Analysis of I don'T know...

Ram Krishna Singh 1950 (Varanasi)

I don’t know how to negotiate the long steep trail
with hidden scorpions under loose rocks
at home with human muck in a valley existence
strolling upward through a thicket of TV images
politics of glory, garbage and god
the odd arts of money, hierarchy and control
nobody knows who unmakes whom

I don’t know how to follow the ridges
back to the trail and the dead river
but stand for a moment to rub the sand from my feet
before worrying about the lost vitality and fear
of the approaching night and rising smoke
dissolving in the sky or conspiring with elements
hardly in balance but contorting the psyche

I don’t know what is there for me to hope
when the rains rejuvenate and flood both
the repulsive stench and the loss of pathways
linger longer than the flavor of the first drops
under the tree the puddle feeds no sparrows
but algae that couldn’t dry now trap tiny souls
that fail to swell with heaven’s breath

Scheme XXXAXXX AXXXXXX XXXXXXX
Poetic Form
Metre 111110100111 1101001011 1111010010010 10101010111100 101101001 011110100001 11111 1111110010 110100110 1110101101111 011000101010001 1001010101 01000110101100 1001011010 1111111111 101010011 0010100111 101010101011 10010101110 11011111101 11111101
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 906
Words 168
Sentences 1
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 7, 7, 7
Lines Amount 21
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 247
Words per stanza (avg) 56
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Submitted on December 08, 2019

Modified on March 05, 2023

50 sec read
10

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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