundred
And fifty bodies are excavated.
Some, among so many
In the South, North and East.
Such are the works of new monsters,
Created by the marriage of
Modern physics and ancient metaphysics.
Modern monsters more sinister
Than a nine-headed poisonous dragon,
Medusa or Minotaur.
Thesius, Perseus and Hercules
Too weak to tame
The modern monsters,
Created out of new concoctions.
Perhaps, the depths of all oceans,
And ocean-like human minds,
Must be stirred, again and again…
Till a new potent concoction,
Emerges with powers
To annihilate the modern monsters.
Cry, my beloved country, cry.
Till out of the abyss of our desolation
New giants may arise,
Who, unlike Hellenistic heroes,
Will posses the psychic power
To melt away our collective burden.
*Basil Fernando published his first volume of poems A New Era to Emerge in 1972. Since then, he has published several volumes of poems in English and two collections in Sinhala. His poems have appeared in several Sri Lankan and international anthologies. His poems have been translated into many Western and Asian languages. A translated anthology of his poems was published in Malayalam entitled Sundaramaithry. In 1983, he and Richard Zoysa shared the first prize for poetry in New Ceylon Writings, published by Professor Yasmin Gunaratne. His poems are available here.
