Syl Cheney-Coker.  Blood Money.

Syl Cheney-Coker. Blood Money.

Author: The Ceylon Press September 28, 2025 Duration: 2:09


Along the route of this river,
with a little luck, we shall chance upon
our brothers' fortune, hidden with that cold smile
reserved for discreet bankers unmindful of the hydra
growing fiery mornings from our discontent
Wealth was always fashionable, telluric,
not honor pristine and profound.

In blasphemous glee, they raise to God's lips
those cups filled with ethnic offerings
that saps the blood of all human good.

Having no other country to call my own
except for this one full of pine needles
on which we nail our children's lives,
I have put off examining this skull,
savage harvest, the swollen earth,
until that day when, all God's children,
we shall plant a eureka supported by a blood knot.

And remorse not being theirs to feel,
I offer an inventory of abuse by these men,
with this wretched earth on my palms,
so as to remind them of our stilted growth
the length of a cutlass, or if you prefer
the size of our burnt-out brotherhood.


ENJOY MORE
 The Ceylon Press publishes a range of podcasts including The History Of Sri Lanka; the off-grid Jungle Diaries podcast; Island Stories, the podcast that explores what makes Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan; the Wild Isle Podcast: Stories from Sri Lanka’s Nature; a range of complete Audio Books about Sri Lanka; as well as Poetry from The Jungle.  All these, along with eBooks, dictionaries, guides and companions can be found at www.theceylonpress.com, based at The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel in the jungle northwest of Kandy: www.flametreeestate.com.  
 

The copyright of this podcast recording is David Swarbrick @The Ceylon Press 2025. 

 

POETRY FROM THE JUNGLE GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES THE COPYRIGHT CREDIT: 
 Copyright © Syl Cheney-Coker.


There’s a particular sound to the jungle-a layered quiet of leaves, birds, and distant water. It’s from within that atmosphere that The Sri Lanka Podcast: Poetry From The Jungle finds its voice. Produced by The Ceylon Press, each episode is recorded at the Flame Tree Estate & Hotel, nestled in the wilds northwest of Kandy. This isn’t a standard literary analysis show; it’s an experience of resonance. Here, timeless poems by renowned authors are read aloud, allowing their rhythms and meanings to intertwine with the ambient sounds of a Sri Lankan forest. The setting does more than provide backdrop-it actively shapes how you hear each word, offering a fresh and quietly profound perspective on verses you thought you knew. This podcast invites a slower kind of listening, where a classic sonnet might be punctuated by a monsoon shower or the call of a hornbill. It’s for anyone who believes place matters, that the environment where a story is told becomes part of the story itself. Tune in for a unique fusion of the literary and the natural, a deliberate retreat into the world of spoken art framed by one of the planet’s most vibrant soundscapes.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 89

The Sri Lanka Podcast: Poetry From The Jungle
Podcast Episodes
John Clare.   I Am. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:01
I am: yet what I am none cares or knows, My friends forsake me like a memory lost; I am the self-consumer of my woes, They rise and vanish in oblivious host, Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost; And yet I am! a…
Geoffrey Hill.  From Mercian Hymns. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 8:03
I King of the perennial holly-groves, the riven sandstone: overlord of the M5: architect of the historic rampart and ditch, the citadel at Tamworth, the summer hermitage in Holy Cross: guardian of the Welsh Bridge and th…
Gabriel Okara.  The Paino And The Drums. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:17
When at break of day at a riverside I hear the jungle drums telegraphing the mystic rhythm, urgent, rawlike bleeding flesh, speaking of primal youth and the beginning I see the panther ready to pounce the leopard snarlin…
Ezra Pound.  The Garden. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:33
The Garden. By Ezra Pound. Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens, And she is dying piece-meal of a sort of emotional anemia. And round about there is a r…
Emily Dickinson.  Because I Could Not Stop For Death. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:49
Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality. We slowly drove – He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility…
Edward Thomas.  Adlestrop. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:41
Yes. I remember Adlestrop— The name, because one afternoon Of heat the express-train drew up there Unwontedly. It was late June. The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat. No one left and no one came On the bare platf…
Du Fu.  A Woman Of Quality. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:37
Matchless in breeding and beauty, a fine lady has taken refuge in this forsaken valley. She is of good family, she says, but her fortune has withered away; now she lives as the grass and trees. When the heartlands fell t…
Douglas Dunn.  Kaleidoscope. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:46
Kaleidoscope. By Douglas Dunn. To climb these stairs again, bearing a tray, Might be to find you pillowed with your books, Your inventories listing gowns and frocks As if preparing for a holiday. Or, turning from the lan…
Alcman.  Night Poem. [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:30
Over the drowsy earth still night prevails; Calm sleep the mountain tops and shady vales, The rugged cliffs and hollow glens; The cattle on the hill. Deep in the sea, The countless finny race and monster brood Tranquil r…