Bio: Kashiana Singh (http://www.kashianasingh.com/) calls herself a work practitioner and embodies the essence of her TEDx talk - Work as Worship into her everyday. Her chapbook Crushed Anthills from Yavanika Press in 2020 is a journey that unravels memory through 10 cities. She proudly serves as a Managing Editor for Poets Reading the News and her voice can be read and heard on various international platforms. Kashiana’s first poetry collection is called, Shelling Peanuts and Stringing Words. Her newest full-length collection, Woman by the Door has just been released with Apprentice House Press. Kashiana lives in North Carolina and carries her various geopolitical homes within her poetry.
Poem on the birthing table
Tell me about that moment
when a woman’s gaze shifts
inwards towards the mellow
tenderness of her ripe navel.
Tell me about the moment
when a woman wonders if
she will ever look outwards
into a mirror, continuation.
Tell me about the colorless
skin of water in which a life
nests
to
life.
Tell me about the erupting of
lava from wombs, a volcano
throbbing
to
life.
Tell me about the presence
unknown, urging to dislodge
dawn
to
life.
Tell me about stretched flesh
that anchors an unborn monk
within her innards, rising rising
swelling inside her, transition to
eternity.
Tell me about unremarkable
beginnings, of the entry into
light from an abyss, a mouth
unzipped by the many hands
birthing.
***
Things
that last
As the world catalogues
a nakedness, ugly in its
calloused skin, hardened
I catalogue feverishly, a
scraping of flesh to find
translucent memories. I
write of peripheries, the
pixel bytes released into
the x and y axis of maps
here is an airport lounge
walking in slow hiccups
here is another omitted temple
yoking its past and the present
here stands a lamp post
witness to careful streets
here is a patient bench
it stayed as people left
here is that snack stall
stains mapping a past
here is another auto shop
carelessly spilling grease
here is a wide-open door
its air hisses in holograms
here is the
eye of the storm
clenching tight on her teeth
here is an open notebook
unfolding sepia at edges
here stands
another intersection
curving into
a hunched sidewalk
here are these raging oceans
their ribs bloating into waves
here is
grass of green memories
tickling the
nose of a skilled dog
A paraphernalia of images
percolate my dreams, into
the born and unborn
some green and grey
stars and songs
wars and violins
earthworms
and earth
worms, who
beneath this
wilted earth
quiver along
***
Echoes
screams
his
blistered skin
in
orchestra
first
bloom
the
yellow settles
into ash
heaps
tombstones
erupt
into lanterns
falling skies
whirring
dragonfly
another
blast opens
new
wounds
tiny
fingerprints
on train
windows
erasure
explosions
women
holding skies
with
blooming arms
an opaque
sky
the
ground swells
in chorus
Z
ealously
foreshadowing
zeitgeist
forgiveness
sunday
dreams
exiled inside
bomb
shelters
***
No comments :
Post a Comment
We welcome your comments related to the article and the topic being discussed. We expect the comments to be courteous, and respectful of the author and other commenters. Setu reserves the right to moderate, remove or reject comments that contain foul language, insult, hatred, personal information or indicate bad intention. The views expressed in comments reflect those of the commenter, not the official views of the Setu editorial board. рдк्рд░рдХाрд╢िрдд рд░рдЪрдиा рд╕े рд╕рдо्рдмंрдзिрдд рд╢ाрд▓ीрди рд╕рдо्рд╡ाрдж рдХा рд╕्рд╡ाрдЧрдд рд╣ै।