Earlier this year, in July, I managed to get an interview with Johnson Uncle and Jamis Aiya, Chairman and General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Associations of Bus Jack-sons (SLABJ) who discussed their motivation to sexually harass women on the bus. They also claimed during that interview that the Transport Ministry had underreported their successes, and claimed the overall sexual harassment was actually around 70%, give or take a squeeze here, a grope there, and rub …

“beneficiaries” : the people who make it possible for us to be paid by other people
“bottom-up” : don’t ask someone what might work, just make something up instead
“baseline” : a point which is so low that positive results are the only possible outcome
“accountability for results” – we wait for any stories about negative results to become old news
“bottoms-up development”: downing single-malt whiskey in one shot at Davos
“civil society involvement”: consulting the middle class employee of a US or European NGO
 “community capacity building” : teach …

13th July 2011
Breaking News: Transport Ministry confirms one in four women are harassed on public transport in Sri Lanka.
This information has come as a surprise to Johnson Uncle and Jamis Aiya, Chairman and General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Association of Bus Jack-sons. They claim that the transport ministry has falsified reports and that their success rate is far superior to the statistics quoted.
In response they have released their statistics for the year 2010/2011 …

Kneeling by the bedside; I looked into your eyes
No longer were you breathing; you were headed for the skies
I clutched your hand and held it firmly
I knew your life was quite the journey
You thought of all the things you did
When you were just the “little kid”
You found the injured robin and asked “ Why doesn’t he sing ?’
We took him home and found; he had a broken wing
We played tag for hours in the field …

Translated from Sinhala to English by Jonis.
Carolis: Last night when I was licking my woman’s vagina, and she was writhing and moaning in pleasure this side and that side, our dog walked in, sat down and watched us. This made me feel very uncomfortable and I stopped.
Nonis: Why did you stop (huttho)?
Carolis: That’s what she said.  I had to stop. Bunty was watching us.
Nonis: So? It’s just a dog. What’s wrong with you (huttho)?! …

If I get drunk, come home, and slap my wife for overcooking the rice… that’s pretty despicable. No?
If I am going to slap her, I should do it when she deserves a slap, not overcooked rice. That’s just ugly despicable. Not even pretty.
So what would she need to do to deserve a slap, a kick, a punch in the mouth? Surely we need to develop some clear guidelines on this. We need to form a …

Promiscuity
from Vol. 39 No. 2
When the neighbor’s drapes are open,
I’m not like the kind of man
who refuses to put down his binoculars
so that their steamy, good time
can remain his as well. No,
I’m exactly that kind of man,
wary of anyone who’d turn away
mid-view, skedaddle off to a room
that overlooks, say, a pond.
I’m so tired of superior smiles.
Something I’m unaware of is likely
governing me, which doesn’t excuse
these dark, bottom-feeding things
I tend to let rise into daylight.
I’ll take discredit for …

How this tart fable instructs
And mocks! Here’s the parody of that moral mousetrap
Set in the proverbs stitched on samplers
Approving chased girls who get them to a tree
And put on bark’s nun-black

Habit which deflects
All amorous arrows. For to sheathe the virgin shape
In a scabbard of wood baffles pursuers,
Whether goat-thighed or god-haloed. Ever since that first Daphne
Switched her incomparable back

For a bay-tree hide, respect’s
Twined to her hard limbs like ivy: the puritan lip
Cries: ‘Celebrate Syrinx whose demurs
Won …

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.
Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time—
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal
And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off the beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to …

5am
Friday morning
Thursday night
Far from sleep
I’m still up and driving
Can’t go home
obviously
So I’ll just change direction
Cause they’ll soon konw where I live
And I wanna live
Got a full tank and some chips
It was me and a gun
And a man on my back
And I sang “holy holy” as he buttoned down his pants
You can laugh
It’s kind of funny things you think
at times like these
Like I haven’t seen Barbados
So I must get out of this
Yes I wore a slinky …