Mahakumbh

My poem 'Mahakumbh' appears in  The Fringe999 Poetry Forum,  11 April 2025

Mahakumbh
by Ram Krishna Singh

i.

The Ganges condescended
to flow down from Shiva’s matted hair
with white laughter
from the Himalayas to Kashi
it shone so pure and bright
but failed to quench
the earthly thirst
or cleanse the human heart
their sinful mind
the goddess couldn’t change
I clearly see in its apparent grace
missing all turbulence
so necessary to wash out
the ills of ages it seems
it’s lifeless now
impotent to set right
the rotten state of man

ii.

The morning’s withered flesh
and swollen skin of the day
by bloody nullah in smoke 
tears shade tomorrow
like today, everyday they cry
but nobody hears groans, or sees
dark eruptions on naked walls
that hide maps of bones
and skeins of dreams piled
beside broken hearth fate
is a luxury of helplessness
they won’t  believe or accept
if there is a hell on earth
it’s here, it’s here, it’s here 

iii.

There’s nothing comfortable in the chilly gray wind and
what burns at the wintry end of Holi splash of colors
unglow what might have been left in ransacked ashes
they all witness the last shot of season in transition
like bare-branched trees unrelieving miseries of truth
in the unspirited sandbank and inscrutable shades

Author Note
Mahakumbh, which is in three parts… The poems derive from my observations during the recently concluded Mahakumbh in Allahabad and Varanasi. 

Author Bio

Ram Krishna Singh has published poems, articles and book reviews in various magazines and journals over the years and taught English Language skills at IIT-ISM, Dhanbad for four decades. His latest books of poems include Poems and Micropoems (2023) and Knocking Vistas And Other Poems (2024). Find him on Twitter @profrksingh and on Facebook www.facebook.com/profrksingh . More at https://pennyspoetry.fandom.com/wiki/R.K._Singh

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My tanka in cc&d magazine