NOBODY ASKS ME

 From lattice window 

I watch the doomed and dying each day:

read the tattooed name 
of  her first love on the right arm

waking up the drunk
with tenderness of youthful mom

bitchy fight at night
for booze or sex in candle light

smoking dreams of years
with dirt or grease between fingers

his somniloquy
drugged-out face, doomed grin, boys’ dustup

now the Covid smells
they shift lamp to live with shadow

lockdown images
burning, buried, floating bodies

I nearly die
nobody asks me my last wish

--R K Singh

My Poems Pubished in Poetcrit, July-December 2024

 

 

 

 

Poems

Poetcrit 37.2 (July - December 2024)

R. K. Singh

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof. Ram Krishna Singh is a renowned, widely published, anthologized, and translated poet
with over 20 poetry collections to his credit. His latest poetry collections include Covid-19 And
Surge of Silence/Kovid-19 Hem Sessízlík Tolkn (English/Tatar, 2021), 白濁: SILENCE: A WHITE
DISTRUST (English/Japanese, Kindle Edition/Paperback, 2022), and Poems and Micropoems
(Southern Arizona Press, USA, 2023). Find him on Twitter @profrksingh and on Facebook www.
facebook.com/profrksingh. More at https://pennyspoetry.fandom.com/wiki/R.K._Singh.

_________________________________________________________________________________

For My Sisters

Unable to gauge
what’s scaring about his pyre
they lit without me
his first son not dead yet
they performed my last rites too

throwing my ashes
in the gutter red with blood
they erased all signs
now what’s wrong if I forsake
all that tied me to their place?

NOISES

I can’t hear my self
their noises erase my world
choices are denied-
questions of being wound me
courage and strength fade away

noises mute my voice
distract me from the truth
crowns change with the wind
and they play chess with our lives

they feed us dust and potions
in their new temples
arouse their magic deities
make us yell loud
and hang us upside down

Reflections

how much should I strip
in public
poems already say
too much to digest

and now a memoir?
all overt dirtiness
parables of prophets
daily infidelity
and miserable truths?

what have I lived
wasting dreams in human zoo
no bestseller
no fortune no lightning
no myths for posterity

no use writing more
to reveal my meanings:
brief is beautiful
to make an eternity
of my lived single moments

DOG DAYS

 
A numerologist says
I was born to attract abundance
and draws a cosmic soul reading
when a breakthrough is due

and here I am ruing my dog days

will I get the pension
before the wealth planet expires
from my home to others?

I can’t buy magic pendant
for Venus to level up my life
or make real the dream numbers

Four Haiku

 
1

sunflowers ring
teenagers ChatGPT
Sapphic know-how

2

her décolleté blouse
and see-through saree—
curve’s vanity

3

a curled snake
with fangs ready to poison
love’s narrow passage

4

sky’s canvas-
disfigures in no time
my funny face

***

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Published in Poetcrit 37.2 (July - December 2024): 224-227

30 Selected Haiku

1
wiping his face
under the umbrella
an old man with books

2
old diary--
finding phone numbers
of friends still alive

3
red with shame
the sky at sunrise
one more kiss

4
whiff of wine--
remembering the bouquet
she gave me once

5
tangled together
flames of a double lamp
on the terrace

6
a lone sparrow
atop the naked branch
viewing sunset

7
winter holidays--
my son chases butterflies
flower to flower

8
on the terrace
facing the sun
an empty chair

[All haiku published in Late-Blooming Cherries. Eds. Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih and Rimi Nath. Gurugram: HarperCollins Publishers, 2024.]

9
in silence
one with the divine will
growing within

10
vultures waiting for
the remains of sacrifice
on the temple tree

11
on the river's bank
his soul is lighted for peace--
lantern in the sky

12
sea waves
roll from far away
white peaks

13
traveling back
from the waves of bliss
a foam-leap

14
caressing
her pregnant belly--
water lily

15
her lonely grief
melts in the candle wax:
evening's dark floor

16
after the tumble
buried between the sheets
leftover passion

17
a sleeping snake
curled between the eggs--
layers of leaves

18
her smile
arrival of spring
at the bower

19
crowded streets
moving among the years
wretched faces

20
living again
fountain on the hilltop--
divine light

21
a crescent
in the western horizon--
missing the moon

22
hitching up the skirt
she fills her pockets with
unripe mangoes

23
hanging
door protector--
Buddha

24
after the party
empty chairs in the lawn--
new moon and I

25
cleaning the remains
of burnt out earthen lamps--
dusky temple yard

26
lemon tea--
shade of her lipstick
on my lip

[All haiku published in  Ram Krishna Singh,  Against the Waves: Selected Poems.  New Delhi: Authors Press,  2021]

27
she wrings her hair
rising from the lake:
rural Venus

28
Vishnu in stone
weight of the universe--
sitting tortoise

29
sunflowers ring:
teenagers ChatGPT
Sapphic know-how

30
creepy shadows
along the muddy road--
big bright moon

[All haiku published in Ram Krishna Singh, 
Knocking Vistas And Other Poems.  New Delhi: Authors Press,  2024]

--R K Singh

WAR IN GAZA

Unchanged human nature

eternity passed with each prophet

spirit's realms in rumbles...

how to search for peace in depths of tunnels

through misery and degradation?

Cursed Gaza awaits

a miracle to rise a new Phoenix

to exist with Israel

despite the devil's designs

for perpetual desolation

--R.K. Singh India

#gaza_under_attack_now  #GazaWar

Das Literarisch publishes my poems

 Let It Go

 

Silent gaze of paper deities

from the little temple

in a corner in bedroom

fills me with hope:

 

anything may happen anytime

despite uncertainty

unending jealousy

or tragedy in life

 

I look for grace within

contemplating the unsaid

in the rhymes of rogues and heroes

 

I’m not afraid of

the body in crumbled soil

there’s always another chance

to re-form my own present

 

re-write another half-page

in drunken oblivion

God is going to let it go

---

Noises

I can't hear my self

their noises erase my world

choices are denied-

questions of being wound me

courage and strength fade away

 

they mute my voice

distract us from the truth

crowns change with the wind

and they play chess with our lives

 

they feed us dust and potions

in their new temples

arouse their magic deities

make us yell loud

and hang us upside down

 

---

 

Ten Haiku

 

ageing youth

without smoke flame of fire

blended scotch

 

 

roars loudly

night and light fracture in glass:

end of a haiku

 

 

sunflowers ring

teenagers ChatGPT

Sapphic know-how

 

 

her décolleté blouse

and see-through saree—

curve’s vanity

 

 

clad in white

peaks behind peaks—

Everest within

sweet perfume

untainted flower

evening lust

 

 

a curled snake

with fangs ready to poison

love’s narrow passage

 

 

sky’s canvas-

disfigures in no time

my funny face

 

 

season’s last rain-

still await yellowing of

mangoes on tree

 

 

he sleep-babbles

let’s become earth and sky:

five-decade love

Published in Vol 6, Issue 1

https://shaheenfoundation.co.in/index.php/das-literarisch/issues/item/286-10-poems-r-k-singh.html

Watching dogs

watching dogs
frolicking in the park--
jaded couples

--R K Singh 

Reading two poems from my book POEMS AND MICROPOEMS