Submissions by Baldwin
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
1st Jan 2023 6:04pm
1st Jan 2023 6:04pm
On Rilke's New Year's Wish
On Rilke’s New Year’s Wish.
“And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been...”
Shall we believe
the year ahead
is destined to be filled
with joyous things
that we have never known
or seen?
That what is yet to come
will never leave us parched
forlorn
undone
as this past year,
as unbecoming
and travailed
with tribulation and with trial was,
that hope has any chance
to glimmer still
and grow?
Oh friends,
I...
“And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been...”
Shall we believe
the year ahead
is destined to be filled
with joyous things
that we have never known
or seen?
That what is yet to come
will never leave us parched
forlorn
undone
as this past year,
as unbecoming
and travailed
with tribulation and with trial was,
that hope has any chance
to glimmer still
and grow?
Oh friends,
I...
#NewYear
225 reads
2 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
25th Dec 2022 2:05pm
25th Dec 2022 2:05pm
Angel
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/joachims-dream-giotto-detail-scrovegni-chapel-padua-italy--339458890636217264/
See this now,
this heaven’d sight --
See the focused light within
the angel’s eyes,
as dark as coal,
enraptured night,
intent and wide and glistening,
See his arrowed flight
and haloed head,
his wings unfurled, incarnadined,
his robes in gilded harnesses,
his white white hand stretched out
above, above
at Christmas time
to bring God’s...
See this now,
this heaven’d sight --
See the focused light within
the angel’s eyes,
as dark as coal,
enraptured night,
intent and wide and glistening,
See his arrowed flight
and haloed head,
his wings unfurled, incarnadined,
his robes in gilded harnesses,
his white white hand stretched out
above, above
at Christmas time
to bring God’s...
#Christmas
#PopCulture
278 reads
3 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
24th Dec 2022 7:57pm
24th Dec 2022 7:57pm
I know there were no angels then
My Annual Christmas poem:
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
"Come; see the oxen kneel,
"In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,"
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.
Thomas Hardy
I know, despite the comfort of
the hallowed tale,
there were no angels then
who came aloft
upon that ancient Christmas eve
to regions rounding Bethlehem,
and from on high
proclaimed "fear not",
to humbled men,
and spoke of swaddled wonderment
new...
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
"Come; see the oxen kneel,
"In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,"
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.
Thomas Hardy
I know, despite the comfort of
the hallowed tale,
there were no angels then
who came aloft
upon that ancient Christmas eve
to regions rounding Bethlehem,
and from on high
proclaimed "fear not",
to humbled men,
and spoke of swaddled wonderment
new...
#Christmas
#PopCulture
184 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
23rd Dec 2022 3:26pm
23rd Dec 2022 3:26pm
What Did the Angel Proclaim?
What tidings did the angel give
to Shepherds tending flocks
upon the sleepy hills near Bethlehem?
I note the Gospel does NOT say
that there was born
a babe intent to give them life
beyond the grave.
The context of this story
makes it plain
it was that this small swaddled one
would be a “David’s” son
who’d save God’s people, Israel
from the enslavement
and the depredations,
the taxations and the insults
that they’d known while under
Rome’s Imperium.
For, after all, it cannot be
denied ...
to Shepherds tending flocks
upon the sleepy hills near Bethlehem?
I note the Gospel does NOT say
that there was born
a babe intent to give them life
beyond the grave.
The context of this story
makes it plain
it was that this small swaddled one
would be a “David’s” son
who’d save God’s people, Israel
from the enslavement
and the depredations,
the taxations and the insults
that they’d known while under
Rome’s Imperium.
For, after all, it cannot be
denied ...
#Christmas
#PopCulture
182 reads
9 Comments
EROTIC POEM
Published
21st Dec 2022 6:01pm
21st Dec 2022 6:01pm
Wreathing
As I would stroke
with feathered gentleness
your hair
so I would fingertip
your waiting skin
in hopes
that you would tremble at my touch
and wish
for me to wreath your flesh
in bliss.
with feathered gentleness
your hair
so I would fingertip
your waiting skin
in hopes
that you would tremble at my touch
and wish
for me to wreath your flesh
in bliss.
#passion
#PopCulture
347 reads
1 Comment
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
18th Dec 2022 1:49pm
18th Dec 2022 1:49pm
veni, veni
I’m told
that once upon a midnight time
the host of heaven deigned
to breach the starless sky
to sing a gloried hymn
that marked with joy a tiding
of great consequence
and for a moment
all that lay
upon the hills 'round Bethlehem
seemed wreathed within a light
miraculous
not seen before or since
by women or by men.
And now we wait, we wait
with veni, veni on our lips
for it, assuming that the story's true
to grace us once again.
that once upon a midnight time
the host of heaven deigned
to breach the starless sky
to sing a gloried hymn
that marked with joy a tiding
of great consequence
and for a moment
all that lay
upon the hills 'round Bethlehem
seemed wreathed within a light
miraculous
not seen before or since
by women or by men.
And now we wait, we wait
with veni, veni on our lips
for it, assuming that the story's true
to grace us once again.
#Christmas
#PopCulture
268 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
16th Dec 2022 7:39pm
16th Dec 2022 7:39pm
The Necessity of Rhyme
"Milton wrote verse
and was so full of hope to please."
My dear J-Z,
I wonder if you know
your hero Milton held
that poets who, like you,
believed that for a writing to be poetry
its lines must be
set out with rhymes
were talentless
and only, in their efforts to put down
entrancing words upon a page
showed themselves to be
dilettantes and jangelers
who had no grasp of how it was
that one achieved poetic art
since rhymes,
he said, were the invention of
a...
and was so full of hope to please."
My dear J-Z,
I wonder if you know
your hero Milton held
that poets who, like you,
believed that for a writing to be poetry
its lines must be
set out with rhymes
were talentless
and only, in their efforts to put down
entrancing words upon a page
showed themselves to be
dilettantes and jangelers
who had no grasp of how it was
that one achieved poetic art
since rhymes,
he said, were the invention of
a...
#WritingPoetry
#PopCulture
227 reads
8 Comments
EROTIC POEM
Published
15th Dec 2022 1:35pm
15th Dec 2022 1:35pm
Desire
She gave to me the gift
of touch.
She taught me much about
the adoration flesh deserves.
But then the fates
determined we’d be set apart
by circumstance.
And I, since then,
have known
a hunger that remains
unsatisfied.
of touch.
She taught me much about
the adoration flesh deserves.
But then the fates
determined we’d be set apart
by circumstance.
And I, since then,
have known
a hunger that remains
unsatisfied.
#passion
#PopCulture
543 reads
17 Comments
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
326 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
211 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
250 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
271 reads
5 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Baldwin
