Insomnia Poem by Padma Devkota

I wished her good night and my wish came true.
She purrs her dreams in bedded melody.
Beside her warm and comforting length
awake to pitch black silence of the night
I toss and turn in silent agony
like a reed in the current of a stream
that will not stop … that cannot stop at all
until it has reached the blackest carrion sea.

I count the sheep. The counting repeats or fails
or is simply lost in the mind's wilderness
where worded barks and bites reverberate
and I wince with pain emergent in some heart
that is not mine … no, not mine, I think,
because I thought I was of brighter stuff
composed, built to buffet the turbulence
of dark waves against a rocky shore.

All brightness sunk in sucking insanity,
irate, dejected, done for ever, dead
in spirit and drowned for ever thus
in choking anger at the muck and lies
expressed in blackest intent in blackest ink,
I feel the heat of anger turn my head red,
I feel my heart-hammer pound each hypocrite
to spark-less dust of blackest clay gone dead.

I huff and puff. Fearful of awakening
from sweetest dreams the one I love
to share the reality of a world I live,
I calm my nerves that tighten like a bow
seeking the sharpest poison-head to mount
against the darkness of all human souls
that knows no rays of feeling such as those
that kiss my eyelids and redden the fragrant rose.

Monday, May 02,2011