Featured Poems SS 2019
(Founding Plath’s ‘Insomniac’)
All elements around me swim in placidness,
there is hardly a misfit amidst the intermingling
parochial cause of existence; all boxes ticked,
all customs tucked righteously in the soft
cotton duvets of an orderly bed. Disorderly
sheets scramble to stretch, pinch pulled
into woody, sturdy (though half scraped) corners
joint by stalks of an equally tenacious guard.
These protracting tendencies of an eddying night,
everything around and under it in prim stance
of a recruited soldier, without delay, quick reflexes,
the moon adroit in throwing its blinding glare
upon an attempting escapee; ambitious to turn
renegade of the pillow it has rested on far too long,
the sheets of the cogitating bed tossing in earnest
agitation to be thrown off its long serviced premise
for a day on the floor, on new ground, new air.
* Previously published in Danse Macabre, 91
Sheikha A. is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Her
work appears in
numerous literary venues, including several
anthologies by different
presses. More about her can be found on sheikha82.wordpress.com