OUTLANDISH

I miss my unborn child
Fetuses…that never saw the dawn of life
Insatiable desire of motherhood haunt my disheveled senses 
Throes of despair conquer my frenetic spirit. 
Unfertilized, my eggs get wasted in the monthly cycle of nature.

I try and draw a mental image of my unborn child
The child my womb never embraced,

Distorted visions flash through my subconscious
Yearnings to hear an infant's first cry overwhelm me.
I envision the final moments before labour, how would I have reacted? 
Honks from a passing car jolt me back to my uninhibited melancholy; 
I sieve through voids, fetch through the paranormal,
My soul deluged in the longing to cocoon life and nurture it within.
 
Blood Bank
Mohit-Ul-Alam
Translated by Shamsul Faiz

This is the blood -
Rub it with your fingers and look.
What do you see?
Is it of Shen or Ali?
Do you not understand?
Is it of Richard or Barua?
Blood is such. 
It doesn't give any scope to understand
It is a killer of borderlines.
It denies any clan-identity.
It doesn't come from outside;
It enters inside.
What is it to the sword of a white cap?
To the scimitar, it is just the same.
Accepted by all and everyone.
Blood is an ancient traveler.
It has come to the world from long before
It never learnt to wear long dhoti,
Nor white punjabi.
It didn't smarten up in a tie and coat.
Nor stood bald, wearing an ochre dress.
You don't make a farce
Of this aged great grandfather
Setting borderlines, in countries and villages.

Once you were very near to death.
How many bags did you take then?
Did you seen then? Whose was that blood?
Was it of Shen or Ali, Richard or Barua?