Desh Balasubramaniam is a young poet. He was born in Sri Lanka and grew up in both the war torn Northern & Eastern provinces. He fled to New Zealand at the age of thirteen with his family on humanitarian asylum. His work has appeared in Blue Giraffe, Sunday Times (Sri Lanka) Online, Auckland Poetry and further work will appear in the next editions of Overland, Mascara and Indigo Dream Anthology – And Again Last Night. He is currently working on his first poetry collection.
Milk & curfew
Milk & curfew
nameless mister, scamper
downwards – dust awaken streets
frightened in flight, floating footwear
feared marks of soldiers
hidden revolvers
bottle of buffalo milk
thinned by thick of thirst
wife lies in wait (kneeling)
open door,
week long curfew
turning at each bend
will of the unseen – faceless back
spilling himself
falls at the door step, his wife
child weeps from within (makeshift cot)
borderless cotton sari
milk…
Scarred hands
with lilies I stood
in rain and in cold
dressed her lines with scarlet corals––unpretty
while caressing her bareness with scarred hands
she screamed: you are not the only one
beneath camel skin and a child’s face––hid myself
dug a burrow to bury my questions
words I heaved them on the floor
they fell on her painted toes
oxymoronic
sharp and dull at once
my undreamt dream falsely true
