Submissions by Baldwin
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
SELF POEM
Published
12th Jul 2022 6:59pm
12th Jul 2022 6:59pm
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
207 reads
3 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
9th Jul 2022 10:05pm
9th Jul 2022 10:05pm
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
446 reads
9 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
7th Jul 2022 1:42pm
7th Jul 2022 1:42pm
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
151 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
25th Jun 2022 4:31pm
25th Jun 2022 4:31pm
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
197 reads
6 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
16th Jun 2022 1:54pm
16th Jun 2022 1:54pm
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
252 reads
9 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
15th Jun 2022 2:16pm
15th Jun 2022 2:16pm
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
366 reads
16 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
12th Jun 2022 2:41pm
12th Jun 2022 2:41pm
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
287 reads
4 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
2nd Jun 2022 3:45pm
2nd Jun 2022 3:45pm
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
177 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
31st May 2022 1:37pm
31st May 2022 1:37pm
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
160 reads
0 Comments
ANGER POEM
Published
30th May 2022 3:14pm
30th May 2022 3:14pm
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
278 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
26th May 2022 6:38pm
26th May 2022 6:38pm
The Home of Words
Is it not true
that often the outstanding place
where words abide
and find their home’s within
are rants that come from hate-filled mouths
intent to slur, malign
what’s fine in other’s eyes,
to spur some people from
among the ignorant and misinformed
and prejudiced
to sin?
that often the outstanding place
where words abide
and find their home’s within
are rants that come from hate-filled mouths
intent to slur, malign
what’s fine in other’s eyes,
to spur some people from
among the ignorant and misinformed
and prejudiced
to sin?
#WritingPoetry
163 reads
0 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
24th May 2022 8:50pm
24th May 2022 8:50pm
Concepts without Percepts
Notions don’t dress up one’s lines
let alone in niceties.
It’s only when a notion’s sheathed in words
that this occurs
and then, unless these words
are shaped, construed, to sparkle verbally
when they’re set out together each to each
and peak in their arrangements on a page
without displaying solecisms or
some ghastly breaches
of good grammar’s golden rules
or use of awkward phrases too
that mars a poem’s prosody
they’ll show
a would-be, braggart poet up
as talentless, possessing no...
let alone in niceties.
It’s only when a notion’s sheathed in words
that this occurs
and then, unless these words
are shaped, construed, to sparkle verbally
when they’re set out together each to each
and peak in their arrangements on a page
without displaying solecisms or
some ghastly breaches
of good grammar’s golden rules
or use of awkward phrases too
that mars a poem’s prosody
they’ll show
a would-be, braggart poet up
as talentless, possessing no...
#WritingPoetry
187 reads
0 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Baldwin
