THE RAVEN REVIEW
  • Home
  • About
    • About Us
    • Contributors
    • Support Us
  • Submit
  • Current Issue
  • Archive
    • Volume I >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume II >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume III >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume IV >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume V >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume VI >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
  • Home
  • About
    • About Us
    • Contributors
    • Support Us
  • Submit
  • Current Issue
  • Archive
    • Volume I >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume II >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume III >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume IV >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume V >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume VI >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II

New Babel

by Tim Babbitt
Oblivious monotony
A stairway built upon piled bodies
As humanity sullenly climbs the ladder
Reaching for morose paradise above

Angelic hill of stepping-stone corpses
Its zenith closer with each self-destructive stride
This cycle of sacrifice surely has great purpose

Blind desperation
A relentless struggle for self-inflicted needs
Machinations invented to bestow false value
The ants writhe in mud of their own making

God looks to New Babel with weary eyes
The cherubs silently wonder if the Maker is proud
After all, the ants were made in His image

Systematic vanity
The highest echelon living in steel utopia
Feeding off the rats that crawl below
An apparatus of one-sided necessity

The rats are paid in hope and freedom
Promises provide heat and fill their stomachs
Their revenue only matters if Zacchaeus get his cut

Manufactured purpose
The gathered mass of a corporate pantheon
Praising the brazen idols of materialism
Baptized in free enterprise as the offering plate is passed

The soon sweat away the miracle of youth
And the rats can finally retire in their broken bodies
All the while great men die without lifting a finger

Such a glorious framework this is
An agency who’s foundation is black with tar
And who’s spirit is nothing if not content

If a disruptive word brushes its holy hem
The syllables will be like a suicide note
Final words cast into the fire and forgotten

Thus the ants gaze upon the panorama of New Babel
While rats gather at its feet in glittering shackles
​
They watch as Eden is drip-painted in a discharge of plastic
And can’t help but recall the words of their Maker

“It was good.”

Tim Babbitt is a 21-year-old writer currently serving in the US Air Force. During the 2020 pandemic, the unsettling tales of Lovecraft inspired him to put his own ideas to the pen. Since then, he has written two published dark fiction stories with Mishmashers Publishing. In his free time, Tim plays the bass guitar in a local band.