Poem: Insomniac Earthworm

Tuesday morning. I can’t sleep yet. It is 530 am

Poem: An Insomniac Earthworm

The small hours of the clock
Mock at my life
If we are smaller, you are puny
Like the earthworm
that everybody stomps upon
With no respect or respite
God, bare necessities are luxury
Just a few hours of good sleep
Awake because I have to
A vigil against the unseen
scorned and scoffed at, for
singing lullabies to my beloved
I try to cry, but end up laughing
because crying is speaking
laughing at myself is easier
Awake for fear of being stomped upon
but can you tell me —
Do earthworms deserve to sleep?

~Ashok Subramanian © 2025

If there is a voice that responds, it is Priya Patel. My friend, what would I be without you?

Poem: Those nights…

Those nights; I know well,
when even the shadows fell
after mocking the whispers
in my head that kept me up

Those nights; here still,
mental exhaustion
my only sleeping pill;
haunt my days

I drift off finally,
just after the fallen shadows;
as the sun wakes the leaves
and alarms blare into my ears

Those nights; I know well
I pray, by the time you read this,
your eyes have made peace with the night,
and you are lost in your hidden dreams

~ ©️ Priya Patel 4.7.25 🕉

The Sun is up. And so are you. Thank you, Priya Patel

Poem: The Mocking Stars and Dancing Shadows

In the night —
When shadows dance
In the absence of -
their nocturnal audience
I am awake, thinking of you
The whispers, soft and gentle
Float from my lips
But the shadows dance
in devilish disdain
I am supposed to sleep
Yet, I am part of this eerie drama
The stars mock me and wink
You know, I wink back again
- This insomniac earthworm
Till my eyelids form shadows
On my tired, tired eyes
When the morning sunlight
In one stroke, wipes clean
the mocking stars and
the dancing shadows.

~Ashok Subramanian © 2025

Priya Patel : Ashok Subramanian, you knew this was coming...

Poem: The Edge

Your sun rises,
as sluggishly slow
as your weary irises;
just as mine sets softly below
the mountainside
My pearlwhite suv
is cautiously perched at the edge,
and I laugh to myself
thinking we two are close to the edge,
writing to each other through the clouds,
from different horizons,
opposite timezones;
each just as sleepy as the other
If you are the earthworm,
then what am I?
Now you must reply …
I eagerly wait on the edge

~ ©️ Priya Patel 4.7.25 🕉
Your turn Ashok Subramanian

Here, after I get ready to work … Priya Patel

Poem: Fireflies and Earthworms

If I am the insomniac earthworm
You are the firefly
Shining in the morning glitter
Maybe, the pieces of those stars
Scattered behind and
chasing the night that went by
Right over the dawn’s edge
the remnants of my dreams
That stay behind my eyelids.

~Ashok Subramanian © 2025