Matthew James Babcock
Forms: III
1. Melville, Herman. The Divine Magnet: Herman Melville’s Letters to Nathaniel Hawthorne. Orison, 2016.
a. “When the big hearts strike together, the concussion is a little stunning” (54).
Once your sly sleaze splits asunder, one confession sounds a smidgen cunning.
Since his top jokes tanked thereafter, his concession was a tidy punning.
Lest our third downs fail tomorrow, our solution be a thund’rous punting.
Till one’s lithe love stands astraddle, one’s enchantment moves in lyric moaning.
While the sleek clouds glide glissando, shocked December sends the pigeons flocking.
Though the brusque blues roar extempore, red convulsions start the yellows sparking.
If bright ice spikes slip ibidem, glass xylophones make a twinkly plinking.
Where the cold sun runs upriver, thin antelope cross the frozen clearing.
2. Waits, Tom. “New Coat of Paint.” The Heart of Saturday Night, Bones Howe, 1974.
a. “We’ll laugh at that bloodshot moon in the burgundy sky.”
You’ll yearn for some crackpot gaffs from that garrulous guy.
He’ll swat at her hotshot what with his boomerang why.
She’ll lunge for his lunchbox slice of sweet coconut pie.
Who’ll strut at a foxtrot clip through this fantastic day?
I’ll stew in your boondock blood with an eloquent sigh.
3. Wyatt, Thomas. Tottel’s Miscellany: Songs and Sonnets of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyatt and Others. Penguin, 2011.
a. “Another kisse my life it shal have ended” (62).
Redundant days gray elms ice will have coated.
Resurgent urge green eyes they will have scalded.
Despondent dudes road trip they won’t have bonded.
Diminished owl mute call it might have hooted.
Abandoned phase true end I should have wanted.
Resplendent moon bruised sky it soon has bloodied.
4. DuBois, W. E. B. Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil. Introduction by Joe R. Feagin, Humanity Books, 2003.
a. “I walked home on pink clouds of glory! (43).
Minutes click away on brittle stilts of flint!
b. “I had all the wild intolerance of youth, and no experience in human tangles” (46).
She shows all the puffy penchants for fluff, but no hankering for pruning spangles.
c. “The Day of Miracles was past, and a long, gray road of dogged work lay ahead” (47).
Our Month of Monasticism has elapsed, now this feverish, slapdash romp of robust ravishment dawns
anon.
d. “I saw life through all its paradox and contradiction of streaming eyes and mad merriment” (48).
We need spring in bright green parasols and cocktails of lemongrass rain and wild peppermint.
e. “Last year I looked death in its face and found its lineaments not unkind” (50).
Lickety-split Vincent steamed rice in a crock and served the venison not unpeppered.
f. “Wave on wave, each with increasing virulence, is dashing this new religion of whiteness on the shores
of our time” (56).
Calls on calls, all with invading annoyance, are deflowering the pure solace of silence in the spaces of
our house.
g. “Hands that made food made powder, and iron for railways was iron for guns” (105).
Hearts that guide goodness guide power, and eyes for beauty are eyes for truth.
5. Malamud, Bernard. The Natural. Introduction by Kevin Baker, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003.
a. “It was a confusing proposition to want a girl you’d already had and couldn’t get because you had; a
situation common in his life, of having first and then wanting what he had had, as if he hadn’t had it but
just heard about it, and it had, in the hearing, aroused his appetite” (111).
It is a stunning situation to pass a face you’ve lately seen but don’t remember although you passed; a
strange stage for your age, of passing once and then forgetting what you have passed, as if you haven’t
passed it but merely dreamed of it, and it has, in the dreaming, erased your past.
Matthew Babcock: Idahoan. Writer. Failed breakdancer.