Poem During The Night
By: Jehangir Saleh
Written: October 2, 2005

Wake up
Remember dreaming
About waking up during the night
Strange and heavy
Stumbling to your desk
To write this poem
And then hid underneath
Once you’ve read what you’re written

When I wake up
I remember dreaming
That I had woken during the night
I feel strange and heavy
I feel an incredible urge to run to my desk
And write poetry
But once I read what I have written
I then feel an incredible urge to hid underneath it

Why am I writing this poem?
Because my wife told me too
It is a form of therapy and avoidance
I feel suddenly that I am privileged
And everyone whispers
Gee, that was a banal thing to say

When I wake up
I perform logic puzzles until I get tired out
And then I pretend to be saving young princesses from ivory towers
Who really I have been watching with binoculars
All of my life

I take baths
In water that I collected from the rain
And saliva of small birds who make their home just outside mine

This poem is no longer going to save anyone
Poetry doesn’t save
But camouflage
We aren’t anyone
But all
This is a song about me trying to find my way
To bed
Without crying like last time
Why don’t you just watch me
In my cage
Until you too are tired
And then you might realize what’s really happening
And take your place
Right beside me