Turning my Migraines into Poetry & Insight
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.
Poem that is a challenge to the state of health experienced by the author, and thus an exercise of great lucidity in the face of the monstrous or angelic, beyond the individual. I find the intertextual game present in the poem very useful. Thank you and best regards, @yahia-lababidi.
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Lovely, perceptive appreciation of my meditation -- thank you, for your attention and insight. Upon your invitation, I've joined your community and cross posted this poem. Happy Sunday :)
I would like to invite you to join our community, a special space dedicated to art. You can subscribe by entering here. Crossposting is allowed.
I will, gladly, join your community, @celfmagazine :) It's not every day that one receives such warm and sensitive encouragement for their art! Also, will crosspost this poem with your permission, in hopes of reaching more sympathetic readers 🙏