Submissions by Baldwin
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
22nd Mar 2020 4:31pm
22nd Mar 2020 4:31pm
age
I saw today
an older couple sitting on
a lakeside bench.
These two
(of more than middle age)
began
a small togethering
by touching hands
as if they were again
in courting days.
And I sensed then
from noting how
they sighed
and in a sleepy pleasure
closed their eyes
that suddenly
their tiring world,
weighed down by years,
and often felt as drained and dry,
was made for them,
and them alone,
renewed.
an older couple sitting on
a lakeside bench.
These two
(of more than middle age)
began
a small togethering
by touching hands
as if they were again
in courting days.
And I sensed then
from noting how
they sighed
and in a sleepy pleasure
closed their eyes
that suddenly
their tiring world,
weighed down by years,
and often felt as drained and dry,
was made for them,
and them alone,
renewed.
#love
331 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
21st Mar 2020 1:29pm
21st Mar 2020 1:29pm
A Challenge to J-Z
I wonder if you’re capable of writing verse
that’s not about calamity
or man’s “bright” Gnostic otherworldly destiny,
or how men are depraved, like beasts,
unsaved, unsave-able and jealous, full of
damning lusts,
or just how much you love the lord
and see in him relief, release,
from this world’s misery?
Can you post, instead, a gentled exploration of
the subtitles of love
with cunning vibrant words,
not heavy-handed ones,
as is your wont,
that show, not tell,
through simile and metaphor
and...
that’s not about calamity
or man’s “bright” Gnostic otherworldly destiny,
or how men are depraved, like beasts,
unsaved, unsave-able and jealous, full of
damning lusts,
or just how much you love the lord
and see in him relief, release,
from this world’s misery?
Can you post, instead, a gentled exploration of
the subtitles of love
with cunning vibrant words,
not heavy-handed ones,
as is your wont,
that show, not tell,
through simile and metaphor
and...
#WritingPoetry
325 reads
0 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
20th Mar 2020 9:27pm
20th Mar 2020 9:27pm
Her laugh
Her laugh
arcs out upon the world
a magicked music glittering
and set to burnish air,
its conjurings, its lulling,
breath depriving art,
like sirens’ song,
a soft implacability,
unfair
to my resolve to
keep in my old age
a guarding 'round my heart.
arcs out upon the world
a magicked music glittering
and set to burnish air,
its conjurings, its lulling,
breath depriving art,
like sirens’ song,
a soft implacability,
unfair
to my resolve to
keep in my old age
a guarding 'round my heart.
#romantic
432 reads
1 Comment
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
20th Mar 2020 2:41pm
20th Mar 2020 2:41pm
Why Remorse?
Did you know
my heart
(a thing that god begat)
has blinkered eyes?
It’s not a lie.
But I’ll admit
that saying so (especially
when looking at a bloodied ram)
is passing strange.
Am I deranged or even damned?
Perhaps.
But let me see
how often I
(and artlessly?)
can speak of “heart”
within some verse
in which I claim
nonsensically
I’m trying to avoid
remorse
for things for which
I can’t be blamed.
So even I
have cause to ask
"oh what's the...
my heart
(a thing that god begat)
has blinkered eyes?
It’s not a lie.
But I’ll admit
that saying so (especially
when looking at a bloodied ram)
is passing strange.
Am I deranged or even damned?
Perhaps.
But let me see
how often I
(and artlessly?)
can speak of “heart”
within some verse
in which I claim
nonsensically
I’m trying to avoid
remorse
for things for which
I can’t be blamed.
So even I
have cause to ask
"oh what's the...
#regret
305 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
19th Mar 2020 2:10pm
19th Mar 2020 2:10pm
Moths to Flame
It simply isn’t true
as one, through ruptured syntax, claimed,
that every moth’s intent
when drawn unto
a siren source of light
is then to end its life.
It has no such desire
for suicide.
And if it suffers winged demise
like Icarus in coming far
too close to flame,
it surely was,
because of little strength or brain,
an accident.
as one, through ruptured syntax, claimed,
that every moth’s intent
when drawn unto
a siren source of light
is then to end its life.
It has no such desire
for suicide.
And if it suffers winged demise
like Icarus in coming far
too close to flame,
it surely was,
because of little strength or brain,
an accident.
#lust
387 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
18th Mar 2020 12:53pm
18th Mar 2020 12:53pm
Another Ditty
Here’s something
that amuses me
about the way
my woman’s come to be:
So stubborn in her language sways
is she,
convinced, convicted
that she’s always right
to boil
when syntax gaffes
are on display,
that I am bound to say
there’s little doubt
concerning just how free,
not faint,
she’ll feel
to post without restraint
corrections of
the grammar God employs
within his text
on sinners and on saints
that’s meant
for judgment day.
that amuses me
about the way
my woman’s come to be:
So stubborn in her language sways
is she,
convinced, convicted
that she’s always right
to boil
when syntax gaffes
are on display,
that I am bound to say
there’s little doubt
concerning just how free,
not faint,
she’ll feel
to post without restraint
corrections of
the grammar God employs
within his text
on sinners and on saints
that’s meant
for judgment day.
#WritingPoetry
317 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
17th Mar 2020 3:26pm
17th Mar 2020 3:26pm
Dity
I think sometimes
of debts I owe
to God
for trespassing high-handedly
his will
and with, I fain admit,
a great amount of glee.
But do I feel remorse for this?
Oh no!
You see,
my sins, with all
their carnal weight
upon my flesh,
are still and yet
too lovely
to forego.
of debts I owe
to God
for trespassing high-handedly
his will
and with, I fain admit,
a great amount of glee.
But do I feel remorse for this?
Oh no!
You see,
my sins, with all
their carnal weight
upon my flesh,
are still and yet
too lovely
to forego.
#happiness
397 reads
2 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
16th Mar 2020 9:18pm
16th Mar 2020 9:18pm
surprised
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.
#love
575 reads
6 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
15th Mar 2020 11:26pm
15th Mar 2020 11:26pm
Abused
There’s wrath behind her smile.
Her jaw is set in thunder.
A coil of hard contempt
lies deep inside her limbs
and if she comes determined to caress
it’s only then to see
how easily she’s able to draw blood
There’s nothing I can do
or say to soften her away
from all the miseries
she’s known from other men
that thoughtless words of mine
have brought back to her memory,
reminding her of just how much
their hold on her survives.
Her jaw is set in thunder.
A coil of hard contempt
lies deep inside her limbs
and if she comes determined to caress
it’s only then to see
how easily she’s able to draw blood
There’s nothing I can do
or say to soften her away
from all the miseries
she’s known from other men
that thoughtless words of mine
have brought back to her memory,
reminding her of just how much
their hold on her survives.
#hurt
455 reads
3 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
29th Feb 2020 6:53pm
29th Feb 2020 6:53pm
Golgatha
I was a witness to his bloody death.
It was a thing of torment and distress
for him, this would-be Jewish King.
He could not breathe
unless he forced his legs
to biting pain
upon the nails that spiked his heels
against the knot within the planted upright
he, exhausted, sweat streaked,
dangled from.
And yet not once
was he then heard to voice disdain
upon his murderers
or cry out curses on the hungry dogs
that snarled and bared their teeth
beneath him there, waiting and aprowl
within a death-watch vigiling
to...
It was a thing of torment and distress
for him, this would-be Jewish King.
He could not breathe
unless he forced his legs
to biting pain
upon the nails that spiked his heels
against the knot within the planted upright
he, exhausted, sweat streaked,
dangled from.
And yet not once
was he then heard to voice disdain
upon his murderers
or cry out curses on the hungry dogs
that snarled and bared their teeth
beneath him there, waiting and aprowl
within a death-watch vigiling
to...
#death
346 reads
5 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
29th Feb 2020 4:25pm
29th Feb 2020 4:25pm
what to pray
I want to know
of all the thoughts I pray to thee,
no matter if they play
upon my tongue,
become articulate
and are voiced aloud,
or stay within my heart
as wordless groans and whisperings
oh which, if any. of them are
the ones
you’ll want to hear
and which are those
you might forbid
to ever touch your ear.
Please tell me, God.
I want your promised rest,
but do not know just what to say
to have it now bestowed on me.
Perhaps if I address you as
my Pater, Lord, and act as if you...
of all the thoughts I pray to thee,
no matter if they play
upon my tongue,
become articulate
and are voiced aloud,
or stay within my heart
as wordless groans and whisperings
oh which, if any. of them are
the ones
you’ll want to hear
and which are those
you might forbid
to ever touch your ear.
Please tell me, God.
I want your promised rest,
but do not know just what to say
to have it now bestowed on me.
Perhaps if I address you as
my Pater, Lord, and act as if you...
#religion
411 reads
4 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
27th Feb 2020 2:10am
27th Feb 2020 2:10am
Ash Wednesday
Because I know that fame’s
a thing that can’t be carried with me
when I, as dust to dust,
go down into the grave,
and cannot serve as light or warmth
beneath the earth,
I hope now that my name
will be passed on with love
in an unsullied state
in others’ memory
and will remain marked out
on living tongues
at least a while
as if a flame that brightens
darkness at the end of day.
That is, I think, as much
as one can ask for of
the ever-turning world.
a thing that can’t be carried with me
when I, as dust to dust,
go down into the grave,
and cannot serve as light or warmth
beneath the earth,
I hope now that my name
will be passed on with love
in an unsullied state
in others’ memory
and will remain marked out
on living tongues
at least a while
as if a flame that brightens
darkness at the end of day.
That is, I think, as much
as one can ask for of
the ever-turning world.
#memorial
389 reads
0 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Baldwin
