James Babbs- Three Poems

James Babbs continues to live and write from the same small Illinois town where he grew up.  He has published hundreds of poems over the past thirty years and, recently, a few short stories.  James is the author of Disturbing The Light(2013) & The Weight of Invisible Things(2013).

Bolinas

someday

I hope to make it

all the way to California

maybe

I’ll stay there forever

and never come back again

every day

I’ll stroll along the beach

watching the tide roll in

I’ll feel the warmth of the sun

and push my toes into the sand

and on the weekends

I’ll drive up to Bolinas

to meet the ghost of Richard Brautigan

I’ll let him read some of my poems

I’ll take him out to dinner

and we’ll have a few drinks

we’ll sit around the bar

laughing for no reason

telling each other awful trout jokes

the worse they are the better

and we’ll both get really drunk

and stagger around town

disturbing all the peace

and during some quiet interlude

I’ll ask him

what it’s like being dead

and Richard will lean back

and tell me

it’s like being put on hold

when you’re talking on the phone

but instead of hearing music

you hear all the sounds

from each day of your life

then

I’ll challenge him

to a mercury loading contest

we’ll take up our pitchforks

and start loading our trucks

and a crowd will slowly

start gathering around us

they’ll stand around

watching

Torn Apart

I drove away from her house

away from the sun

sinking in the sky

I left it all behind and

headed down the road

I drove away

knowing

I’d never see her again

I saw her

standing in the doorway

waiting for me to leave

the vultures ahead of me

tearing at some dead thing

the vultures rising into the air

circling around

when I drove past

the dead thing on the road

so torn apart

it was unrecognizable

now

I Wanted to Write This

I wanted to write this

while watching TV

I wanted to hear voices

other than my own and

I wanted a place

different from this one

where things happen

because

nothing ever happens here

and I have my nights

the same as my days

except one of them’s

covered with darkness and

I have dreams

that keep repeating themselves

dreams without endings

and I have too much time

but I understand

I won’t live forever

too many things

I can’t stop thinking about