I look in at the beauty of many poems
That wail human emotions
Knowing I can climb the sacred mount.
It is not the distance between heartbreak
And despair that cries louder, only what lies between discrimination
And struggle. A brown man with sooty eyes
And a jaded heart, lurks in every good man’s conscience,
The hideout of his righteous soul.
Browning little tapestries of sugar into caramel.
And like the trumpet of Dizzie Gillespie
I shout louder than the whale calf
Slaughtered by the trawlers. Remembering
How long it took Dizzy to climb
The holy mount. Through the shadow of Miles
He labored, through trail-less landscapes and blind thickets,
Until he was on top of the mountain.
And through the guillotine of subjectivity
The electrifying movements will go on
To my own humble heights.
It takes a black man or a shade of brown,
To take heartache – Like Dizzy – and make it
Into soul sounds.
Perhaps even a dish of soul food.
Some Hoppin’ John, If I may.
Published by Curiosity-driven life (Dilantha Gunawardana)
Dr Dilantha Gunawardana graduated from the University of Melbourne, as a molecular biologist, and moonlights as a poet. He currently serves as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Botany, University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Dilantha lives in a chimeric universe of science and poetry. Dilantha’s poems have been accepted for publication /published in HeartWood Literary Magazine, Canary Literary Magazine, Boston Accent, Forage, Kitaab, Eastlit, American Journal of Poetry, Zingara Poetry Review, The Wagon and Ravens Perch, among others. Dilantha too has two anthologies of poetry, 'Kite Dreams' (2016) and 'Driftwood' (2017), both brought to the readership by Sarasavi Publishers, and is working on his third poetry collection (The Many Constellations of Home). Dilantha’s pet areas of teaching and research, include, Nitrogen Fixation, RNA biology, Phytoremediation, Agricultural Biology, and Bioethics & Biosafety.
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Kite Dreams 