Kashiana Singh (Diaspora Dual Identities)

Kashiana Singh

How Families Remember

 

Like a spider weaving its web,
focused on the white humility
of silken strands, each thread
unbreakable, yet extraordinary.

 

Like the old letter found,
its words curled in the cursive of love,
or a slip of grief braided in audacious
expectations, brittle leaves forgotten.

 

Like the game of hide and seek—
the thrill of being found, unfound,
devouring the last apricot behind
a hinged door, plenitude in nothing.

 

Like the language of a bespoke snake,
its tongue forked with the unspoken,
its venom eager as a lover’s sigh,
the calm ache of a reptile's embrace.

 

Like the wound that outlasts pain

throbbing around the skin so red

that blood itself seems pale, as if

ignoring disease will make it leave.

 

Like we live, in a constant swerve

none of us home, forever unsure

of whether we were coming, going

or had already been done, undone.

 

 

Fursat: What Happens When Time Is the Space Between Words?

 

Spend the day with instructions for coffee—
let coarseness seep into the percolator sieve,
perking its presence with a whistled signal,
brewing genetic memories, totems of place,
drip by drip from the spout, just as potent.

 

All I smell some days is a candle in a glass jar,
on the carved Kashmiri walnut chest,
its flickering light casting folds in the air,
my mother’s home etched in the creases of time,
waiting like pressed flowers, curling at the edges.

 

infinite possibilities

and then the first gadget

arrives

 

Pre-stories

the ink of ancestors

rises through newborn skins.

 

 

When Kashiana is not writing, she lives to embody her TEDx talk theme of Work as Worship into her every day. Her second full-length collection, Woman by the Door was released in 2022 with Apprentice House Press. Her newest full-length collection, Witching Hour was released in December 2024 with Glass Lyre Press. She lives in North Carolina and serves as Managing Editor for Poets Reading the News as well as President of the North Carolina Poetry Society. Besides being a poet practitioner, Kashiana serves as vice president of the healthcare services industry.
 

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Setu, April 2025

Kashiana Singh (Western Voices 2023)

Bio: Kashiana Singh (http://www.kashianasingh.com/) strives to embody the essence of her TEDx talk - Work as Worship into her everyday life. Her chapbook, Crushed Anthills from Yavanika Press in 2020 is a journey that unravels memory through 10 cities. Her latest full-length collection, Woman by the Door was released in Feb 2022 with Apprentice House Press. Kashiana lives in North Carolina and carries her various geopolitical homes within her poetry. Her poems have been published on Rattle, Poets Reading the News, North Dakota Qtrly, and Beltway Poetry, amongst others.

The poem that is mother and child

Nevertheless, a poem is a poem, it works

itself into the ears of a six-month-old like

wild geese following the softest parts of

their bodies, heading home with a focus

his eyes crinkled tight, concentrating on

a gleaming flashback of prior births, also

on warm swollen breasts of new mother

tiny hands disappearing into their fullness

her heart brimming over with every single

tear that drops on his cheek, inviting her

into the poems that form like an ache, he

yawns, stretches or twitches in a wrinkled

skin, tiniest movements entry points into

raw verse, crinkled eyes older than the old

witness to perfect paradigm of being alive

an orchestra of the sky whispers invincible

marginalia of light into his unwieldy torso

he squints back at the moon, its stumbling 

streaks falling upon her braided bun, erect

cross legged, she gathers her mood and his

puckered lips, sipping at warm water, taste

of rust, as it infuses senses, fennel, & cumin

***

before death

curled caterpillar

the quivering ocean between us

solitary star

you trace maps on a moonless sky

delirious morning 

unwrapping one flattened breast

waning moon

dissipating seconds in final breaths

dragonfly

a buzzing congregation of mourners

mourning doves

the trembling voice of goodbyes

***

Field notes

behind bars

the immigration officer

a screeching bat

waxing moon

patterned shadows

on your face

in obeisance

folding my back

ancestral voices

punctured sky

our statistics buried 

in perfect shrouds

***

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Western Voices 2023 :: Setu, February 2023

Kashiana Singh (Western Voices 2022)

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

***

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Setu, April 2022

Kashiana Singh: Poetry (Western Voices 2021)

Bio: Kashiana Singh 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 Poetry Editor for Poets Reading the News and her voice be read and heard on various international platforms.

 

 

 

One pond

 

It is a place behind a house

witness to my walk, everyday

I stare into its shadows, rewinding

untold tales, wondering what ponds

nurture inside their belly,

pregnant with broken dreams

purgatory of missing memories—

voices that spilled

from the dining table

of the home that still stands

tousled awakenings of foggy
mornings. Feeling enough as

the blue whispered at ripples

falling into Grand Canyon depths

swallowed bird bones, its

bottom frescoed with bare tendrils
of swallow tails, worms and insects
sketching rage of the evening light

two autumnal leaves left untamed

possible legacy of branches, the
stems made careless love, caressing

the warmth of savage winter nights
do all ponds —

even those that loom large
between countries, simmer
inside them, such rhythms?

 

 

Geography

frosted windows -

like a cartographer

I trace your face

 

swimming

among coral reefs -

my wrinkled toes

 

emptiness -

winter succumbs

to a polar vortex

 

 

* Sacred * 

Sunrise

How to not catch incoming

breathlessness, that skids

inside air pockets of men

who endlessly worship

open mouths, open hands

upturned vessels towards a

succulent sky, simpering in

presence of shards of light

 

Sunset

How to permit mornings

into windows, bandaged

rays slanting in branches

scraping voices inside of

startled squirrels, steps

on dewed winter grass

squinting at edge of days

chastened in blind white

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Western Voices 2021 :: Setu, February 2021

A Haiku remembrance for Bapu

Freedom has to come not tomorrow, but today*

Kashiana Singh

humility

in a loincloth-

nation making

spinning surely-

an endless penance

at his charkha

undying-

a father, saint, soldier

of kindled mind

deeds not words-

every step he took

was resolute

ahimsa

knows no borders-

salutation

*Words from Gandhi’s Quit India Speech at the AICC in Bombay on 8.8.1942

***

Bio: Kashiana Singh lives in Chicago and embodies her TEDx talk theme of Work as Worship into her everyday. Her poetry collection, Shelling Peanuts and Stringing Words presents her voice as a participant and an observer. Her chapbook Crushed Anthills is a journey through 10 cities – a complex maze of remembrances to unravel. Her poems have been published on various platforms including Poets Reading the News, Visual Verse, Oddball Magazine, Café Dissensus, TurnPike Magazine, Inverse Journal. Kashiana is the winner of the 2020 Reuel International Poetry Award. She lives in Chicago and carries her various geographical homes within her poetry.

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Setu Special 2020 :: Setu, October 2020

Kashiana Singh (Western Voices 2020)

Exclusive: Western Voices, 2020: Edited by Scott Thomas Outlar

Bio: Kashiana Singh is a management professional by job classification and a work practitioner by personal preference. Kashiana’s TEDx talk was dedicated to Work as Worship. Her poetry collection, Shelling Peanuts and Stringing Words presents her voice as a participant and an observer. Her poems have been published on various platforms including Poets Reading the News, Visual Verse, Oddball Magazine, TurnPike Magazine, Dissident Voice, Feminine Collective, Spillwords, Poetry Super Highway. You can listen to her reciting her work on Rattle Open Mic sessions, Songs of Selah podcast and Poetry Super Highway episodes. Kashiana lives in Chicago and carries her various geographical homes within her poetry.

Love in the foyer

The shimmering zest of your skin
Rubs into mine like a secret sin
An oblique glance at the kindred
Sun, liquid as it slips into the sea
I eat at the salt of my grainy dreams
Scale by scale by scale, my slithering
Mornings awaken to your listless ocean
Drop by drop by drop, flapping/pulsating
My tail draws death from your liquid oils
A manna, bleeding red into my reefs
My pores absorbing into their savannah
Your luscious color, you gather my rage
And become an altar-piece of plenitude
To the confetti of our petulant silence

As it stays —

stubborn, trembling at the lonesome

foyer of our stalled still afternoons

dormant rituals 

when the world

is better, less bitter

we will inherit again

migrate again

settle,

unsettle again

we will stand

tall, look each

other

in the eye,

non posturing,

again

we will be

free

in our language

again, phrases

poetry, words

not sanctified

expressions

we will begin

again, with

pride

our shoulders

in hope

will steer us

there

again

we will migrate

and unmigrate

again

what is

done

again

and

again

is         ritual

is         practice

near     perfect

things like

dressing the

dead, smiling

through

missing

teeth,

dodging

bullets in

alleys

of grocery

stores

cracking eggs

in equal halves

hiding stains

of

menstruation,

spilling guts

neatly inside

paper bags,

we will migrate

and unmigrate

again

existing

without insult

the ritual

of being

dormant

they say time heals

in aggregation it does but there are those

individual moments or significant memories

that sneak their way through

your pores every once in a while

and ever since you left, you arrive

in many such minutes that rise and fall

through me—

your bellowing laughter, your

sufi music, recasts itself often, then

the pendulum’s tick tock, whirring of cars, are an inept

distraction. every so often, you escape a laugh

straight into my ears, it is irritating

oozing chicken patty crumbs, you insistently

left scattered, around your plate

on purpose of course—

bread

crumbs in stories

always lead

to a dead end

your presence, sharp and photogenic

that fugitive charm of yours, bright

like confetti—

those days, there were

no apple phones

you would have made

such a good capture

your hand as it lingered around the dog’s neck

her clipped hair black, bleak, bristling

as if aware of what was to come, soon

they say

dogs know, before

humans of what is

to be

and then there were always your shoes

those sneaker shops that line the malls

you never learned to tie your fraying laces

those shoes

do remind me

each time of

how

every step, your stride always had a dance

like quality, sure-footed like the horses

you rode, a pretended diligence in

your straight face

encountered life

imagining what

could be

Setu, April 2020