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

Three Tanka in Haiku Shack Magazine No.6

Three of my tanka appears in the Haiku Shack Magazine, #6, February 2026

 

                              

                                                    Tanka – Ram Krishna Singh

 

 a tidal wave
touches the shore to wipe
my naked footprints
and leaves behind some shells
pebbles and memories 

 

(p.43) 

 

 awaiting the wave
that’ll wash away empty hours
and endless longing
in this dead silence at sea
I pull down chunks of sky

 

(p.44) 

 

 

crazy these people
don’t know how to go
down with the swirl and
up with the whirl but
play in the raging water

 

(p.45) 

 

About Ram Krishna Singh

Ram Krishna Singh (born 1950) has published poems, articles, and book reviews in various magazines
and journals over the years. For nearly four decades, he taught English for Science and Technology,
Indian Writing in English, and Criticism at The Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of
Mines) Dhanbad, India. Now a retired Professor, he has over 60 books to his credit, including
白濁: SILENCE: A WHITE DISTRUST (English/Japanese, 2022), Poems and Micropoems (2023), Knocking VistasAnd Other Poems (2024), and Leaves of Silence (2025).

Website: https://pennyspoetry.fandom.com/wiki/R.K._Singh
X: https://x.com/profrksingh
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profrksingh 

 

file:///C:/Users/HP/Downloads/The%20Haiku%20Shack%20Magazine%20-%20Issue%206.pdf 

'I Hear Trees' anthologized

 

Creative Flight Journal: Bondage of Nearness - Ram Krishna Singh (India)

Creative Flight Journal: Bondage of Nearness - Ram Krishna Singh (India):   BONDAGE OF NEARNESS -          Ram Krishna Singh (India)   How long shall I seek freedom in the myths we unmake licking hairy dark...

 

BONDAGE OF NEARNESS

-         Ram Krishna Singh (India)

 

How long shall I seek freedom in the myths we unmake

licking hairy darkness or feeling sweetness of hips

through untamable wildness of the heart chase images

that abide circles of paroxysm ascending from

the mist and raw voices staring spume in the faces

as each star twinkles uncertainty crossing the moon

 

what is left to slice out of the passage through red light

except old sorrows ready to leap to the bone?

now there’s nothing to hold on to against lies that shade

bondage of nearness and the horizon I couldn’t touch

 

****

 

 

Creative Flight Journal: Romance - Ram Krishna Singh (India)

Creative Flight Journal: Romance - Ram Krishna Singh (India):   ROMANCE -          Ram Krishna Singh (India) Where is room for sublime in Trump-Modi era if we talk about grief, trauma, social ...

 

ROMANCE

-         Ram Krishna Singh (India)

Where is room for sublime

in Trump-Modi era

if we talk about

grief, trauma, social justice

 

liberation, health, job

happiness in a culture

of divide and rule through

rightward extremism?

 

comics of history

in lanes and bylanes

search lingams for new world

threat murals of mutiny

 

recreating new forms

unearthly light and space

in old tales sacred for

visions of heritage

 

I don’t share their tangerine

nor stream in their landscape

even if I’m consumed

in blankness of fire or flood

 

My Poems on DOUBLE SPEAK Magazine

 

         TANKA

 

a healer says

my sufferings not my fault:

karmic imprint

pay him twenty dollars

break free from the past weight gain

***

dull notes of life

await re-ordering —

rhythm and pitch

behind closed walls humming

to search my own music

***

lying in sun

on a straw mattress

a nude couple

whisper dreamed-up nest

when their ship comes in

***

taunting the old pain

in the brothel of bed

kitchen or shower

she fears the freaky bodies

snaky arousal and peak

***

Shiva and Shakti

our freedom in union

twin flame of love

rolling in grains of sand

transcending together

***

https://dsmag.in/2025/09/26/ram-krishna-singhs-tanka/ 

 

TWO MORE POEMS

 

Energy block

Frazzled and restless

bouts of anxiety

addiction, sleeplessness

spinal degeneration

pain in the neck and back

numbness in the legs

loss of teeth, libido

anal bleeding and what not

failure to stay focused

and dying desire to do

what I used to do

are not mere aging

things get hairy, scary

with body failure

ailments pop up

spirit dries up

mind disconnects

I’m hardly centered

to clean my age’s turd

on inner chakras

meditate and forget

the memories’ load

and die a new being

 

 

The Hell Is Real

They lure me with wealth in heaven

as if plucking hair would reduce

the weight of the dead body

they don’t see the bruises abandoned

on the fading skin of apple

that rolls metaphors in the basket

sleeplessly I watch her drift in dreams

on the horizon float to descend

for a share in the horrors of earth

they blindly conceal to hoodwink

god’s will for poets cultured in the past

now glittering as the sun’s wreckage

I can’t clean nor rebuild around them

the hell is real I can’t run away

with sweet nothings I can’t die in bluffs

 

--R.K. Singh 

 

https://dsmag.in/2025/09/26/ram-krishna-singhs-two-more-poems/ 

 

 

 

 

Haiga

 

--R K Singh 

Taro Hokkyo translates my haiku

 Poet friend Taro Hokkyo  translates  my haiku into Japanese:

ねじくれた

男の使われぬまま

ネットの女に取り残される

--Taro Hokkyo 

twisted men

after years of disuse

left with women online 

--R K Singh

Adao Wons translates my poem

 Poet friend Adao Wons translates my poem into Portuguese:

Homens pervertidos

após anos de desuso

deixados com mulheres online

--Tr. Adao Wons 

twisted men

after years of disuse

left with women online 

--R K Singh

Haiku

twisted men

after years of disuse

left with women online

--R K Singh 

Mahakumbh: Three Poems

 

COVID-19

 COVID-19

Punitive

corona virus--

lépreuse

some say it's invasion

the barbarian without

quarantined

I clear my throat

behind the face mask

breathe in unknown viruses

suffer new repressions

now lockdown

cut off life:

castration

Hugo said monasticism

resisting death

--R K Singh

CULTURE

 

Together  

exploring meaning  

of staying  

together 43 years --  

a poet's madness:  

 

in the park  

seeing the green in her eyes  

joy wells up:  

she feels the silver blue  

the leaves breathing her touch  

 

Saturday lunch  

at Bhuddha's bar --  

my second beer bottle  

they deprive in Bihar  

transgressing old culture  

 

myriad lines  

in the hollow of my palms  

joined in prayer  

prepossessing humor  

cynically exchanged  

 

in the bright sun  

my dark shadow  

parts company  

under the banyan  

one more burial  

 

--R K Singh

I TOO DESCEND

 

From my collection  YOU CAN'T SCENT ME AND OTHER SELECTED POEMS  (2016)