Autobiographies of the Archangels
John Claiborne Isbell

I am that thing you dream of when you dream

of me. When night falls and the traffic stills

in this neck of the woods, and overhead,

the planets tumble in their course, a dream

may come to you, and I am there. Do not

be frightened, this is just a dream, I am

quite harmless to you. As you turn in bed,

I occupy your mind. It may be dreams

foretell future events. It may be dreams

reflect the past. For now, beneath their lids,

your eyes see me. When morning comes and you

have that first cup of coffee, you will not

recall me. That is well and good. As for

the future, I won’t speak to that. It’s not

as if a dream must come true; any child

can tell you how that simply isn’t so.

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John’s notes: “This poem takes its title from a remark by Jorge Luís Borges and then runs with it. It is in unrhymed iambic pentameter, and is about as creepy as my poetry gets, I think, to coincide with this month’s theme. It seems to me that folks will tend to see archangels, like angels, mostly in their dreams, as perhaps Jacob did. The rest of the poem pretty much writes itself.”

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John Claiborne Isbell is a writer and now-retired professor currently residing in France with his wife Margarita. Their son Aibek lives in California with his wife Stephanie. John’s first book of poetry was Allegro (2018); he also publishes literary criticism, for instance An Outline of Romanticism in the West (2022) and Women Writers in the Romantic Age (April 2025), both available free online. John spent 35 years playing Ultimate Frisbee and finds it difficult not to dive for catches any more!

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Autobiographies of the Archangels John Claiborne Isbell

Autobiographies of the Archangels
John Claiborne Isbell