top of page

1

Poetry

How I would've written in a bygone era

Kaushal Lakeshri

I think too romantically to imagine myself
As a writer, only about a century ago,
tall as I am, lean as i would've been
Hair longer than I would fancy, glasses too big if any, resting on a sharp nose too greasy,
in dark pants with worn out pockets
wearing a slightly stained shirt from the chai Guddi spilled years ago and dark reds otherwise.
Living with Guddi, my cat, not really mine, a lousy tenant but rather lovely
As if an uninterested consort, but,
A reason for me to come back every night.
And my diary, unopened by any other hands but mine,
Enough to get me into trouble, but
Don't worry, this poem isn't about the nationalistic charge that would've ruled the letters and correspondences lying beside the overused ashtray
Blots across its hardback like unsaid words that still leave a mark too permanent,
with some entries of a day extending across 37 pages yet my reluctance to write on other days maintaining its balance.

Placed in a quaint setting enough to fit in a creaking table set, cupboard and a bed
Locked away in the gullies of a to-be town,
Leaves fluttering like a chime outside my window where the passing thoughts brought melody besides
clocks ticking, on the wall, on my wrist, abreast my heart,
first thoughts become seconds and time rushing through my veins demanding my hands to create-

Poems out of the wind
Dip my pen in ink as if to thread a needle
Cause scratches and tears would've shadowed my handwriting
Weave together pages of my experience
A stack of ruled whites turned yellows, memoirs,
On wars and disease
On my bleeding nation and its slain sons
On how my heart lacks belonging in these words of a language foreign
Yet very much mine.
On arbitrariness, also on the rhythm in mundanity.
And on my taste in flowers, my breaking heart of when I too
Picked a sunflower that was the brightest of them all, turning a blind eye to the frowns of the drooping petals of loveless bunches which no one picked, not even me.
On the intriguing stillness of life at 4:37am when I would've took off for my travels to the promising city 3 hours away, everyday
I would ask for what was the sun showing up that day, to which Salim would've answered that the Sun was but a cue for him;
On regrets of how things would have become difficult between us over the years.
On the echoes of distant noons when i must've nibbled on peas, sitting on my Ma's lap
On the impermeability of my eyelids yet unreasoned fragility of my skin
On how the fractions of these experiences that I live,
Put my pen to paper about,
United me with the names of writers I would've read then,
Writers of a bygone era.
~ k.

bottom of page