Pranab Ghosh (Voices Within)

Pranab Ghosh is a journalist, writer and poet. His poems and prose piece have been published and accepted by Tuck Magazine, Dissident Voice, Transendent Zero Press, Scarlet Leaf Review, Literature Studio Review, Leaves of Ink, Hans India, Spillwords, The Piker Press, Visual Verse, Setu, Pangolin Review etc. His second book of poems and first solo book “Soul Searching and Other Poems” had been published by Scarlet Leaf Publishing, Toronto. He is married and lives in Kolkata with wife, daughter and mother.

Reunion

We lay naked

Some distance

Away from each other…

It could be a decade,

A century or even

A millennium (apart)…

And then we turned

And kissed each

Others’ shadow

Distance melted and

Time travelled back

And forth carrying

Us beyond the

Realms of flesh as

We sunk in each

Other forgetting about

Our past, our present

And our future.

We united in a void

Beyond dream.

Burning Times

Known faces, known dreams,

Known aspirations, known sighs,

Known desire, known stories…

Change with time erasing

All semblance of recognition

Erasing all cherished values

And metamorphose into

Unpleasant, unbearable,

Agony that tears the heart

And make the blood boil

In anger, in uncontrolled

Rage that cannot be given vent to

And head hangs in shame

And mind refuses to remember

The shared dreams, aspirations

Sighs, desire, stories and life!

But LIFE ceases to stop!

Sighs refuse to escape heart!

Tears refuse to roll, as

You stand petrified in

Front of burning times and values!

Modern Times!

There was a time when

The breeze blew across

The river, bringing with

It soft melody and wafts of

Essence of a forgotten past.

There was a time when the

River flowed touching the

Banks and enriching the shores,

The civilization that grew

By its side and spread beyond the

Distance that eyes could measure.

There was a time when we sat

Side-by-side and told each other

Stories of our souls, undiluted

By the greed that has devoured

The times that we are in now,

Has poisoned the water that river

Carries to the sea, has taken away

The refreshing smell of the air

And has filled it with life

Threatening carbon particles

That smell like death

And choke the lungs.

The lost times have made way

For times that threaten to

Erase human existence,

Love, passion, values

And

The

LIFE

Itself!

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Voices Within-2020 :: Setu, February 2020