How Poets Sleep

 Our minds don't stop,
         They tread a perpetual treadmill
Un-ordinary tragedies crowd out
          Other emotions
Like hope or light fading
          In bitter interaction...mutual attraction
Conversations that will never cease
          Stories unwind
While we lie between sheets
           Anxious, prostrate
Because we aren't what we want
                     To be
      And we will never be.
              What we want to be
Tragedies in brooding nights.
         Hovering...a figure
Stands stoically in the doorway
         Staring, standing
          He's not real...
But we must keep our eyes closed
          And fool ourselves
Because we fear fatigue
          And tomorrow

Hasan Maruf teaches language and literature in Baridhara Scholars Institute and writes poems and fiction.