Submissions by Baldwin
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Some naive writers think
Some naive writers think
with all their might
that for a composition
to be poetry that stirs
a reader’s soul
to fluttered flight
it has to have
within its lines
a regular insistent
scheme of rhymes
and little else.
So what they “know”
that they should do
when aiming to compose
entrancing posey on a page
and to secure
their reputation as
a wordsmith wonderful
is to make sure
no matter what
they stage the endings of
the phrases or the sentences
of their desired oeuvre ...
with all their might
that for a composition
to be poetry that stirs
a reader’s soul
to fluttered flight
it has to have
within its lines
a regular insistent
scheme of rhymes
and little else.
So what they “know”
that they should do
when aiming to compose
entrancing posey on a page
and to secure
their reputation as
a wordsmith wonderful
is to make sure
no matter what
they stage the endings of
the phrases or the sentences
of their desired oeuvre ...
#WritingPoetry
180 reads
3 Comments
Some (would-be) poets do believe ...
Some (would-be) poets do believe
the way to write effectively
is gushing out upon a page
(and through one’s eyes?)
what’s stirring heatedly
within one’s heart
But like the small untutored child
who bangs away
upon piano keys and thinks
he’s full of musicality
when all that he sounds out
is tumbled and discordant noise,
the poets who disdain
the learning and employment of
the Dance’s necessary steps
for obtaining in one’s work
poetical enchantment and felicity
and hold that it is virtuous...
the way to write effectively
is gushing out upon a page
(and through one’s eyes?)
what’s stirring heatedly
within one’s heart
But like the small untutored child
who bangs away
upon piano keys and thinks
he’s full of musicality
when all that he sounds out
is tumbled and discordant noise,
the poets who disdain
the learning and employment of
the Dance’s necessary steps
for obtaining in one’s work
poetical enchantment and felicity
and hold that it is virtuous...
#WritingPoetry
198 reads
8 Comments
These are the rough beginnings of my latter days
These are the rough beginnings of my latter days
when eyesight fades and letters blur;
when strength begins, like water on the seer,
to leech away;
when memory becomes a series of lacunae
and names that were once ready on my tongue
are strangers, ghosts,
some haunting foreign words astray,
locked up,
so vague and inaccessible to me.
This is the murky edge of older years
when I increasingly forget why I have come
into a room
and stand all puzzled and beguiled in unfamiliarity,
adrift within a space no longer mine,
when...
when eyesight fades and letters blur;
when strength begins, like water on the seer,
to leech away;
when memory becomes a series of lacunae
and names that were once ready on my tongue
are strangers, ghosts,
some haunting foreign words astray,
locked up,
so vague and inaccessible to me.
This is the murky edge of older years
when I increasingly forget why I have come
into a room
and stand all puzzled and beguiled in unfamiliarity,
adrift within a space no longer mine,
when...
#aging
162 reads
3 Comments
How should I Pray?
If I’m to pray to God
what are the “shoulds”, the practices,
to which I must be true
if I’m to do so properly?
Should I care
if what I want to say to him
is slurred and in content is
unspecified, a wordless groaning in the air?
Or should I be on point
with speech coherent and precise,
articulate
in my address to him?
And when I send my pleas to him
should I be standing up
as one must be
when one is in the presence of a king,
or sitting down
or set upon my knees
or...
what are the “shoulds”, the practices,
to which I must be true
if I’m to do so properly?
Should I care
if what I want to say to him
is slurred and in content is
unspecified, a wordless groaning in the air?
Or should I be on point
with speech coherent and precise,
articulate
in my address to him?
And when I send my pleas to him
should I be standing up
as one must be
when one is in the presence of a king,
or sitting down
or set upon my knees
or...
#God
383 reads
9 Comments
Memories of Oxford Things
My memory of Oxford things
is haunting me tonight
These restless, unlaid ghosts
are whispering
of loneliness within the city’s mists
and loveless days,
of pleasured times
placed by my studied selfishness
beyond my grasp,
of possibilities so often never realized
and opportunities misspent,
of how my final Autumn there
became abandonment,
a wound
that even after all the years since then
remains alive, unhealed
within my heart, my soul, my flesh.
is haunting me tonight
These restless, unlaid ghosts
are whispering
of loneliness within the city’s mists
and loveless days,
of pleasured times
placed by my studied selfishness
beyond my grasp,
of possibilities so often never realized
and opportunities misspent,
of how my final Autumn there
became abandonment,
a wound
that even after all the years since then
remains alive, unhealed
within my heart, my soul, my flesh.
#love
121 reads
0 Comments
Why Joseph Doesn't Write Arthurania
Where are your lilting words
set out within compelling verse
so literate and grammar graced
they’d teach me through example how
to bring alive before a reader’s eyes
the gloried acts of chivalry,
that were the essence of
the “one brief shining moment”
forged by the bearer of Excalibur
until the savaged darkness fell
because of Medraut’s treachery
and Guinevere's adultery
upon the time in Albion
that’s known to all as Arthur’s age
They are not anywhere
upon a page
or on a screen
no doubt because ...
set out within compelling verse
so literate and grammar graced
they’d teach me through example how
to bring alive before a reader’s eyes
the gloried acts of chivalry,
that were the essence of
the “one brief shining moment”
forged by the bearer of Excalibur
until the savaged darkness fell
because of Medraut’s treachery
and Guinevere's adultery
upon the time in Albion
that’s known to all as Arthur’s age
They are not anywhere
upon a page
or on a screen
no doubt because ...
#WritingPoetry
163 reads
6 Comments
Retort
Old Joseph-Z
has charged me with
indecency
because I dared to wondered if
the denizens of Camelot
were who he knew
without familiarity with sources that
are ancient
and thought primary
like those of Nennius and Gildas and
the Historia Brittonum or then
the Annales Cambriae,
poetic sources, too,
like triads Welsh
and then Y Gododdin
in which the legends grew
they had to be.
He does not know
that I am not alone in doing so.
In century 18th
the writer Thomas Percy...
has charged me with
indecency
because I dared to wondered if
the denizens of Camelot
were who he knew
without familiarity with sources that
are ancient
and thought primary
like those of Nennius and Gildas and
the Historia Brittonum or then
the Annales Cambriae,
poetic sources, too,
like triads Welsh
and then Y Gododdin
in which the legends grew
they had to be.
He does not know
that I am not alone in doing so.
In century 18th
the writer Thomas Percy...
#WritingPoetry
223 reads
9 Comments
Tales of Camelot
Oh do not look too closely at the tales
of Camelot.
Allow the mists of time
to polish what we think we know.
It may well be, in truth,
that Arthur was a thieving brute
and Guinivere his whore;
the table but a circus show
and Lancelot a bore.
of Camelot.
Allow the mists of time
to polish what we think we know.
It may well be, in truth,
that Arthur was a thieving brute
and Guinivere his whore;
the table but a circus show
and Lancelot a bore.
#mythology
323 reads
16 Comments
To Follow You
I should like, I know,
to follow you
up a long stairway
to note
just how your hips
sway
liquid, liquid;
to see how they would pendulum the air
and lay
upon it motions
with a rare design
that I would not forget,
and find out how my heart
might rhyme its beats
within the rhythm of your rising step --
the rhythm
that I shall try some way,
try yet,
to make a poem of.
to follow you
up a long stairway
to note
just how your hips
sway
liquid, liquid;
to see how they would pendulum the air
and lay
upon it motions
with a rare design
that I would not forget,
and find out how my heart
might rhyme its beats
within the rhythm of your rising step --
the rhythm
that I shall try some way,
try yet,
to make a poem of.
#lust
254 reads
4 Comments
Poetry as Prosaic Ideas
It has been claimed (see what's below)
by Joseph Z
that all the things
that I submit to DUP
as poetry
are only dullish mental entities
since that is what the word
“idea” means.
How this can be
when it is indisputable
“ideas” cannot be known
unless they are expressed
in written or in spoken words
that one may see or hear
is far beyond a person’s ken
and only when, and not before,
these mind abiding concepts take on flesh
will readers know
the substance of the thought
a...
by Joseph Z
that all the things
that I submit to DUP
as poetry
are only dullish mental entities
since that is what the word
“idea” means.
How this can be
when it is indisputable
“ideas” cannot be known
unless they are expressed
in written or in spoken words
that one may see or hear
is far beyond a person’s ken
and only when, and not before,
these mind abiding concepts take on flesh
will readers know
the substance of the thought
a...
#WritingPoetry
143 reads
0 Comments
Romulus
The whelping bitch gave us her teat.
And we, of Mars and vestal born,
and water shed,
wolfed down the milk inside
of it.
And strengthened so,
we lived lupine, wood-cocked,
all feral, at the start
but grew, when crooked and shepherded,
to be two men
god destined at first
to roam
and rape,
and then unseat
usurpers from their thrones,
until, before the Palatine,
bird signed,
I drew a citied circle on the earth
and placed upon myself the mark of Cain.
And we, of Mars and vestal born,
and water shed,
wolfed down the milk inside
of it.
And strengthened so,
we lived lupine, wood-cocked,
all feral, at the start
but grew, when crooked and shepherded,
to be two men
god destined at first
to roam
and rape,
and then unseat
usurpers from their thrones,
until, before the Palatine,
bird signed,
I drew a citied circle on the earth
and placed upon myself the mark of Cain.
#mythology
128 reads
0 Comments
Memorial Day
The killing fields of Ypres,
Verdun, and of the Somme
are verdant now,
their greening since the Armistice
have each become
a cover for the lie
of ages old
the ardent young were once
and still today are told
of how it is a noble and a glorious thing
to kill and die.
for God, for country, and for king.
Verdun, and of the Somme
are verdant now,
their greening since the Armistice
have each become
a cover for the lie
of ages old
the ardent young were once
and still today are told
of how it is a noble and a glorious thing
to kill and die.
for God, for country, and for king.
#soldiers
228 reads
0 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Baldwin