Kevork Kalayjian: Native Tongue

March to death an ancient civilization
native language silenced. Look at lost cultures!
Manuscripts where our shame is sheltered, sealed
within the walls of fear of being different!


Organized persecution, segregation
religious intolerance, and color
differentiation,
government organized race annihilation,
the definite death on the unending desert sand.
Now we are tired to overcome this new threat.


This new partition, based on the ability to spend
cash on Berger King, Pizza and movies, or
charging our future on such classy items as,
Four Seasons, Disney's, health spas, or searching
connections with jazz, rap, or Yo Yo Ma.


My native language is not even used for cursing,
let alone for the expression of love, admiration,
hate, or praying to the one who knows it all!


My native tongue still speaks to my soul
but I cannot translate it anymore!




Kevork K. Kalayjian, Jr.


This poem appears in Love Lure: A Collection of Love Poems and Other Writings, published in New York, 2010 - Ed.