Before She Bleeds Sleep/The Night of A Hungry Autumn

I wonder why sleep has slept

through the job. You, the first thing

I see waking up except my own toes,

seem to have your brain stiff

from the climb. Now it stares at the steep.

It may let it go, albeit that leap

will begin another cycle.

I wonder why sleep has slept

all its shift. Perhaps it had a row at home,

and its wife finally had had it enough.

Perhaps she broke a glass vase

on its thick head, not that it would die

from the bow, not that it would change

how it hurts. After all those dreams sleep

throws at its wife will ever leave her alone

before she bleeds.

The Night of A Hungry Autumn

“Innocence should not be questioned.”

You guard guard your son.

In your bloodless and wooly wrap he

reminds me of a night an wild cat appeared

inside the cone of my torch-light.

Not just the beast, but the whole night

had this look- ferocious, scrawny, tired.

I Let you two go and pick up my purse

from the backstreet of the dusk.

Words &Picture
Kushal Poddar