Monday, October 8, 2012

James Babbs- Three Poems

I Found A Picture of You

I found a picture of you
between the pages of this book
I don’t remember
putting it in there
but I opened it up
and
there it was
you were laughing at
something
somebody must have said
sitting on the orange sofa
in my parents’ living room
and
immediately I knew
exactly when it was taken
what we’d been doing that day
the promises we made to
one another
but never meant to keep


If You Came Over Tonight

I felt like
I needed to write this
because
I wanted to tell you
about the darkness
how it sneaks in
on its quiet little feet
coming right up next to me
before I even know it’s there and
maybe
you won’t understand this
but it’s okay
because
I want to tell you
the way it hovers above me and
follows me around
like a ghost
drifting through every room and
no one else sees it
but I know it’s there
I can feel it
in my bed at night
the weight of it
pushing against me and
I guess
I must have been a teenager
the first time it found me and
I was thinking
if you came over tonight
instead of getting drunk
maybe
you could just hold me
close enough
so there wouldn’t be
any space left
for the darkness to crawl inside


The Last of Five

when I was growing up
I sometimes wished my
parents were younger like
some of the other kids’
parents were but I
was the last of five
children and there were
sixteen years between my
oldest sister and me
when I was born
my father was already past forty
my mother nearly thirty-six
they were middle-aged and
the initial excitement
of parenthood had faded
by the time I came along
but I guess they wanted
one last chance before
they were finished and
if they hadn’t then I
wouldn’t be here writing this


I have published hundreds of poems over the last several years in print journals and online.  I live in the same small town where I grew up.  I work for the government but don’t like to talk about it.  I have a cherry tree and two grapevines in my back yard and several pesky rabbits.  My full length collection Disturbing the Light is coming soon from Interior Noise Press.  

No comments:

Post a Comment