I'm Honored to be Published by Oxford University, Today -- Writing on our Global Pandemic

Below, are some new poems of mine published by Torch, Oxford University (just this morning :) in response to our global health crisis.

I do hope that these short poems might offer you some comfort during these difficult times, dear partners in humanity.

Lockjaw

Strange aches in quarantine
for our phantom limbs:
others and nature.

memories, longings
waking hours & dreams blend
with the daze of the weak

outer and inner are unclear
--this overcast sky
or that hangover

With no end in sight
beginnings called into question:
did we, always, live this way?

Wait, did you hear that
are those birds chirping
or am I going mad?

Fever Dream

Every bed a raft
tossed at sea
afraid of what
lurks beneath

We do not float
but are connected
to the sea floor
like islands

Self-sufficient,
inter-dependent—
only paradoxes
can be trusted.

No sleep, now
only dreaming...
in the deep end,
every stroke counts

Time to read,
then write and
rewrite our will
(as in willpower).

Never Retreating

a poet stands
trusting on front-lines
ready for martyrdom
risking infection
with the virus
of their age

she examines herself
erupting in flames
or forming antibodies
battling disease
growing stronger
to heal others.

Longing

It's natural, when relationships strain
and hurt mounts, that we recoil
from one another, retreating
into our selves to nurse wounds

But after a time, when we begin to heal,
bodies tingle with longing,
asking of us, insistently:
when can we touch, again?

© Yahia Lababidi,

Egyptian-American author of 8 books of poetry and prose.
My new book, Revolutions of the Heart, is a genre-bending collection of essays and conversations, at the intersection of literature, social activism and mysticism