Fred Babbin

I think that all higher animals - primates, mammalian and ornithic pets, etc. 'think' to a certain extent.

Why do I think?
There is no alternative.
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A PHOTO OF AN OLD GRAVE (Courtesy of Danny Reynolds)

This was once
a very grand grave,
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With Apologies to Oliver Twist and everybody else.

Football, glorious football.
Don't care what it looks like -.
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There is a rat
I call Depression
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Our heating system speaks
but I can't understand the words – yet.
And the the toilet flush sounds like
advertising on TV,
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...

Death be nimble,
Death be quick,
Death blow out
My mortal wick.
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The neighborhood described in this poem is in the University of Chicago area, as it existed over 60 years ago. Most of it no longer exists, due to one of the first Urban Renewal programs in the United States. The 'Bomb' refers to the atom bomb, of which the University had a large part in the planning. I worked there for a short time. I wanted a picture of that corner for my poem 'Lost', and Ms. Schlesinger kindly sent it to me, so I wrote this poem.

Dear, Dear, Ms. Schlesinger
You are the messenger
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And our lives do indeed do the tango
to the music of God and the Devil.
Our lives dance to their music,
at the basic, vibrational level,
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Dearest Ruth
You are my Breath
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Poetry – this madness
This feeling-thought
that looks like thought
that holds my brain
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I went into the Internet
To see what I could find
And so much poetry I saw
Seemed written by the blind.
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I see that you
are making eggplant
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The Women I have known
Are not the women I know now.
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I’m pregnant again
with you my poems
My thoughts and feelings
Have screwed my brain
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My blood is in my pen
And when I write
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Spring leaps in
And pirouettes with joy -
The buds poke out
Into the new-found warmth.
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...

At first, there was complete emptiness -
nothing, zilch, not even zero, an undescribable nothing -
no light, no darkness.
But then there were these two noumenal essences
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CHAPTER ONE

Contrasting Pairs
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