Poem: Hindustani Grace

Oh sacred Ganges, moving cleanly from the source,
I do remember how you flow,
With children swimming in your cooling streams,
And bodies floating, blackened at the seams,
Their flesh a treat for hungry crows.
How do you purify them all without remorse?
Oh Taj Mahal, your domes are splendor in the sun.
With gold and gemstones polished well
You are a lovely mystery to me.
You've lasted well, that much is plain to see,
And yet your builder set a spell:
Will his revenge upon the prince be ever done?
The histories and glories I saw in my youth
Have changed but little through the years
Throughout the joys, the blood, the tears
The beauty and the desperation both the truth.




This is not a standard sonnet. I used iambic beats for every line, but the syllable count varies through two six-line segments. Each line with a particular syllable count will rhyme with the other one with the same syllable count. There are 16 lines to this. This is a complicated variant of what would more simply be a sonnet. I will concede that it could easily be overly complicated.

It looks like this, with the letter being the rhyme and the number being the syllable count:
A 12
B 8
C 10
C 10
B 8
A 12
D 12
E 8
F 10
F 10
E 8
D 12
G 12
H 8
H 8
G 12