Yahia Lababidi

Yahia Lababidi (born 1973) is an aphorist and Pushcart-nominated poet with work appearing in such publications as World Literature Today, Cimarron Review, AGNI, Hotel Amerika, Rain Taxi and Philosophy Now. His first book, Signposts to Elsewhere (Jane Street Press) was selected as a Book of the Year, 2008, by The Independent (UK). Meantime, his latest works are, "Trial by Ink: From Nietzsche to Belly Dancing" a collection of literary and cultural essays, as well as "Fever Dreams" a poetry collection from Crisis Chronicles Press. To date, Lababidi’s writing has been translated into Arabic, Slovak, Italian, Dutch, Swedish and Turkish.

Otherwise, his work appears in several anthologies, including: Geary’s Guide to the World's Great Aphorists as well as the best-selling US college textbook, Literature: an Introduction to Reading and Writing (10th edition). Lababidi was chosen as a Juror for the 2012 Neustadt Prize (a biannual award widely considered the most prestigious international literary prize after the Nobel Prize in Literature).

Sourced

• I buried your face, someplace
  by the side of the new road
  so I would not trip over it
  every morning or on evening strolls

  still, I am helplessly drawn
  to the scene of this crime
  for fear of forgetting
  the sum of your splendor

  then there’s also the rain
  that loosens the soil
  to reveal a bewitching feature
  awash with emotion

  an eye, perhaps tender or
  a pale, becalmed cheek
  a mouth tight with reproach or
  lips pursed in a deathless smile

  other times you are inscrutable
  worse, is when I seem to lose you
  and pick at the earth like a scab
  frantic, and faithful, like a dog.

  • "Cairo" online at ditch, the poetry that matters

• 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.

  • "Dawning" online at Poet's Encyclopedia

Signposts to Elsewhere (2008)

Excerpts (aphorisms):

• A good listener is one who helps us overhear ourselves.

• With enigmatic clarity, Life gives us a different answer each time we ask her the same question.

• The thoughts we choose to act upon define us to others, the ones we do not define us to ourselves.

• Temptation: seeds we are forbidden to water, that are showered with rain.

• Impulses we attempt to strangle only develop stronger muscles.

• Ambiguity: the bastard child of creativity and cowardice.

• Truth can be like a large, bothersome fly – brush it away and it returns buzzing.

• In life, as in love, graceful leave-taking is the epitome of gratitude.

• Pleasure may be snatched from life’s clenched fists, not joy

• Miracles are proud creatures; they will not reveal themselves to those who do not Believe.

• To be treated with mercy, some must reveal their handicaps, while others must conceal them.

• To hurry pain is to leave a classroom still in session.

• To prolong pain is to miss the next lesson.

• Like cars in an amusement park, our direction is often determined through collisions.

• The personal made universal is art’s truth.

• Take two opposites, connect the dots, and you have a straight line.

• Romantic: one who professes to prefer the thorns to the rose.