What Love?

Contributor: Pranab Ghosh

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The gasp. The throb.
The ‘sad satiety’,
The pulsating age.
The end and
The beginning.

The river that had
Dried up. The mind
That had lost its way,
The body that was hungry.
The desire that ran amok.

The serpentine entrance
And the exit. Lust coiling around
The spine like a snake that
Has lost its venom and yet
Longed to bite, afraid of death.

The spirit devoured, the
Feelings betrayed, love
Held for a ransom, for a
Necessity unfulfilled,
Chained to an existence
That didn’t mean anything
To the lovers, only time
Manipulated for a cause
That was neither selfless
Nor humane, just bondage
Strengthened by the flesh
That craves for fulfillment
Of earthly pangs, degenerating
Into a soulless pleasure.

Love lies in chains;
Soul trapped and
Mind fluttering for
An escape route.

Sighs,
Throbs,
Gasps
Ejaculation
Exhaustion
Seed
Creation
Womb

And
Absolute
Vacuum!

An incomplete nothingness
A circle vicious, craving
For completion.


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Pranab Ghosh is a journalist and poet. His poems have been published in several international magazines. His second book of poems Soul Searching and other Poems was published by a Toronto-based publishing house.