Submissions by Baldwin
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Absent Friends
When my good friends
(or friends I thought were good)
have kept themselves so purposely
away from me
for any length of time,
as they now do,
I know the dark snarl of
abandonment and grief.
And then I find
I have to ask myself in brief
what I’ve done wrong
to have become within their eyes
some foul pariahed entity.
I wish I had a “why”
for this regard
that I quite understood.
For if I knew
what it was I need to rectify
I would.
Do I smell? Do I look like hell?
Or is that...
(or friends I thought were good)
have kept themselves so purposely
away from me
for any length of time,
as they now do,
I know the dark snarl of
abandonment and grief.
And then I find
I have to ask myself in brief
what I’ve done wrong
to have become within their eyes
some foul pariahed entity.
I wish I had a “why”
for this regard
that I quite understood.
For if I knew
what it was I need to rectify
I would.
Do I smell? Do I look like hell?
Or is that...
#WritingPoetry
257 reads
1 Comment
Her Hands
Her Hands
They are in shade, now that she sits,
delected lazily and Summer tossed
beneath the willow tree.
Her hands that breeze you cool you when you are feverish
that liquify your flesh
that beat a dove wing thrum inside your throat
when cupped against your chest;
Her hands that sing your skin to dreams
that siren you to tilt your head against
their warming welcome press
against your hungry cheek;
Her hands that make you swallow hard
as they, when reaching out to you
stop suddenly to touch, to...
They are in shade, now that she sits,
delected lazily and Summer tossed
beneath the willow tree.
Her hands that breeze you cool you when you are feverish
that liquify your flesh
that beat a dove wing thrum inside your throat
when cupped against your chest;
Her hands that sing your skin to dreams
that siren you to tilt your head against
their warming welcome press
against your hungry cheek;
Her hands that make you swallow hard
as they, when reaching out to you
stop suddenly to touch, to...
#sensual
233 reads
0 Comments
As He Lay Dying
Where did it go,
the strength, the cunning, and the comfortings,
the never faltering ability within the lightness of his touch
to make me safe, to solace me,
to brush my fevers into nothingness,
to ease my night-mared sleep,
to let me know I’m loved,
that once was in his dessicated hand
that now I vigil hold in mine
to let him know that he is not alone
that he is not abandoned in his dreadful, dreading passage to the dark?
How shall I now convey to him
that all or any strength of mine I’m trying hard
to soothe him...
the strength, the cunning, and the comfortings,
the never faltering ability within the lightness of his touch
to make me safe, to solace me,
to brush my fevers into nothingness,
to ease my night-mared sleep,
to let me know I’m loved,
that once was in his dessicated hand
that now I vigil hold in mine
to let him know that he is not alone
that he is not abandoned in his dreadful, dreading passage to the dark?
How shall I now convey to him
that all or any strength of mine I’m trying hard
to soothe him...
#death
337 reads
9 Comments
Fog
The bay side fog steals in
and damps my day,
horizons and perspectives brumed and dimmed and lost
to sight.
And with my bearings and my landmarks soft dissolved
in hushing grey
I live now in a foreign land
and damps my day,
horizons and perspectives brumed and dimmed and lost
to sight.
And with my bearings and my landmarks soft dissolved
in hushing grey
I live now in a foreign land
#storm
309 reads
2 Comments
I Shall Place My Palms
I shall place my palms
like mist
upon your cheeks
while I kiss
as if in prayer
your eyes,
while I worship
with my lips
your lips
the hollow of your neck,
your longing arms,
and then the dance
your nipples make
within my mouth;
and you will say a yes
a yes
oh god
while I travel firelight and flames
in swirling fingerings
along your spine.
And I shall trace
with my slow hand and tongue
the heat arising in
the growing grace,
between your thighs.
And you, then, liquid,...
like mist
upon your cheeks
while I kiss
as if in prayer
your eyes,
while I worship
with my lips
your lips
the hollow of your neck,
your longing arms,
and then the dance
your nipples make
within my mouth;
and you will say a yes
a yes
oh god
while I travel firelight and flames
in swirling fingerings
along your spine.
And I shall trace
with my slow hand and tongue
the heat arising in
the growing grace,
between your thighs.
And you, then, liquid,...
#sex
303 reads
3 Comments
The Sway of J-Z's Ego
One of these days
your ego might just soften up enough
to let you see
and then admit
that you are not god’s gift
to poetry
and that you really don’t possess
the mastery of English and its verse
that you so often claim lies in your hand,
and you'll concede,
despite your implications otherwise,
that you are actually not privy to
the sum of all there is to know
about the bardic art.
‘Till then
it is the driving force
that makes you falsely claim
in knee-jerk ways
that those
who...
your ego might just soften up enough
to let you see
and then admit
that you are not god’s gift
to poetry
and that you really don’t possess
the mastery of English and its verse
that you so often claim lies in your hand,
and you'll concede,
despite your implications otherwise,
that you are actually not privy to
the sum of all there is to know
about the bardic art.
‘Till then
it is the driving force
that makes you falsely claim
in knee-jerk ways
that those
who...
#LifeAsAWriter
#WritingPoetry
230 reads
3 Comments
Nostalgia
Today I journeyed to
my youthful stomping grounds
around my father’s home on Morrow Place
to revel through the sight of them
in all the memories still attached to them:
of playing with my boyhood friends
and of discoveries of Dinosaurs and awe,
the mysteries of all the Catholic sacraments
and there within the halls
in the Museum built by Carnegie;
of wonder too in new deep snow
and sledding runs
the joys of Halloween
then Zorro, Robin Hood, and Tarzan
in the the books of ERB
that filled
and shaped the clay of me...
my youthful stomping grounds
around my father’s home on Morrow Place
to revel through the sight of them
in all the memories still attached to them:
of playing with my boyhood friends
and of discoveries of Dinosaurs and awe,
the mysteries of all the Catholic sacraments
and there within the halls
in the Museum built by Carnegie;
of wonder too in new deep snow
and sledding runs
the joys of Halloween
then Zorro, Robin Hood, and Tarzan
in the the books of ERB
that filled
and shaped the clay of me...
#memories
218 reads
1 Comment
A Pilgrim to the Trove of You
A pilgrim to the trove of you
I found your hill top and your shaded grove.
I heard the strummed notes of the lyre,
and where I knelt to say my prayer
the ground was moist,
the loam was yielding.
The loud cry then, the clutch
against the violet earth, the rush of breath,
the fire,
the violent stroke beneath the copper beech,
the hush.
And light moved on your shoulders
and your turning arms,
turning, turned,
to bind me up in worship.
I found your hill top and your shaded grove.
I heard the strummed notes of the lyre,
and where I knelt to say my prayer
the ground was moist,
the loam was yielding.
The loud cry then, the clutch
against the violet earth, the rush of breath,
the fire,
the violent stroke beneath the copper beech,
the hush.
And light moved on your shoulders
and your turning arms,
turning, turned,
to bind me up in worship.
#lust
157 reads
0 Comments
In the Brightest of My Rooms
In the chair filled corner
of the brightest of my rooms
where she,
before her going away,
once sat and sang,
(she called it then
her gracing space)
are only shadows now
and hovering shades.
And even window light
at noon
is not enough
to make them fade
and disappear.
of the brightest of my rooms
where she,
before her going away,
once sat and sang,
(she called it then
her gracing space)
are only shadows now
and hovering shades.
And even window light
at noon
is not enough
to make them fade
and disappear.
#grief
195 reads
0 Comments
No Ambiguity
The softness of this woman’s skin
that I, in subtle, indexed touch,
have traced the markings of desire upon,
now lures me to discovering
if all or any of the insides of her nether parts
possess the same such thing
and if the feel of them
will send me reeling with
a hungering that I would need to satisfy.
They are. It does.
And so I find my prudish sense
that I should stop myself
engaging in the further plumbing
and the sampling of her moistening depths,
once strong, is gone.
that I, in subtle, indexed touch,
have traced the markings of desire upon,
now lures me to discovering
if all or any of the insides of her nether parts
possess the same such thing
and if the feel of them
will send me reeling with
a hungering that I would need to satisfy.
They are. It does.
And so I find my prudish sense
that I should stop myself
engaging in the further plumbing
and the sampling of her moistening depths,
once strong, is gone.
#sensual
479 reads
5 Comments
Augustine's Mistake
Augustine, dark skinned Hippo saint,
based on what he thought was said
within a potent verse in Romans Chapter 5,
proclaimed each one of us alive
and all who ever lived
to be in debt to God,
and damned, despite our guiltlessness,
by our first parent’s sin.
But is it true that subsequent humanity
was present in old Adam’s seed,
and thus is stained (though sex, no less)
by his rebelliousness?
According to a wiser view
of who and what Paul there
was focused on referring to when he declared
ἐφ’ ᾧ...
based on what he thought was said
within a potent verse in Romans Chapter 5,
proclaimed each one of us alive
and all who ever lived
to be in debt to God,
and damned, despite our guiltlessness,
by our first parent’s sin.
But is it true that subsequent humanity
was present in old Adam’s seed,
and thus is stained (though sex, no less)
by his rebelliousness?
According to a wiser view
of who and what Paul there
was focused on referring to when he declared
ἐφ’ ᾧ...
#Christian
247 reads
2 Comments
Pope's Complaint
Poets, as you know, don’t dance
except with words.
And then the poorer of their lot
(the ones who think they need
no schooling in the dancer’s art)
too often show themselves as having two left feet
as their meter’s far from neat,
their verses ragged, incomplete,
their lack of proper punctuation
robbing many of their lines of sense,
and their vaunted phrasing meaningless
if not absurd.
except with words.
And then the poorer of their lot
(the ones who think they need
no schooling in the dancer’s art)
too often show themselves as having two left feet
as their meter’s far from neat,
their verses ragged, incomplete,
their lack of proper punctuation
robbing many of their lines of sense,
and their vaunted phrasing meaningless
if not absurd.
#WritingPoetry
201 reads
0 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Baldwin