Submissions by Baldwin
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Healing
I am measuring today
against my memory of several yesterdays
how long the intervals are becoming now
between the rough invasions of my day
by thoughts of you.
A minute, now, or maybe less,
but still, there is an increase in the length of them.
And dreams at night are fewer, too.
The ghost grows thin.
And in the story and the plot line of the healing of the heart
that’s progress, yes?
against my memory of several yesterdays
how long the intervals are becoming now
between the rough invasions of my day
by thoughts of you.
A minute, now, or maybe less,
but still, there is an increase in the length of them.
And dreams at night are fewer, too.
The ghost grows thin.
And in the story and the plot line of the healing of the heart
that’s progress, yes?
#breakup
222 reads
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An Etheree
Kiss
again
my throat, my
ears, my eyes, my
hands, my naked thighs,
my toes, my fingertips.
Your kiss is a maddening,
a god’s voice, a rage against my
skin that makes me senseless to my sense
of where I end and where I, rough, begin.
again
my throat, my
ears, my eyes, my
hands, my naked thighs,
my toes, my fingertips.
Your kiss is a maddening,
a god’s voice, a rage against my
skin that makes me senseless to my sense
of where I end and where I, rough, begin.
#sensual
322 reads
2 Comments
You Did not Know It Then
You did not know it then,
how on that deep December night
when shivering,
in breath held moment’s pause
before you climbed into my bed,
you stood against the frosted window pane,
all streetlight backlit clad
in silvered silhouette
I watched in quiet joy
from there beneath the ready hollow I
had body carved to shelter you
between the blankets and the sheets,
the semi-circle in the air
that always you glide out along the rim of night
when taking off your...
how on that deep December night
when shivering,
in breath held moment’s pause
before you climbed into my bed,
you stood against the frosted window pane,
all streetlight backlit clad
in silvered silhouette
I watched in quiet joy
from there beneath the ready hollow I
had body carved to shelter you
between the blankets and the sheets,
the semi-circle in the air
that always you glide out along the rim of night
when taking off your...
#lover
368 reads
0 Comments
approaching another birthday
I’m wondering now if others of my age
feel their reserves of energy,
and their ability
for pleasure and for pleasuring
have grown too thin
for measurement,
and that against the world’s vicissitudes
they’ve lost within themselves
their sense of density,
that there’s duration left
within their lives.
I wonder, too.
if they, like me, have given up all hope
to be remade, arrayed, displayed,
in joy.
feel their reserves of energy,
and their ability
for pleasure and for pleasuring
have grown too thin
for measurement,
and that against the world’s vicissitudes
they’ve lost within themselves
their sense of density,
that there’s duration left
within their lives.
I wonder, too.
if they, like me, have given up all hope
to be remade, arrayed, displayed,
in joy.
#aging
289 reads
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The Road to Camelot
The road to Camelot is barren now
Fell weeds rise up in impudence
within the furrowed tracks
of traders’ carts and make the way
into the castle's legendary sheltering
impassable.
Atop the royal fortress towers
the once bright dragon banners
that had snapped disdain
upon the Saxon hordes
are left wind torn, sun bleached,
and shorn of all the furling music
they had roundly made
when Arthur's troops rode out with pride
beneath their colours and
their songs of heraldry.
The king is dead. ...
Fell weeds rise up in impudence
within the furrowed tracks
of traders’ carts and make the way
into the castle's legendary sheltering
impassable.
Atop the royal fortress towers
the once bright dragon banners
that had snapped disdain
upon the Saxon hordes
are left wind torn, sun bleached,
and shorn of all the furling music
they had roundly made
when Arthur's troops rode out with pride
beneath their colours and
their songs of heraldry.
The king is dead. ...
#regret
232 reads
2 Comments
My Skin is Taught
My skin is taut upon my aging bones,
stretched out like canvas in a frame
that’s past its primer and its prime.
No roving hand has lately graced its contours or,
in tracing out my muscles hard beneath
into meridians,,
has mapped my lines on memories.
No gentle touch has stroked or soothed it
in some time.
And absent this, I have no longer any sense
of my extent, my heft,
where I leave off or where my limbs begin
and if I have some measure, weight,
some consequence,
to bring to bear within the...
stretched out like canvas in a frame
that’s past its primer and its prime.
No roving hand has lately graced its contours or,
in tracing out my muscles hard beneath
into meridians,,
has mapped my lines on memories.
No gentle touch has stroked or soothed it
in some time.
And absent this, I have no longer any sense
of my extent, my heft,
where I leave off or where my limbs begin
and if I have some measure, weight,
some consequence,
to bring to bear within the...
#sensual
283 reads
2 Comments
September Now
September now.
And soon the leaves of trees
in Northern realms
shall alchemy themselves
to harvest hues.
Gold will splay in some.
Amber, umber, russet, too.
Others will become alive,
if only momentarily,
within a shade of red
that speaks,
when spiraling to earth,
of runnelled blood
that’s shed
in hushed atonement
for the Summer’s death
and slowly darkening end.
And soon the leaves of trees
in Northern realms
shall alchemy themselves
to harvest hues.
Gold will splay in some.
Amber, umber, russet, too.
Others will become alive,
if only momentarily,
within a shade of red
that speaks,
when spiraling to earth,
of runnelled blood
that’s shed
in hushed atonement
for the Summer’s death
and slowly darkening end.
#fall
242 reads
2 Comments
A Ditty on The Wages of Cheating
I took a test
while sitting next to my “smart” friend,
a test I had not studied for.
And so I stole my answers surreptitiously
from the page that he was writing on,
thinking they were full embodied in
his proclamations of
his mastery of subjects taught
within the university.
But to my consternation in the end
I found that he was not the brilliant kid
I thought he was
or let alone, the one
he’d bragged himself to be
because I saw
that when my graded test
was handed back to me
I’d barely “earned” a D. ...
while sitting next to my “smart” friend,
a test I had not studied for.
And so I stole my answers surreptitiously
from the page that he was writing on,
thinking they were full embodied in
his proclamations of
his mastery of subjects taught
within the university.
But to my consternation in the end
I found that he was not the brilliant kid
I thought he was
or let alone, the one
he’d bragged himself to be
because I saw
that when my graded test
was handed back to me
I’d barely “earned” a D. ...
#learning
#SelfDiscovery
212 reads
4 Comments
Gladiators
You think you know what our last nights were like
before we were by splintered staves
compelled, arena bound,
to cry our Aves out and chant
and bitter taste the oath of morituri te salutant
before the fat faced laureled ones who hold
our lives within their hands,
who come and drool like rabid dogs
to see us hack and cut and spill our lives
upon the vampire sand.
But have you ever felt the leathered pinch upon
your skin of brassard’s harness in the heat,
the weight of greaves upon your legs,
the breath depriving clutch...
before we were by splintered staves
compelled, arena bound,
to cry our Aves out and chant
and bitter taste the oath of morituri te salutant
before the fat faced laureled ones who hold
our lives within their hands,
who come and drool like rabid dogs
to see us hack and cut and spill our lives
upon the vampire sand.
But have you ever felt the leathered pinch upon
your skin of brassard’s harness in the heat,
the weight of greaves upon your legs,
the breath depriving clutch...
#courage
267 reads
2 Comments
I Shall Not Share
There is a madrigal,
by Dowland writ
unnamed,
but full eight voiced and magical,
like woven light,
like silken tapestries
at night
reflecting candles' flames
and furling in a breeze,
now ringing in my ears
and lilting, luting, me
above myself.
It is a thing too bright
and sensual
to bear,
so ravishing of sense
so lovely, warm,
in its polyphony,
within its melody,
that when I hear it
I'm laid low,...
by Dowland writ
unnamed,
but full eight voiced and magical,
like woven light,
like silken tapestries
at night
reflecting candles' flames
and furling in a breeze,
now ringing in my ears
and lilting, luting, me
above myself.
It is a thing too bright
and sensual
to bear,
so ravishing of sense
so lovely, warm,
in its polyphony,
within its melody,
that when I hear it
I'm laid low,...
#music
230 reads
12 Comments
Lies
There are too many secrets here
within your touch.
I ought to be content with it.
But I am not.
For I have come to know that there were others,
many others,
who have moaned low at its pulse,
its weightlessness,
its irresistible insistence in the night,
and taken it, their wills dissolved beneath your hand,
– oh do not lie, you meant them to --
for love.
It’s so.
And now you say that I’m the only one,
the only only one,
you ever wanted, yes, to be undone
and laid low by its need.
...
within your touch.
I ought to be content with it.
But I am not.
For I have come to know that there were others,
many others,
who have moaned low at its pulse,
its weightlessness,
its irresistible insistence in the night,
and taken it, their wills dissolved beneath your hand,
– oh do not lie, you meant them to --
for love.
It’s so.
And now you say that I’m the only one,
the only only one,
you ever wanted, yes, to be undone
and laid low by its need.
...
#betrayal
331 reads
9 Comments
A summoning
He sits in a café day after day
and watches the young females,
long of leg
and lithe of arm,
who come to sit
and drink
their coffee or their tea
while gazing in their smart phones’ screens
as if the glass were then
a dark queen’s magic mirroring,
intently texting friends and lovers with
the summons to be told
they are indeed the fairest maid of all.
He has not touched a woman in ten years.
He is content to watch
their conjurings,
the way their breasts move with desire,
and live a vivid life inside his eyes.
and watches the young females,
long of leg
and lithe of arm,
who come to sit
and drink
their coffee or their tea
while gazing in their smart phones’ screens
as if the glass were then
a dark queen’s magic mirroring,
intently texting friends and lovers with
the summons to be told
they are indeed the fairest maid of all.
He has not touched a woman in ten years.
He is content to watch
their conjurings,
the way their breasts move with desire,
and live a vivid life inside his eyes.
#lust
244 reads
0 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Baldwin