yahia-lababidi 3Speak Podcast: Recent Episodes
Yahia Lababidi
Listen and watch the latest videos from yahia-lababidi. Hosted by 3Speak.tv. The free speech video platform on the HIVE blockchain.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=yahia-lababidi/ivirdysj
I'm proud to be part of a forthcoming anthology, Dear Vaccine. This global community poem has the noble intention of promoting COVID-19 vaccination. This project is a collaboration between the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University as well as the University of Arizona Poetry Center.
In this short video I talk about how Covid is a blessing in disguise, reminding us of our higher allegiances to the human family, and how our lives (literally, as it turns out) depend upon each other. Getting vaccinated is a way of working together and honoring this interconnectedness, in order to be a part of the solution a problem that we all are facing.
I hope you enjoy my brief reflections and my short poem that I read.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=yahia-lababidi/zwnwxmji
In the past few years, I've experienced something called cluster migraines, unlike headaches I've ever known before. They're pretty awful things that feel like a storm gathering in my head, can last for days at a time and are accompanied by acute nausea.
Who knows where these beasts come from or where they go to... I do know that when they strike I need to minimize screen time (for example, I'm shutting my eyes to type every other sentence, here).
To make the most of this unpleasant situation, I've tried to mine it for art and use it as a peephole through which to view the world, as I have done in this poem:
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.*
yahia lababidi
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=yahia-lababidi/ayqtksrh
You'll know
*You’ll know you’ve finally arrived when
you get to the point where you can leave
life’s bustling marketplace, empty-handed*
*Smiling easily at merchants as they hawk their wares
of fruit and flesh, pausing here and there to admire
a fine raiment or strain of song, but not for overlong*
*You’ll know you’ve cleared a hurdle and are home free
when you emerge at the end of that entrancing fair
unperturbed, without bulging pockets or hungry eyes*
*With absolutely nothing to show for the day’s visit
but a small inner triumph that quietly manifests itself
in steadying stillness and a companiable aloneness.*
© Yahia Lababidi, author of Learning to Pray
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=yahia-lababidi/ovmzesni
What the Sunset Said
*Something happened as the light was dying
it wasn’t just post-coital exhalation
where the once-possessed body is used up
and all that remains is bodiless trance*
*Rather, it seemed they were mirroring
a preternatural stillness,
two spiritual sentinels
transfixed and somehow Other*
*Science calls it “twilight calibrated magnetic compass”
yet it appeared beyond mere direction-finding
more a kind of existential orientation
consolidating all they knew, and listening*
*with their entire being, participating
silently, in a universal hymn
until they were pulled, as out of a viscous substance,
by the hungry cry of their nearby young*
*to become two feral pigeons, again
with this-world considerations
parenting, foraging, keeping alive
and, dazed, they consented to their stations.*
© Yahia Lababidi, author Learning to Pray
www.amazon.com/author/yahialababidi
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=yahia-lababidi/tehuyvbl
Truth be told, I don't know how I got to where I am, today, or where I might be heading: from Western philosophy to Eastern mysticism...
I do know that after decades of doubt and worshipping the mind, I'm moving towards a more heart-based existence -- exchanging logic for spirituality.
Poetry is, partly, responsible for this gradual transformation -- the poems of others which have led me here as well as my own, which has guided me, along the way...
But, really, it's something deeper. It's a kind of Homecoming that I hardly have words to desribe.
Muslim mystic/ Sufi poet, Rumi, touches on this mysterious, elusive subject in his quote, below.
Let yourself be drawn by the strange pull of what you love. It will not lead you astray. ― Rumi.
I hope this finds your mind/heart, at ease, and that this short vidoe is meaningful for you.
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=yahia-lababidi/ildatbik
Start, Again
*Sunset is a gentle master to all that are stricken
patiently, teaching us how to melt a bruise away
Watch how, with a silver whisk, that cracked egg
of a setting sun is majestically stirred, and put to rest*
*Violent violet, pining pink, and yelling yellow
all agitated, then muted, their differences reconciled
Until all that remains is a faint tattoo of quiet hurt
pearlescent wisps of smoke from a sighing flame*
that night, stealthily, smothers and hushes away…
© Yahia Lababidi, author of Learning to Pray
(Original photograph of sunset, no filter, taken in Peru)
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=yahia-lababidi/gssqfaql
No one sings as purely as those who inhabit the deepest hell
–what we take to be the song of angels is their song.
― Franz Kafka
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.*
— Yahia Lababidi, author of Learning to Pray
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=yahia-lababidi/awsnmlkm
The Price of Prophecy
*That sweet burden of revelation
entails a life-long separation—*
*A prophet cannot belong to family,
peers, nation, spouse or themselves*
*Devotion can only be to the One…
since even their all is hardly enough*
*Distraction is blasphemy
and attention is finite*
*This is no excuse to ever be unkind
as that would render a prophet unfit*
*Only a reminder of their apartness
as someone whose life is not theirs*
*Distance and generosity are closer
to one another than you imagine*
*For how can you lose anything
if nothing is yours to begin with?*
*The price of prophecy is sacrifice
renewed every sunrise and sunset.*
— Yahia Lababidi, author of Learning to Pray
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=yahia-lababidi/ximqmahk
Gradual Escape
*I'm being hollowed out, I feel it
in the subtle droop of skin and will,
like the life stuffing were slowly
being spooned out of me*
*My mind, too, is being emptied
of needless concerns
(such as, who's in charge)
traveling lighter, demanding less*
*One day, finally, I'll slip out this
loosening body bag—
simply sling it over the shoulder
of my sturdy spirit.*
© Yahia Lababidi, author of Learning to Pray
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=yahia-lababidi/flpiuyev
Arrivals
I don’t quite know how it occurred
that this great fish has appeared
almost fully formed, it seemed
to crowd out all else in my aquarium
Perhaps, this creature of the depths
always was, just out of sight
secretly feeding on hidden longing
and now demands acknowledging
With the swish of a majestic tail
it’s upset my incidental decor—
gone the rubber diver and plastic treasure.
The glass frame itself can’t be far behind…
© Yahia Lababidi, author of Learning to Pray
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=yahia-lababidi/dkwspfhs
Gestation
*This long disorientation,
I, now, understand better;
as my soul is rewritten
I have been learning again
how to breathe and walk
—under water and on air.*
*It's best not to say too much
or think you know anything;
preferable to keep very still
lest you might spoil everything
—when you are being reborn.*
*Gestation is hardly time
for any grand pronouncements:
lie low, feed, listen for clues.
Grow, inwardly, in knowing
before declaring it to the world.*
—Yahia Lababidi, author of Learning to Pray
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=yahia-lababidi/oekzskmq
Some poems virtually write themselves and the so-called author hardly knows what to say of them. This is such a poem of profound disorientation, when the familiar is made strange and, during one's waking hours, one is transported into a kind of dream state.
All I can say is that it was evening when this poem was composed.
Something needed to be communicated and it got out:
Swithering
*Sometimes, after the rain, returning home
the night is like a dark dew-speckled rose
and somewhere in between all that velvet
of those petals, we no longer are sure*
*How we got here or who’ll greet us at the door
which indeterminate shape or tormenting love
will receive us with an embrace or ashen kiss
amid the mist and great potpourri of spirits*
*Will it be wife, mother, lover or yet another
shadow figure we’ve buried in a dream, or not yet met
such as the child who played hide and seek too well
long after everyone had moved on, into adulthood.*
© Yahia Lababidi, author of Learning to Pray
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=yahia-lababidi/onvaepdl
There are moments in every life when we feel stuck, stagnating
and longing for radical change.
But, to act upon this requires courage, because changing our lives
can be both exciting and terrifying.
Yet the alternative, staying in a space we've outgrown, can feel
like a living death -- so, sometimes, it's this mounting sense of unease,
that forces the decision.
These are themes that I try to explore in my poem, below, found in my new book, Learning to Pray
Dawning by Yahia Lababidi
There are hours when every thing creaks
when chairs stretch their arms, tables their legs
and closets crack their backs, incautiously
Fed up with the polite fantasy
of having to stay in one place
and stick to their stations
Humans too, at work, or in love
know such aches and growing pains
when inner furnishings defiantly shift
As decisively, and imperceptibly, as a continent
some thing will stretch, croak or come undone
so that everything else must be reconsidered
Dawning by Yahia Lababidi
There are hours when every thing creaks
when chairs stretch their arms, tables their legs
and closets crack their backs, incautiously
Fed up with the polite fantasy
of having to stay in one place
and stick to their stations
Humans too, at work, or in love
know such aches and growing pains
when inner furnishings defiantly shift
As decisively, and imperceptibly, as a continent
some thing will stretch, croak or come undone
so that everything else must be reconsidered
One restless dawn, unable to suppress the itch
of wanderlust, with a heavy door left ajar
semi-deliberately, and a new light teasing in
Dawning
*There are hours when every thing creaks
when chairs stretch their arms, tables their legs
and closets crack their backs, incautiously*
*Fed up with the polite fantasy
of having to stay in one place
and stick to their stations*
*Humans too, at work, or in love
know such aches and growing pains
when inner furnishings defiantly shift*
*As decisively, and imperceptibly, as a continent
some thing will stretch, croak or come undone
so that everything else must be reconsidered*
*One restless dawn, unable to suppress the itch
of wanderlust, with a heavy door left ajar
semi-deliberately, and a new light teasing in*
*Some piece of immobility will finally quit
suddenly nimble on wooden limbs
as fast as a horse, fleeing the stable.*
*Some piece of immobility will finally quit
suddenly nimble on wooden limbs
as fast as a horse, fleeing the stable.*
© Yahia Lababidi
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=yahia-lababidi/cduwufwq
The desert is a space of mystery, meditation, even mysticism...
When I lived in Cairo, Egypt, over a decade and a half ago, I would head to the desert periodically: to empty myself of the city’s noise, overhear myself and then lose myself.
I approached these desert pilgrimages with the earnest intention and passionate belief that I was going to encounter that part of myself not entirely accessible in other circumstances. In the desert, there is nothing to hide behind, nowhere and no one to turn to.
Below is my ode to this Capital of Silent Riches:
Desert Revisited
*under a whirling skirt of sky
streaming light and stars
groping for that tremendous hem
gingerly over quicksand*
*as though steadied
beneath some tongue and dissolving
not the absence of sound
but the presence of silence*
*or, as if transfixed
by a gaze, stern-serene
surveying a dream
foreign-familiar*
*incorruptible starting point
inviolable horizon
where eye and mind are free
to meditate perfection*
*there, begin to uncover
buried in dust and disinterest
the immutable letter
(first of the alphabet) Alif*
*under the ever watchful eye:
fearsome sun, forgiving moon
bless the magnificent hand
all else is blasphemy, a lie*
*experience quietude
the maturity of ecstasy
longing to utter
the unutterable Name*
*only striving supreme or pure
can ever hope to endure
the absolute face
the awesome embrace*.
© Yahia Lababidi, author of Learning to Pray
https://3speak.tv/watch?v=yahia-lababidi/hjsrispo
Most of us present ourselves to the world masked and are even masked
to ourselves. Whether consciously or unconsciously, we run away from
ourselves ― through distraction, inattention, or fear of the hard work required to look ourselves in the face, unmasked.
This prose poem is a meditation on what it might mean to meet our true self, what is also called our Higher Self:
Encounter
I stirred in the small hours of the morning. Sensing a presence, I did not return to sleep, but ventured into the living room, apprehensively.
There, by the balcony, sat a familiar figure — cross-legged and reading in the semi-dark, with just the milky moonlight for company.
I do not know how I knew, but I did. I recognized the intruder, at once, with a mixture of dread and affection.
“I’m sorry,” were the only words to leave my lips. “I’m sorry, too,” replied my longed-for-self, with a sigh of infinite kindness and pity.
He did not rise to greet me and, somehow, spoke without words, transmitting what was needed.
Catching his glistening eye, the caring made me cry. “You’ve taken every detour to avoid me,” he gently reproached. “For every step I’ve taken towards you, you’ve taken back two”.
I did not know what to say in my defense (how could I protest against myself?) “I missed you,” he said, and feared you’d forgotten me.”
His admonishment was tender as a kiss. “I visit from time to time, and hope you’ll ask me to stay.” I knew what he said was true, and felt that way, too.
“I worried,” he continued, “if I postponed this visit, we might never meet, in this life… and so I came to sharpen your appetite.”
He rose and moved towards me. “There’s no need to speak, return to sleep. But when you rise, try to remember me. And to keep awake.”
© Yahia Lababidi, author of Learning to Pray