Saturday, June 11, 2016

James Babbs- Three Poems


James Babbs is a writer, a dreamer, a three-time loser and an all-around nice guy who just wants to be left alone.  James is the author of Disturbing The Light(2013) & The Weight of Invisible Things(2013) and has hundreds of poems and a few short stories scattered all over the internet.



Michael Eugene

I remember him
coming in late at night
long after I’d gone to bed
hearing the noises he made
foraging in the kitchen for food
and the light
crawling softly up the stairs
I remember him
working in the garage
the light below my window
after it was dark
he knew how to fix cars
he was good with his hands
I remember the kind of cigarettes he smoked
and how brown his skin turned
when he worked construction in the summertime
but I can no longer recall
the way he spoke to me
or the sound of his laughter
from the other side of the room
the years have swallowed them and
the silent photographs stare back at me
from the faded pages inside old picture books
he was my brother and
I never knew what dreams he had
or if he ever loved a woman
I just keep getting older and
I understand
there will always be those things
I will never get to know
other things will be forgotten
they slip through a hole in the wall
falling on the floor in a room without light


Velvet Red

it’s not dark yet and I’m drunk
red wine in my coffee cup
the one I got at Wal-Mart
so many years ago
toilet paper on the table
because
I never buy any tissues
the hollowed-out portions of my brain
growing smooth again
and I keep thinking about you
I don’t want to
but I keep doing it anyway
crunchy peanut butter
next to naked wild honey
bottle of maple syrup
pushed all the way to the back
close to the window
and with the blinds open
I can see the sun
shining on the grass
the light on the trees
waving in the distance
I can’t tell if they’re saying
hello or goodbye


File Under Jazz

eating breakfast this morning
thinking about that girl I saw
yesterday
working at the used record store
a pretty college student
I heard her telling the boss
she was going to a party
later that night
she was putting jazz albums
alphabetically
in the stacks of records
along the back wall
streaks of purple running
through her long dark hair
the kind of girl
I always wanted
but could never get
I bet she‘s never even heard
of Miles Davis
or even once sat down
and listened to
John Coltrane’s
A Love Supreme

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