Poetry |

“Awakening from a Dream” & “What the Migraine Said”

Awakening from a Dream

 

 

In the night, the feathery fists came raining down

He ducked and staggered as they landed, again and again,

On his head, neck and across his shaking back

There was no avoiding this relentless retribution

 

Could it be, these were the familiar hands of his angels

The same strong ones that, throughout his wrong life,

Carried him through innumerable hardships

Cushioning him from nearly crushing falls

 

The blows continued to hammer down and he ceased

Trying to avoid what he knew to be his due

Accrued through dismissed warnings and failed promises

He could begin to hear the beating of wings, now

 

Recognizing, with slow wonder, these fans were also his own

They flapped, like weak devotions, in the dark to shield him

Accompanied by intermittent flashes of a soft blue light

Illuminating the proud army of his divine tormentors.

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

What the Migraine Said

 

 

As I lie, here, half in and out of consciousness

I imagine my migraine as a world migraine

my cluster headache as a cluster of world aches

that we must tip toe around like a sleeping tiger

 

The sleep of reason produces monsters 

this we know from art and the news:

murder and sham leaders shooting themselves

in one foot and chewing on the other.

 

But, the sleep of reason produces angels, also

like Love, which is no whimsical thing,

a love like bull, bullfighter and bloody cape,

billowing in the wind, like an open heart

 

Beckett said this best, truth in paradox:

The mystics … I like … their burning illogicality

– the flame … Which consumes all our filthy logic …

Where there are demons there is something precious

 

Once we know this, the rest is silence.

The master is not permitted

the same mistakes of a novice.

Contributor
Yahia Lababidi

Yahia Lababidi is an Egyptian author of ten books. His most recent work includes Revolutions of the Heart, essays and conversations exploring crises and transformation (Wipf & Stock, 2020), Learning to Pray, aphorisms and poems (Kelsay Books, 2021), and Desert Songs, a bilingual photographic account of his mystical experiences in the deserts of Egypt (Rowayat, 2022).

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