What Love Is Not

I can’t claim to know a lot

But I know what Love is not

Love is not a game of chess 

Or a series of long tests

Or King Solomon with a knife

Poised to take a baby’s life 

Love is not a battle of wills 

With its multiplication of ills 

Love is not a doomsday clock 

Bent towards death with each tick tock

Love can be the Holy Grail 

For whose quest one needs chain mail 

But Love is not a dance with ghosts 

Which makes it a cause that’s lost

Love is not a starry wish 

Which you blink and then you miss 

Love is not carrot and stick 

Neither is it hide and seek

Love is not, can’t possibly be 

This weary heart, these wounded knees

Love is not this gasp, this plea

This desperate pleading for release 

Love is not the Minotaur’s maze

Love is not confusion’s daze 

Love is not a doomed journey

Thousands of leagues beneath the sea