Submissions by Baldwin
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
10th Dec 2022 3:54pm
10th Dec 2022 3:54pm
jealous of his "poetry"
Thanks for the laugh, J-Z.
Your claim that I am jealous of your poetry
assumes that you have written things
that fill me up
with envy of the way you set out words
upon a page
and make me rage that I’m
unable to compose a thing or two
that even comes within a mile
of imitating you.
The problem, though, is that your way,
with all its grammar gaffes
fallacious and pretentious claims,
inclarity of thought,
inversions causing dread,
a lack of concrete imagery
the sacrifice of...
Your claim that I am jealous of your poetry
assumes that you have written things
that fill me up
with envy of the way you set out words
upon a page
and make me rage that I’m
unable to compose a thing or two
that even comes within a mile
of imitating you.
The problem, though, is that your way,
with all its grammar gaffes
fallacious and pretentious claims,
inclarity of thought,
inversions causing dread,
a lack of concrete imagery
the sacrifice of...
#WritingPoetry
#PopCulture
313 reads
5 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
5th Dec 2022 6:04pm
5th Dec 2022 6:04pm
Day by Day
Day by day
there’s less and less of me.
A token body, I.
Dissolved.
Flute boned.
The dull solidity I see
reflected in the looking glass
is all a lie.
And what was Eliot’s surmise?
That we are Hollow men?
More like
grey ghosts too tired to wail,
straw things,
no more than shufflings
in a dry cellar.
At night
and in the morning light
I walk with them.
there’s less and less of me.
A token body, I.
Dissolved.
Flute boned.
The dull solidity I see
reflected in the looking glass
is all a lie.
And what was Eliot’s surmise?
That we are Hollow men?
More like
grey ghosts too tired to wail,
straw things,
no more than shufflings
in a dry cellar.
At night
and in the morning light
I walk with them.
#aging
#PopCulture
196 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
2nd Dec 2022 1:35pm
2nd Dec 2022 1:35pm
Mazmer
For Jane Schaberg
Mary,
only fourteen now
but done in by Imperium.
Panthera’s seed was planted well
against your will
and now, to your regret, you know
you're swelling with his bastard spawn.
Do you, I wonder, rage against your god
who lets such things occur?
Do you demur?
Assume the blame
for your forced adultery?
Have you thought how Joseph,
expecting so to bring you undefiled into his home,
will be fraught and darkly shamed
when he comes to know
how much you’re stained,
so...
Mary,
only fourteen now
but done in by Imperium.
Panthera’s seed was planted well
against your will
and now, to your regret, you know
you're swelling with his bastard spawn.
Do you, I wonder, rage against your god
who lets such things occur?
Do you demur?
Assume the blame
for your forced adultery?
Have you thought how Joseph,
expecting so to bring you undefiled into his home,
will be fraught and darkly shamed
when he comes to know
how much you’re stained,
so...
#regret
#PopCulture
238 reads
4 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
1st Dec 2022 12:44pm
1st Dec 2022 12:44pm
Magi
What shall our questing hearts
discover when the calling star
at last stands still
above a house or hill.
Will it be worth the drudgery
and pilgrim’s pains we have endured
traversing moor
and mountain footed plains
in braving desiccating heat
and drowning rains,
bladed cold
and desert harrowings?
We will not know
until at journey’s end
we come to see
if it is life or death
to which we bend a knee
and take what’s
there before our eyes
as then a desolation or
a...
discover when the calling star
at last stands still
above a house or hill.
Will it be worth the drudgery
and pilgrim’s pains we have endured
traversing moor
and mountain footed plains
in braving desiccating heat
and drowning rains,
bladed cold
and desert harrowings?
We will not know
until at journey’s end
we come to see
if it is life or death
to which we bend a knee
and take what’s
there before our eyes
as then a desolation or
a...
#Christmas
#PopCulture
258 reads
5 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
30th Nov 2022 6:08pm
30th Nov 2022 6:08pm
Gloria
The hill that I propose
to stand on come this Christmas eve
is nowhere near the one at Bethlehem
where hosts of Angels sang
and startled shepherds
with glad tidings long ago.
But still,
I hope it might be high enough
that when
I turn my ear up to the skies above
upon the stroke of twelve
I’ll catch some echo
of their shimmered Gloria
proclaiming to this sorrowed world
God’s peace
and boundless love.
to stand on come this Christmas eve
is nowhere near the one at Bethlehem
where hosts of Angels sang
and startled shepherds
with glad tidings long ago.
But still,
I hope it might be high enough
that when
I turn my ear up to the skies above
upon the stroke of twelve
I’ll catch some echo
of their shimmered Gloria
proclaiming to this sorrowed world
God’s peace
and boundless love.
#Christmas
#PopCulture
215 reads
0 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
26th Nov 2022 2:57pm
26th Nov 2022 2:57pm
Joseph's Dilemma
Joseph, you are right to face this day with fear.
Not everyone has dreams like yours --
a rolling quaver in the night that shakes you
to your roots
a shadowed voice from heaven’s heights that
then commands:
“Go now, go against your will
and take the prim adulteress as your own.
Make the coming child who is not yours
the bearer of your name!”.
What fame will cling to you for this?
What shame?
Small whisperings behind your back
that you’re a fool?
The hand of God is leading you?
Fat chance.
So tremble, go ahead...
Not everyone has dreams like yours --
a rolling quaver in the night that shakes you
to your roots
a shadowed voice from heaven’s heights that
then commands:
“Go now, go against your will
and take the prim adulteress as your own.
Make the coming child who is not yours
the bearer of your name!”.
What fame will cling to you for this?
What shame?
Small whisperings behind your back
that you’re a fool?
The hand of God is leading you?
Fat chance.
So tremble, go ahead...
#Christmas
215 reads
6 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
24th Nov 2022 1:19pm
24th Nov 2022 1:19pm
Bring me at this time of year,
Bring me at this time of year,
this time of loning wind
and cold
and early dusk,
a music wild and dangerous
a music that the heavens cannot hold.
Bring me the chorales the angels sang
at Christmas tide,
the gloried song that burnished then the stars
and kept the closing dark at bay.
Bring me their cheer,
their bright enkindling,
and pine, and fire, too.
For I, a thing made up of Eros and of tumbling dust,
grow old,
and, knowing that I’m waning
in the number of my days to come,
so want this with me here. ...
this time of loning wind
and cold
and early dusk,
a music wild and dangerous
a music that the heavens cannot hold.
Bring me the chorales the angels sang
at Christmas tide,
the gloried song that burnished then the stars
and kept the closing dark at bay.
Bring me their cheer,
their bright enkindling,
and pine, and fire, too.
For I, a thing made up of Eros and of tumbling dust,
grow old,
and, knowing that I’m waning
in the number of my days to come,
so want this with me here. ...
#Christmas
312 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
5th Nov 2022 12:34pm
5th Nov 2022 12:34pm
Can I trust my dear life to a re-occurrence of what happened to me in the past?
I’m wondering if I
can trust my life
to what took place
within my past
should those events
occur again.
If they were those
in which I knew
the joys
of being loved
and being blessed
by friendships that
were strong
by unexpected kindnesses
from teachers and
from shopkeepers
delivery men and clerks
of golden Summer times
and the magic of
bright Christmasses
the answer’s “Yes”.
can trust my life
to what took place
within my past
should those events
occur again.
If they were those
in which I knew
the joys
of being loved
and being blessed
by friendships that
were strong
by unexpected kindnesses
from teachers and
from shopkeepers
delivery men and clerks
of golden Summer times
and the magic of
bright Christmasses
the answer’s “Yes”.
#LifeCycle
254 reads
0 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
2nd Nov 2022 8:02pm
2nd Nov 2022 8:02pm
Old Men and the Sea
I’ve seen the fisherman,
that Papa Hemmingway once wrote about
and heard the tales that they’d spin out
at night when they had hung their purse seines
up to dry.
Did they speak of mermaids then
and one-eyed whales,
and willing Cuban whores
who'd rut for days?
Ah yes, they did,
But only to the gullible
who'd stand them drinks
in recompense for being swayed
within the magic of their words.
Oh, how these winking men,
these old salt-lying piscators,
were sly.
that Papa Hemmingway once wrote about
and heard the tales that they’d spin out
at night when they had hung their purse seines
up to dry.
Did they speak of mermaids then
and one-eyed whales,
and willing Cuban whores
who'd rut for days?
Ah yes, they did,
But only to the gullible
who'd stand them drinks
in recompense for being swayed
within the magic of their words.
Oh, how these winking men,
these old salt-lying piscators,
were sly.
#sea
209 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
28th Oct 2022 5:24pm
28th Oct 2022 5:24pm
Gaining the World
I know that I am tasked
though choices I have freely made
with following the ways of Jesus Christ
I’m worried though,
since this, perchance,
involves my braving
for his Gospel’s sake
my death upon a cross
or in a place of spectacle,
that I,
when hard fact faced
with this
and all the suffering
it might be prefaced by ,’
would find myself
a man among the weak,
that is to say,
as one who lacked
the strength of mind and will
to see his duty done
...
though choices I have freely made
with following the ways of Jesus Christ
I’m worried though,
since this, perchance,
involves my braving
for his Gospel’s sake
my death upon a cross
or in a place of spectacle,
that I,
when hard fact faced
with this
and all the suffering
it might be prefaced by ,’
would find myself
a man among the weak,
that is to say,
as one who lacked
the strength of mind and will
to see his duty done
...
#responsibility
174 reads
5 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
12th Oct 2022 3:14pm
12th Oct 2022 3:14pm
Time of sexual purity
I would like to know
if it were ever so
as someone claimed
that once there was a time
when only those
of married state
had sex
and only then
with sole intent
to propagate
with purpose to ensure
their nation would
sustain itself
by being filled a lot
with uncorrupted sons
and if so, when it was.
and likewise if
there also was
in history a clime
in which
all men who had
as yet remained unwed
restrained themselves
from semen’s spread
and never...
if it were ever so
as someone claimed
that once there was a time
when only those
of married state
had sex
and only then
with sole intent
to propagate
with purpose to ensure
their nation would
sustain itself
by being filled a lot
with uncorrupted sons
and if so, when it was.
and likewise if
there also was
in history a clime
in which
all men who had
as yet remained unwed
restrained themselves
from semen’s spread
and never...
#sex
#parody
#morality
316 reads
15 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
2nd Oct 2022 5:46pm
2nd Oct 2022 5:46pm
Come
Come.
Enfold yourself in me.
Know grace and warmth
and then enveloping serenity.
Burrow down in gentleness
within my arms
and bring your ear
close to my face
so you can hear me whispering
to you,
“You’re safe, you’re safe,
you’re safe.
Enfold yourself in me.
Know grace and warmth
and then enveloping serenity.
Burrow down in gentleness
within my arms
and bring your ear
close to my face
so you can hear me whispering
to you,
“You’re safe, you’re safe,
you’re safe.
#romantic
337 reads
0 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Baldwin
