A journey is forgotten
once it is made, these
days the journey goes
on, continuously on
like seasonless serials
on internet tv
journeys
his and his
theirs, same
these men who come
to us in photographs
as moments of their
worlds, captured in
reel, more than one
cared to know, now
it sends a chill down
our spines, now real
we are forced to join
the journey, reminded
about real men who
grieve the land, and
men who let the men
who grieve the land
do so—
the reels play on
blurred
as their shoulders
touch, in an electric hate
warning signs colluding
as they graze each other
I wonder
if these shoulders rise
any different?
when their dead are carried
if their lands still divides
itself
when
men on both sides
bend their backs in
homage to theirs?
in anger gridlocked
they march in flocks
to cremation grounds
a journey that ends in
bald dead ends, same
quivering asylums stinging
through their tears, spent
eyes comatose, en masse’
their shoulders hold up
their bagged dead, same
in coffins, in palanquins
of chaos, funeral visions
ending in flames, same
of protestors or those
who come to prevent
their protests, same
Kashiana Singh lives in Chicago and embodies her TEDx talk theme of Work as Worship into her everyday. Her first collection is Shelling Peanuts and Stringing Words. Her chapbook Crushed Anthills is a journey through 10 cities. Her poems have been published on various platforms including Poets Reading the News, Visual Verse, Oddball Magazine, Café Dissensus, TurnPike Magazine, Inverse Journal. She is the winner of the 2020 Reuel International Poetry Award. Kashiana proudly serves as an Associate Poetry Editor for Poets Reading the News.
SIGN UP FOR COUNTERCURRENTS DAILY NEWSLETTER
