FRESH AIR

 

 The Cultural Reverence

  #WeekendPublication August 01, 2026

My poem, FRESH AIR, appears in the digital magazine, The Cultural Reverence, August 01, 2026:

 

FRESH AIR

If my world couldn’t be
what I had thought in my teens
I can’t help. I was
dependent on my father

a self-made man against
the currents I couldn’t read
the sky and its stronghold

the prints of the Ganga’s sand
have faded like the rainbow
in a spray of year
that pricks like pebbles

now the caries, cavities
cyst and myopia haunt
and sexual anxieties
disturb sleep and dreamless nights

the hairs on my balding head
mirror the laughter
I have ceased to take note of

I have ceased to peel 
the ugly shapes, the cunning
the treacherous I work with

resent my identity
and the future I fail
spinning influences


yet I’m sure when I stopped
it won’t be all that bad:
my vision would still be good
I would still smell fresh air

Author :  Ram Krishna Singh ©®
India
All Rights Reserved To The Author

Know the Author: Ram Krishna Singh, also known as R.K. Singh, is an Indian English poet, renowned for his haiku-inspired brevity, existential introspections, and erotic minimalism. A retired Professor of English at IIT-ISM, Dhanbad, he has published extensively on ELT, ESP (English for Specific Purposes), and technical communication, while his poems have appeared internationally in several journals, both print and online. His recent poetry collections include Poems and Micropoems (2023), Knocking Vistas And Other Poems (2024),  Leaves of Silence (2025), and Drifty Silence and She (2025).Find him on X  https://x.com/profrksingh and Facebook http://www.facebook.com/profrksingh.

More at https://pennyspoetry.fandom.com/wiki/R.K._Singh

    

https://theculturalreverence.wordpress.com/2026/07/31/fresh-air-a-poem-by-ram-krishna-singh-india/ 

 

 

 

My poem published on Ultramarine Literary Review , 22 July 2026

 

 https://www.ultramarinereview.com/post/abandoned

 

 

          

Abandoned

by R.K. Singh

With divided heart mind and colours

deluded and dumb millions still blind

to politicians peeling their flesh

layer by layer like onion

 

take pride in the knife that cuts them to core

get cooked in debris of myths and history

for kites and vultures of caste and sect

 

now more vulgar breeds of tyrant flourish

under the same sky they are gashed peels

the abandoned bodies the rotten souls

  

 

Three Poems: Life in Sufferings

 1

RAJA BAZAR

  

There is a whole lot of crowded life under the long flyover

--from fish market to plastic tents and car parking to excretion—

poor pedestrians can’t cross the road either side

 

they fear auto rickshaws bikes food stalls pushes and pickpockets

on the footpath extended shops short-circuit every movement

opposite Paras Cancer Centre in Raja Bazar

 

it’s a sight of sepsis with multiple dysfunction

--a consilience of rural ambition with urban abundance—

they cry for alternative diagnosis but lack doctor and ventilator  

 

 

2

 

KOSI DELUGE

 

Women and children

crossing the flooded huts

with aluminum

cooking pots, plastic cans

and remains of provisions

seek shelter on trees

none know when these too will

collapse and drift down the stream

like the living space

with men on underwear

 

 

3

 

SORROW OF BIHAR

 

I feel the yellow leaves with the day’s silence in their stare

the ghetto uncovers what they try to conceal –

feeling stuck, a little ‘off’, or foggy

in the sameness of everyday celebrating

no sex, no travel, no drinks, no books but black smoke

dust and emptiness of years they’re unsure about

here each one sounds too profound, perching for new life

between the parentheses ending up

a kite snapped and strayed into a bush

 

--R.K. Singh 

 

THIRTEEN POETRY MAGAZINE

 My poems published in the Last Issue of THIRTEEN POETRY MAGAZINE (New York), Vol. XIII, October 1996

Poem published in the Cultural Reverence, 9 May 2026

 

A Haiku in Hindi with English translation

 चांद छुपता रहा
मैं पीछे पीछे
भागता रहा

 

The moon kept hiding
and I kept running
after it

--R K Singh

Gasp for Breath

 My poem, Gasp for Breath, appears on Different Truths magazine,  March 31, 2026