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Dm Babbit Poem
Pull out the easel
set the canvas
positioned long and slender clean slate.
Sketch the figures huddled and dark-bound hostage
to charcoal-cooled coals
etching in shadow images;
Faceless entities
slipping in and out the background
earth-toned sojourners accepting, alone, quiet, dying;
Still the images in silence
hard and disfigured
grotesque horrors in place;
Somber soul-drained eyes
skeletal socket holes
buried in the heart and mind;
Let tears fall down their cheeks
in wonder, awe, and
fear of what happens next.
Acrylic primers dilute the wash in the storyline
flaking and cracking
tearing each soul and truth away;
Polyptych blended burnish bleeds
quiet, soft exuding
whimpered cries, asking why;
Chiaroscuro collages of death from life
fading to diluent breaths
the heartbeat of an unholy silence;
Graded gouache monochrome scraper boards
releasing sfumatos of singularities
communal lives sacrificed
Varnish the final rendition
camouflage the realities,
the actuality of what it represents,
Time immemorial in genocidal atrocities
of Native Americans, Cambodians, Hawaiians,
Jews, Rwandans, Bosnia, Darfur,.
When does it stop?
The never-ending list
life is more precious than this
until change comes
Paint the Picture Black and Gray
pray
then act.
Copyright © DM Babbit | Year Posted 2016
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Dm Babbit Poem
Deep as first love,
and wild as all regret -
Alfred Lord Tennyson
There is an aching in the heart
slipping into tears that burn and tear apart
every fiber of your being
so that the eyes are no longer seeing.
Each look was just pretend
knowing well how love would end
and there deep in the hallowed halls of time
well I knew, you wouldn't always be mine.
A somber memory paints
the heartthrob emotions making youth faint
delirious with love and sensual feelings
enough to send two bodies reeling.
Shadows lurk easing back and forth
assured each struggle for their own worth
there in that selfish centered need
one would follow and the other lead.
Just a moment held
as lovers succumb to love's spell
that quickly fades and disappears
with hearts held back by fear.
There in the shadows, each one alone will walk
their first love slipped away without talk
and futures die in the dream's regret
but it is a memory none ever forget.
Joseph May contest
Lines to awake the muse
3/1/20
Copyright © DM Babbit | Year Posted 2020
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Dm Babbit Poem
Disheveled hair, wiry and gray
an old lady hovered past my house each day.
I ignored her when she passed by
wondering what possessed her as I sighed
then in my own focused diligence
I slinked fast away, uncaring in my ignorance.
Wasn't sure where she lived but wondered
why in the world she seemed so encumbered.
Then one day when a little cold set in
I stepped outside my homey bin
and there lay bird wings on my mat
and slipped away some stray gray tabby cat.
Then as I queried in my beleaguered mind
that old lady waved, not surprised as to what I was to find.
There along the shade of the door's edge
just below the fully defined hedge
lay the gathering of leaves and papers torn
five kittens hiding unseen and newly born.
The old lady grinned, scooped them up and smiled
their mine she said as if they were her own child.
Copyright © DM Babbit | Year Posted 2018
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Dm Babbit Poem
Tender me a kiss
a brush of lips upon my cheek
gentle, loving, fragile wish, sheik
to set my soul afire, soft and weak.
Whisper love and comfort, joy and peace
to right this world so that war and hate will cease.
Tender me a kiss, some long goodbye
when all I sense and feel would make me cry
but hidden safe within the confines,
hope continues to abide.
In your hurry dispel all fears and worries compromising
tender me a kiss, anticipation waits on the horizon.
Copyright © DM Babbit | Year Posted 2019
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Dm Babbit Poem
Place and Time, Time in Place
I hear the mourning dove, her lonesome call
cooing softly, somewhere in the shade.
The sum holds steady
strong and blinding, high straight up in the midday haze.
The days of summer
creep to an end, as August sheds its heat.
In short and distant days ahead
autumn reaches in, with change and dying, withered leaves.
Each season takes its place and time
not overstepping, awaiting its turn.
Soon enough
too soon, perhaps, the seasons pass.
Time stands still
for no one, nothing, allowing only seasons change.
Moving forward, ever forward
years, decades, centuries, bringing all things, all futures, all pasts
to stake their place and time
while history alone, holds time in place.
Copyright © DM Babbit | Year Posted 2015
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Dm Babbit Poem
Stretched along the silent winter garden
thrives a cold, dark dirt blanketed in olive decaying leaves.
Beneath the food of natural fertilizers, life emerges from its long hushed sleep
in sprouts of pale yellowed seafoam tender tiny greenery
with shoots of seaweed blue tinged daffodills
that push aside the hued lime grass carpeting.
The faded colors lost in the long white winter, rises,
in emerald peekings of a snowdrop wrapped in hazel eyed hues,
lush colors bleed into the awaiting shamrock meadow below,
escaping the melting and discolored snow.
Life springs forward to welcome the new season.
along the roof moss grows freely along the edge in pickled shades
thriving and living as a neon florescence in the sun
and the world is once again,
reborn to pistachio and clover imagery
lying where the green grass grows again.
Copyright © DM Babbit | Year Posted 2016
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Dm Babbit Poem
It's a cold, cold heart
that cannot feel
someone else's pain.
It's a heart without feeling
that averts its eyes
to the ravishings in the world.
It's a self-centered ego
that feels the nothing
but its own need to be noticed.
It's the turmoil of the heart and soul
that never knows
what it is to love.
Copyright © DM Babbit | Year Posted 2019
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Dm Babbit Poem
Mind desires blush red
heart seethes with passions embrace
scarlet beats the soul
Copyright © DM Babbit | Year Posted 2016
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Dm Babbit Poem
Rain slipped in
sliding on the din
just passed dark
came midnight sparks
before the light of morning sun,
spits and spats, tips and taps,
lulls and dulls,
sputtered mutters culls,
on the shutters closed,
clammy, dank, and damp,
click-clack, stamped,
pitter-patter tones,
on the walk path stones;
soft and harsh,
wind blowing scowls along the tarps
glistening glows
misting the grassy rows,
October doom looms,
harvests wells consumed
rain falls
as autumn calls.
Copyright © DM Babbit | Year Posted 2021
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Dm Babbit Poem
So many years had passed, he was the offspring of a horse and ass.
Quickly discounted, the young mule was sold over and over again
until he finally ended up here, in Bethlehem.
Tethered to the carts, he was not a part of any herd born,
just another beast of burden used and scorned,
when his stubborn disposition reared itself at last,
shortlived defiance fell to the whip cracked hard and fast.
His rump still stung in a reddened burn for his resistance
he had enough, too much to withstand his own persistence.
Tonight would be different, he swore himself an oath
in the shadows of the night, he would never be broke,
beneath the low and distant starlight, he would escape,
run far away never to be found or rediscovered by daybreak.
He would forge the desert sands, stretch out a gap between himself and man.
Cornered off in the stable, against the cold breath steam
an open door with his master's voice awakened his dozing dreams.
Too bright were the stars that glowed, huddled back, low, unable to go
then what seemed a shepherd and his young wife
stepped through the doors of his promised flight
his master pointed the manger where they could stay
as the distant light glowed brightly on the hay,
donkey stepped in the stall old mule shared
as disdainfully he eyed the pair.
Commotion in the stable, wakened creatures spread the ancient fable
of a savior to come greater than all kings,
free every soul of earth bound things.
He sighed in his strongest inner creed
he heard stories long ago, never once believed.
The donkey nudged him in the side, speaking softly in his pride
"This child born in poverty was Him
the savior, the Messiah, the promised king."
Not possible, mule said as he shook his head,
the stories were tales unreasonably to the foolish fed.
Unannounced, angelic voices swept in and sang
brilliant light, soft tidings and heartbeat pangs
filled the stable as shepherds entered and bowed
and foreign kings bore riches to the simple shroud.
Curious and taken by surprise, mule stepped to view the child's eyes
and the mother's face, gentle, soft and sweet
raised her hand to touch old mule's cheek
and as if by miracle he knew, the prophet's tale was true.
In this manger solitary and aside from the world,
the truth and love began to unfurl,
towering above the powerful and rich, this child
came as gift and promise of Almighty God's loving smile.
The old mule, now humbled in his heart
succumbed to the wisdom God planned from the start.
Copyright © DM Babbit | Year Posted 2018
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