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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