The Rebels Who Later Died Poem by Vihanga Perera

The writer names him Pakkiri:
Loyal, intellectual, jolly
Rotund kind of fellow
-Who, on the day he joins his banned party
Is arrested, put behind bars -
Who spends years in prison bearing the pain
And is released in the end
Only to be caught and gunned by his enemies.

He reminds me, Pakkiri,
Of all those men and women who
To a cause gave a vital part
And who bore the rust of the barred cell,
The vermin of the system and the yanking of the soul
Without losing one's life though
Brought within touching distance of death's sweet dole,

Those who carried on to return
To the light of day,
And then to be killed in some
Inglorious, mundane petty way.