By
Pranab Ghosh
They Are… But They Are Not
They are there
Out of the purview
Of life.
Like pestilence
They hug
Death, decay
They are there
Out of Man’s reach
In another world.
They are there
Out of sync
With creation
They are the
Destroyer of
All that is humane
They are the desire
Of the dead souls
They are the demi gods
Or are they the perishing existence
Of life renewed
Without a mission?
They are… They are not…
What they appear to be…
They are passing breeze
Fleeting moments
That do not exist.
They are… They have
Always been non-existent.
Disappearing Civilisation
Time desirous of change
Fails and ends up
Upholding constancy.
Time desirous of unraveling
The mysterious
Shifts in memory of the dead
Exposing the rot
In human soul.
Time calling the industrious,
To build a memory
Of Man’s existence
Ends in searching
For a soul that
Never existed.
Man stands confounded,
Pedestal of existence
Removed from his feet.
The earth moves away
Exposing craters of
Hollow civilization
With Man and
His woman
Disappearing in it.
Pranab Ghosh
Pranab Ghosh is a journalist, poet, author and translator. He has three published books to his credit. Air and Age (co-author; published from Kolkata), Soul Searching and Other Poems (first solo book of poems, published from Toronto) and Bougainvillea And Other Stories, a book of short stories in English, translated from the Bengali original. His poems have been published in Tuck Magazine, Dissident Voice, Literature Studio Review, Scarlet Leaf Review, Leaves of Ink, Weasel Press, Ochebooks.com, Harbinger Asylum, Hans India and Setu Magazine, among others. He is married and at present is staying in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, India.
Thanks a lot Sarah.
Pranab Ghosh continues to write in his signature bare bones style, leaving much, and little, to the imagination. No small feat, indeed. His linear, line by line assessment of the human condition, both seen and unseen, is quite accurate in its metaphysical view and yet remains readable and enjoyable.