Ten tanka poems



1
Love’s spirit descends
and melds into her body
lending it new life:
I’m amazed how the unknown
becomes one with her beauty

2
A tidal wave
touches the shore to wipe
my naked footprints
and leaves behind some shells
pebbles and memories

3
Tears dry up
leaving no marks where her pain
ends and mine begins
on the face makeup damps
with aching sweat and cold sigh

4
A serpent twists
its head to face a dragon
on her shoulder:
their tails on breast in water
swirl to cleanse my kiss on skin

5
Her smile
with the whiff of sandal
makes love livelier:
I search Tao
in the wind’s flavor

6
A happier image
with salubrious top
turns rapturous
as she tamps her love
with watery lipstick

7
After a tiff
lying under the same blanket
two of us stare
the peeping moon and turn
with glee to each other

8
The mirror swallowed
my footprints on the shore
I couldn’t blame the waves
the geese kept flying over the head
the shadows kept moving afar

9
Shaped like  a bird
a drop of water lands
on her breast:
my breath jumps to kiss it
before her pelvic flick

10
Dreams puzzling
smallness of waking
I can’t live
the child’s circumcision
promise of happiness
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Submitted on September 14, 2017

Modified on March 14, 2023

1:04 min read
79

Quick analysis:

Scheme AXBXXB AXXXXX AXXXXX AXCDDX AXXDXD AXXEXF AXXXXD AXXXXX AXXXXF AGGXCE
Closest metre Iambic dimeter
Characters 1,089
Words 216
Stanzas 10
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6

Ram Krishna Singh

Ram Krishna Singh, born, brought up and educated in Varanasi (U.P., India), has been writing poetry in English for about four decades. He has published over 160 academic articles, 175 book reviews, and 20 collections of poems, including the latest I Am No Jesus And Other Selected Poems, Tanka And Haiku (English/Crimean Tatar, 2014), You Can’t Scent Me and Other Poems (2016), God Too Awaits Light (2017), Growing Within/Desăvârşire lăuntrică (English/Romanian, 2017), There's No Paradise and Other Selected Poems Tanka & Haiku (2019), Tainted With Prayers/Contaminado con oraciones (English/Spanish, Traductor Joseph Berolo Ramos, 2019), Silencio: Blanca Desconfianza: Silence: White Distrust (Spanish Edition, Spanish/English, Kindle, 2021), A Lone Sparrow:Haiku Poems (English/Arabic, Tr. Boubaker Rouagha, ed. Mahmoud Al-Rajabi, 2021), Against The Waves: Selected Poems (2021), Silencio: Blanca desconfianza/ Silence: White distrust (Spanish/English, Tr. Joseph Berolo, Kindle, 2021), Changing Seasons: Selected Tanka and Haiku (English/Arabic, ed. Mahmoud Al-Rajabi, calameo.com , 2021), 白濁 : SILENCE: A WHITE DISTRUST (English/Japanese, Tr. Rika Inami, Kindle Edition/Paperback, 2022), and Covid-19 And Surge of Silence/Kovid-19 Hem Sessízlík Tolkȋnȋ (English/Tatar, Tr. Taner Murat, 2021). Appreciated for his tanka and haiku, Dr. Singh's poems have been anthologized in over a hundred books. His poems have been translated into Japanese, Greek, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Hungarian, Albanian, Crimean Tatar, Bulgarian, Slovene, Irish, Croatian, Farsi, Arabic, Serbian, Bosnian, Esperanto, Dzonkha, Hindi, Punjabi, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, and Bangla. A member of several literary bodies and editorial boards, nominated for Pushcart Prize 2013 and 2014, and winner of Ritsumeikan University Peace Museum Award, Kyoto, 1999, Certificate of Honour and Nyuusen Prize in Kumamoto International Kusamamoto Haiku Competition, Japan, 2000 and 2008, Nazar Look Prize for Poetry, Romania, 2013, Prize of Corea Literature, Seoul, 2013, and Naji Naaman’s Literary Prize, Lebanon, 2015, Dr. Singh recently retired as Professor (HAG) at Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad 826004 (India). His email: profrksingh@gmail.com More at: rksinghpoet.blogspot.com https://pennyspoetry.fandom.com/wiki/R.K._Singh more…

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