When sleep deserted me
I crawled out of my bed unseen
To delve into the crevices of the dark
With the curiosity of an explorer
And the near comatose of a somnambulist
I walked up and down the steep slopes of the night
Like a night watchman
Without a lantern in his hand

When my legs grew weary
I sat on a rock
Covered with moss and lichen
Staring at the dark night sky
With no constellation of fireflies
Flashing their torches anywhere

Sitting there, I listened to the song of night birds,
The rustle of leaves,
The howl of wolves,
And the night wind’s rave

Looking into the dark pockets of the night,
I thought of human mind, a deep gorge
With many an uninhabitable corner
Where serpent desires lie coiled
Scorpions crawl with toxic pincers
Predators roam to prey upon helpless victims

The mystery of the night absorbed me
Her muffled sounds, her dark beauty
Her elusive charm, like thick night fog,
Percolated deep into my consciousness
And I floundered in a fathomless sea,
Swirling in her eddies and currents.
      It whisked me away to lands far…far!
      But on being washed ashore,
      I was in a creative delirium


I am now in No Man’s Land
      Where everything is in a coma of stillness
      Where no light glimmers
No door ajar
And no one in sight!
Here the poet in me breaks open
The somnambulist's comatose
And down way flow my thoughts in indelible ink
Which only I can read

Like a night bird
Roosting among the branches of a tree  
I sing of my heart aches,
Of my yearnings and longings

In the barely audible whispers of the night,
My song reverberates in the eyeless abyss down,
And the dark desolate valleys below

People say, ghosts walk the earth at night.
Oh!  I am not scared!
I am not eager for the dawn to break,
Nor want to put my pen down!