Submissions by Baldwin
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
LOVE POEM
Published
17th May 2024 3:39pm
17th May 2024 3:39pm
To Lie Abandoned
To lie abandoned through the night,
constrained
to hear the slow hours strike
and then to wish for day
and having day, to hate the light ---
I know, dear Edna, yes, exactly what you feel.
I so wish, though, I had your art,
your skill with words, in putting
this dark sense of helplessness,
this cold unshaping reel,
this being made absurd,
upon a page.
constrained
to hear the slow hours strike
and then to wish for day
and having day, to hate the light ---
I know, dear Edna, yes, exactly what you feel.
I so wish, though, I had your art,
your skill with words, in putting
this dark sense of helplessness,
this cold unshaping reel,
this being made absurd,
upon a page.
#separation
104 reads
0 Comments
DARK POEM
Published
17th May 2024 12:23pm
17th May 2024 12:23pm
Odysseus After Journeying to Hades
I’ve come from seeing Agamemnon’s shade.
I’ve heard his bitter whisperings
of wicked wives
and how betrayal that he paid his life to know
was salt poured in a wound.
And dark Achilles’, too
whose reedy voice
was grim and gray
like ash,
who seethed at how
no glory’s found beneath the earth.
And sighted so,
where shall I ever find my rest?
Who will host this twice deathed man,
gesture me with grace
to cross beneath the lintel of their doors,
offer me a place beside the fire
now that I have...
I’ve heard his bitter whisperings
of wicked wives
and how betrayal that he paid his life to know
was salt poured in a wound.
And dark Achilles’, too
whose reedy voice
was grim and gray
like ash,
who seethed at how
no glory’s found beneath the earth.
And sighted so,
where shall I ever find my rest?
Who will host this twice deathed man,
gesture me with grace
to cross beneath the lintel of their doors,
offer me a place beside the fire
now that I have...
#death
98 reads
0 Comments
EROTIC POEM
Published
1st May 2024 1:09pm
1st May 2024 1:09pm
With a nod to Rumi
A dream – birds of bright omen
free, unjessed,
calligraphied the sky
while you,
no longer shy,
undressed,
and whispered low
upon the breathless end of our first kiss
an avid “yes”.
free, unjessed,
calligraphied the sky
while you,
no longer shy,
undressed,
and whispered low
upon the breathless end of our first kiss
an avid “yes”.
#lust
155 reads
0 Comments
EROTIC POEM
Published
11th Apr 2024 7:28pm
11th Apr 2024 7:28pm
Your eyes
Jesus, Lady!
how your eyes
are so like torches in the night,
how even in these photographs
they bore hard into me
and make me gasp
despite myself,
arrest me, test me,
tie up my tongue;
and let me know,
I have no words
when I need words
to do some justice to their light,
or to the way
they sway me
helpless,
like a moth to flame,
towards wanting you!
how your eyes
are so like torches in the night,
how even in these photographs
they bore hard into me
and make me gasp
despite myself,
arrest me, test me,
tie up my tongue;
and let me know,
I have no words
when I need words
to do some justice to their light,
or to the way
they sway me
helpless,
like a moth to flame,
towards wanting you!
#lust
188 reads
0 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
9th Apr 2024 6:18pm
9th Apr 2024 6:18pm
Heart's ease
How I wish
to have again
a new, unproven heart,
unscathed
untouched,
unscarred
by cold abandonments;
a heart
at rest at night
and open to a teeming world
with all
my self-constructed wards
against my hollowing
now free to be
undone.
But as I age I see
that when I ask
what grace is left
in my diminishing horizoning
to make this softening
in me
disclosed
the answer’s “none”.
to have again
a new, unproven heart,
unscathed
untouched,
unscarred
by cold abandonments;
a heart
at rest at night
and open to a teeming world
with all
my self-constructed wards
against my hollowing
now free to be
undone.
But as I age I see
that when I ask
what grace is left
in my diminishing horizoning
to make this softening
in me
disclosed
the answer’s “none”.
#sadness
134 reads
4 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
3rd Apr 2024 5:29pm
3rd Apr 2024 5:29pm
His Inability to write seductively
I see your face,
your form,
both works of art
both wonders,
and realize
how feeble’s my ability
however much I think
I am adept at poetry
to capture you,
to rapture you,
with words.
And if I tried,
I know
that from the start
I’d show myself
incompetent,
absurd,
so verbally impoverished,
a literary blunderer.
your form,
both works of art
both wonders,
and realize
how feeble’s my ability
however much I think
I am adept at poetry
to capture you,
to rapture you,
with words.
And if I tried,
I know
that from the start
I’d show myself
incompetent,
absurd,
so verbally impoverished,
a literary blunderer.
#WritingPoetry
#FirstLove
200 reads
5 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
26th Mar 2024 8:16pm
26th Mar 2024 8:16pm
Truth or Lies
I’m puzzled by
the way you think you “show”
conclusively
to all your sycophants
and for your challenged ego’s ease,
that I don’t know a thing
about the ins and outs
of crafting moving poetry
of what the focus of it’s subjects
should best be,
or what the rules of grammar are.
And as you know
it is by putting in my mouth
absurd assertions that I did not make
and claims I never penned
For heaven’s sake, forfend!
Engaging, as you do, in the production of
such lies
and use...
the way you think you “show”
conclusively
to all your sycophants
and for your challenged ego’s ease,
that I don’t know a thing
about the ins and outs
of crafting moving poetry
of what the focus of it’s subjects
should best be,
or what the rules of grammar are.
And as you know
it is by putting in my mouth
absurd assertions that I did not make
and claims I never penned
For heaven’s sake, forfend!
Engaging, as you do, in the production of
such lies
and use...
#WritingPoetry
100 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
25th Mar 2024 6:10pm
25th Mar 2024 6:10pm
Rich with Thoughts
You claim that your submissions here
Are “ rich with thoughts”.
That is to say that they are filled
with scores
of subject differentiated products of your mind.
But what I find
when reading what you send
to DUP Is that
the number of the individuated
mental ruminations set
within their "stanzaed" frames
are limited to two or three at most.
and, more, that these
in substance and in topic are
not varied but
repeatedly the same.
One wonders then
If your assessment of what populates ...
Are “ rich with thoughts”.
That is to say that they are filled
with scores
of subject differentiated products of your mind.
But what I find
when reading what you send
to DUP Is that
the number of the individuated
mental ruminations set
within their "stanzaed" frames
are limited to two or three at most.
and, more, that these
in substance and in topic are
not varied but
repeatedly the same.
One wonders then
If your assessment of what populates ...
#WritingPoetry
92 reads
0 Comments
EROTIC POEM
Published
18th Mar 2024 1:58pm
18th Mar 2024 1:58pm
First Meeting
What would our "at last" meeting
make us feel or know?
A new lit vital life perhaps?
Forgetfulness of heart scars from our pasts?
A future for us finally unclosed?
The promise of an Edening within
a fallen world renewed
and close?
Come now, let us see
what havening for us
in such a time would be.
make us feel or know?
A new lit vital life perhaps?
Forgetfulness of heart scars from our pasts?
A future for us finally unclosed?
The promise of an Edening within
a fallen world renewed
and close?
Come now, let us see
what havening for us
in such a time would be.
#passion
134 reads
1 Comment
LOVE POEM
Published
16th Mar 2024 3:49pm
16th Mar 2024 3:49pm
How with an air of quiet grace
How with an air of quiet grace
she’s come into my life
so like the way
the moon slides silently behind a cloud.
And only yesterday
I thought myself too old
to be an object of desire,
too winter-waned without,
within ice greyed
and blurred
to have once more
the heart inside me
stirred.
she’s come into my life
so like the way
the moon slides silently behind a cloud.
And only yesterday
I thought myself too old
to be an object of desire,
too winter-waned without,
within ice greyed
and blurred
to have once more
the heart inside me
stirred.
#romantic
344 reads
23 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
16th Mar 2024 1:01pm
16th Mar 2024 1:01pm
Body
It will not wait,
for even small surcease
of all the taxes and the tolls
that arrowed time
demands my flesh to pay.
And with each passing day.
I see within my mirrorings
and hard against my will,
against my exorcising efforts
to stand things still,
there’s less of any body wealth
that once was mine.
for even small surcease
of all the taxes and the tolls
that arrowed time
demands my flesh to pay.
And with each passing day.
I see within my mirrorings
and hard against my will,
against my exorcising efforts
to stand things still,
there’s less of any body wealth
that once was mine.
#aging
89 reads
0 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
15th Mar 2024 4:09pm
15th Mar 2024 4:09pm
This Heart
This heart you’ve deftly thieved
from me,
you plunderer --
can you hear it
as it murmurs in your hands
a yes, oh yes,
and now asks when
yes when,
you’ll steal it yet again?
from me,
you plunderer --
can you hear it
as it murmurs in your hands
a yes, oh yes,
and now asks when
yes when,
you’ll steal it yet again?
#UnrequitedLove
198 reads
3 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Baldwin
