The Cinnamon Peeler Read Online Free PDF Page B

WARS
    Dusk in Colombo
    the Bo tree dark all day
    gathers the last of our light
    and in its green rooms which yawn
    over Pettah stores
    is its own shadow
    – hundreds of unseen bats
    tuning up the auditorium
    in archaic Tamil
    Trincomalee
                   they whisper
    is my brother
    source of my exile
    long slow miles to the scrub north
    whose blossoms are dirty birds
    so bright they are extracts of the sea
    Swim
                   into the north’s blue eye
    over the milk floor of ocean
    that darkens only with depth
    The Ray
    flies in silence
    muttering bubbles to himself
    Tread over his
                   avenue
    The ancient warrior
    whose brother
    stole his operatic tongue
                             plunges
    in pure muscle
    towards his neighbours
    bloodless full
    of noon moonlight
    only his twin
    knows how to charm
    the waters against him
SWEET LIKE A CROW
                                                     
for Hetti Corea, 8 years old
    ‘
The Sinhalese are beyond a doubt one of the least musical people in the world. It would be quite impossible to have less sense of pitch, line or rhythm
’ PAUL BOWLES
    Your voice sounds like a scorpion being pushed
    through a glass tube
    like someone has just trod on a peacock
    like wind howling in a coconut
    like a rusty bible, like someone pulling barbed wire
    across a stone courtyard, like a pig drowning,
    a vattacka being fried
    a bone shaking hands
    a frog singing at Carnegie Hall.
    Like a crow swimming in milk,
    like a nose being hit by a mango
    like the crowd at the Royal-Thomian match,
    a womb full of twins, a pariah dog
    with a magpie in its mouth
    like the midnight jet from Casablanca
    like Air Pakistan curry,
    a typewriter on fire, like a hundred
    pappadans being crunched, like someone
    trying to light matches in a dark room,
    the clicking sound of a reef when you put your head into the sea,
    a dolphin reciting epic poetry to a sleepy audience,
    the sound of a fan when someone throws brinjals at it,
    like pineapples being sliced in the Pettah market
    like betel juice hitting a butterfly in mid-air
    like a whole village running naked onto the street
    and tearing their sarongs, like an angry family
    pushing a jeep out of the mud, like dirt on the needle,
    like 8 sharks being carried on the back of a bicycle
    like 3 old ladies locked in the lavatory
    like the sound I heard when having an afternoon sleep
    and someone walked through my room in ankle bracelets.
LATE MOVIES WITH SKYLER
    All week since he’s been home
    he has watched late movies alone
    terrible one star films and then staggering
    through the dark house to his bed
    waking at noon to work on the broken car
    he has come home to fix.
    21 years old and restless
    back from logging on Vancouver Island
    with men who get rid of crabs with Raid
                   
2 minutes bending over in agony
                   
and then into the showers!
    Last night I joined him for
The Prisoner of Zenda
    a film I saw three times in my youth
    and which no doubt influenced me morally.
    Hot coffee bananas and cheese
    we are ready at 11.30 for adventure.
    At each commercial Sky
    breaks into midnight guitar practice
    head down playing loud and intensely
    till the movie comes on and the music suddenly stops.
    Skyler’s favourite hours when he’s usually alone
    cooking huge meals of anything in the frying pan
    thumbing through
Advanced Guitar
like a bible.
    We talk during the film
    and break into privacy during commercials
    or get more coffee or push
    the screen door open and urinate under the trees.
    Laughing at the dilemmas of 1920 heroes
    suggestive lines, cutaways to court officials
    who raise their eyebrows at least 4 inches
    when the lovers kiss …
    only