My Work - Poetry

Sleeplessness

Others do not care
They do not bother their brains with such affairs
If they have brains then they must be located in their stomachs!
Or perhaps below their stomachs!
O poor friend! Why don't you sleep
And be like others,
Just a body amongst a sea of sleeping forms.
Sleeplessness is burning your eyes
Whilst you are preoccupied with words,
Moulding them into beautiful verse —
But they remain mere words.
You stay preoccupied with that question
Behind which lurks an army of questions
Each battalion charging a thousand questions
You dig into the mask of the answer
And find behind it a thousand masks
O poor friend! Why don't you sleep?
What do you want from questions and answers
Have you forgotten how Hamlet was obsessed with his question:
"To be or not to be?"
It threw him into the arms of insanity
To be torn by its long talons
O poor friend! Why do you have to torture your mind
Whilst fellow men sleep soundly in their beds
Close your eyelids upon this world!
Ah! How sweet is repose and calm
Close your eyelids upon this world.!

Dubai, 1982