To Mother

Mother I will born again!

 I look into the mirror

a history shrieks at my back

I carry the ruins of the civilization.

Every woman does. Every mother does.

 

I look into your eyes: the darkness

life perhaps is walking dead

through me and someone tells me:

                        you shouldn’t be

                        shouldn’t be alive.

 

This is a night before,

this is a moment before

I allowed myself

                        to be scraped out

                        of your womb,

my unformed

unborn shreds of tiny body.

 

The devil of tradition

takes over and hovers upon you

the very moment

you conceived me.

They say they see a devil

in a pregnant body,

fearful of the unknown

demand only male air

which sometimes they

themselves don’t have

in their male body.

How easy it is to play ignorant

and blame a woman for

not delivering a male child!

 

History laughs.

Nothing has changed

between now and then

from the ancient midwife’s

making the newborn baby girl

suck her poisonous thumb

to see her unborn body

through ultrasounds and

wash her out. Difference?

Only it looks more accurate,

more sure, professional,

and six months time saver.

 

After I opened my eyes

for the very first time

in the day light

I found myself alive

pulsating, and  crying.

Only after sucking on

the poisonous thumb

I was declared a dead-born!

 

Now it has changed.

I am not even allowed

to be born.

Sex-selection labs,

testing and selecting

        the only sex: male!

considering female foetus

as sub-human demon

her right to be born

            is taken away!

 

Traditional bound parents

find  a relief in aborting

their female air.

They earn an other chance

a privilege to try again

until they get it ‘right’.

 

Mother, I feel your sighs

inside your womb

I sipped your salty tears

inside your womb.

You know this sanctuary

this sacred place you offer

for both male and female

is safe temple for me.

Over a span of time

and countless loathings later

I will come again.

I will be born again and again.

I will dwell in this sacred place again!

Don’t you worry mother!

I will be there again!!

You know, I know

if we keep vanishing ourselves

the day is not far  away

when the human race

will no longer be there!

 - A poem by Surjeet Kalsey

.

.

.

Ehsaas

 

Ehsaas South Asian Readers and Writers Festival:  14 March 2012

.

.

 

 

.

.

.

Tribute

Urdu Poet Janab Zahid Laeeeq Poetry

 

31 October 2011

Chief editor of International Multilingual Magazine – SHAHPARA, Janab Zahid Laeeq left this world three years ago on this date and left his lyrics echoing in the wind.

Some of his poems:

 

Shabdan di Sanjh

.

SHABDAN DI SANJH: An Anthology of Punjabi Poets of Fraser Valley

Edited by Surjeet Kalsey

.TARLOCHAN PUBLISHERS CHANDIGARH, 2011

Shabdan di Sanjh is the first anthology of Fraser Valley Punjabi poets who are also members of Punjabi Sahit Sabha (Punjabi Literary Society) Abbotsford since 2008 dedicated to promote literature, language and culture.

New Moon

A silver new moon
like a shinning scythe
reaps the stars
in the azure sky.
Some wandering clouds
cover its face and make
its glowing sight foggy. 
 
The multicoloured leaves -
ornaments of the autumn
innocently come under our feet
the fall prevails everywhere.

Under the yellow golden veil
the earth is hiding its face
and the silver new moon smiles.

A longing lingers
becomes yearning
and yearning brings 
dukh grief, sheer misery-
voiceless, faceless
wandering my thoughts
nowhere, spaceless.
I yearn to hear your voice! 

Buddha speaks to me:

 “Sufferings exist.
There is cause of sufferings.
Sufferings cease.
There is a path to cessation of sufferings.”

“The love of poetry is an affair of the heart.” –James Reeves