Submissions by Baldwin
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
14th Feb 2024 12:59pm
14th Feb 2024 12:59pm
On Valentine's
Cupid, little bastard you,
smiling so self pleased,
while red birds fly
in circles round the sun,
oh damn your eyes!
Despite my armoring myself
against your arrowings,
your lies,
despite my cursings of your name,
despite my iron pledge
to never ever be love’s thrall,
despite my callousing my heart
to harrow tenderness,
to bury lust,
you’ve once more won
the game.
You've won it all.
With one wave of your lily hand
you spiraled me to pulsing memory, ...
smiling so self pleased,
while red birds fly
in circles round the sun,
oh damn your eyes!
Despite my armoring myself
against your arrowings,
your lies,
despite my cursings of your name,
despite my iron pledge
to never ever be love’s thrall,
despite my callousing my heart
to harrow tenderness,
to bury lust,
you’ve once more won
the game.
You've won it all.
With one wave of your lily hand
you spiraled me to pulsing memory, ...
#lust
147 reads
0 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
11th Feb 2024 12:08pm
11th Feb 2024 12:08pm
Ah now I see
Ah now I see --
you want my voice against your ear,
you want me whispering your name
as if it were the only word I know,
as if it were a flame beneath my skin.
And when you feel that fire has reached my lips
and is then fevering my breath,
you’d have me whisper it to you
again.
you want my voice against your ear,
you want me whispering your name
as if it were the only word I know,
as if it were a flame beneath my skin.
And when you feel that fire has reached my lips
and is then fevering my breath,
you’d have me whisper it to you
again.
#lust
245 reads
5 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
10th Feb 2024 1:16pm
10th Feb 2024 1:16pm
A year's gone by
Almost a year’s gone by
and I am yet,
against my will,
a shaken reed,
un-stilled
and ever drained,
and drear,
a hollowed thing,
laid sere and grieved and low
by unrelenting need.
I thought that I was stronger
for my years,
and that by now
I’d know relief
from emptiness
and grief
that’s centered in the loss of you..
But this, I see,
is such
a self-deceiving lie.
and I am yet,
against my will,
a shaken reed,
un-stilled
and ever drained,
and drear,
a hollowed thing,
laid sere and grieved and low
by unrelenting need.
I thought that I was stronger
for my years,
and that by now
I’d know relief
from emptiness
and grief
that’s centered in the loss of you..
But this, I see,
is such
a self-deceiving lie.
#breakup
#PopCulture
#CallToAction
251 reads
1 Comment
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
8th Feb 2024 1:52pm
8th Feb 2024 1:52pm
You think yourself a poet
You think yourself a poet, yes?
Then let me see from you
your aptitude,
and your agility
to capture with the way you write
a woman’s love,
a woman’s fire
how you have power now
to bind it hapless, helpless, close to you,
with words --
this wild, defiant thing
this thing that can’t be stilled or ruled
this thing that rages far
beyond the confines of a page,
this thing that loosens minds
and leaves a wake of trembling
deep inside her limbs..
Man up.
And show me that you really know ...
Then let me see from you
your aptitude,
and your agility
to capture with the way you write
a woman’s love,
a woman’s fire
how you have power now
to bind it hapless, helpless, close to you,
with words --
this wild, defiant thing
this thing that can’t be stilled or ruled
this thing that rages far
beyond the confines of a page,
this thing that loosens minds
and leaves a wake of trembling
deep inside her limbs..
Man up.
And show me that you really know ...
#WritingPoetry
218 reads
4 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
21st Jan 2024 8:27pm
21st Jan 2024 8:27pm
once more
A warm light
shines upon my open bed
yet how my not-so-avid lover says again
not now, not now, not now.
shines upon my open bed
yet how my not-so-avid lover says again
not now, not now, not now.
#frustration
204 reads
1 Comment
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
17th Jan 2024 3:46pm
17th Jan 2024 3:46pm
Does God Send People to Eternal Fire
Do you assert
there is a god above
who rules mankind
with grace, benevolence
and yet is by his nature bent,
intent,
to send
upon their death
and out of pique,
all those who have
in enmity
rejected him
into a realm of infinite
and endless pain,
a horrid punishment,
that lasts implacably
for all eternity?
.
And if you do,
then is the claim
that Jesus (and Paul, too) have made
that God is one who loves
not just his friends
but also all his enemies
a lie?
there is a god above
who rules mankind
with grace, benevolence
and yet is by his nature bent,
intent,
to send
upon their death
and out of pique,
all those who have
in enmity
rejected him
into a realm of infinite
and endless pain,
a horrid punishment,
that lasts implacably
for all eternity?
.
And if you do,
then is the claim
that Jesus (and Paul, too) have made
that God is one who loves
not just his friends
but also all his enemies
a lie?
#anger
176 reads
0 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
9th Jan 2024 6:49pm
9th Jan 2024 6:49pm
Insignificant
These days
I’m often swayed
and overcome by what appears
to be the sorrowed fact
that I’ve become,
been made,
within the memory
of her who was
before she turned away
the centering, the flame
of all my Oxford days
and others since
who uttered once
their ardent bright,
desire-filled words to me
until another lover
crossed their path,
an unimportant shade
regarded now within
their recollections of
the quickened moments in their history
as someone wholly...
I’m often swayed
and overcome by what appears
to be the sorrowed fact
that I’ve become,
been made,
within the memory
of her who was
before she turned away
the centering, the flame
of all my Oxford days
and others since
who uttered once
their ardent bright,
desire-filled words to me
until another lover
crossed their path,
an unimportant shade
regarded now within
their recollections of
the quickened moments in their history
as someone wholly...
#grief
171 reads
0 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
6th Jan 2024 6:45pm
6th Jan 2024 6:45pm
Epiphany
How dare we ever lift our heads again,
proclaiming we are wise?
How dare we raise our guilty hands
to seek to touch, to hold, the ones we love?
We rovers shall not ever rove again contentedly
or think, as we once did, like fools,
that stars lead on to happy destinies.
No distant compass point shall be our aim
since, after what we caused in this small citadel
outside Jerusalem where Rachel weeps,
all roadways of the world
will always bring us here again.
To blood.
Our sense of our nobility, of sacred...
proclaiming we are wise?
How dare we raise our guilty hands
to seek to touch, to hold, the ones we love?
We rovers shall not ever rove again contentedly
or think, as we once did, like fools,
that stars lead on to happy destinies.
No distant compass point shall be our aim
since, after what we caused in this small citadel
outside Jerusalem where Rachel weeps,
all roadways of the world
will always bring us here again.
To blood.
Our sense of our nobility, of sacred...
#regret
168 reads
3 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
28th Dec 2023 5:11pm
28th Dec 2023 5:11pm
Mary
Mary did not weep or know distress
bur sang a song of joy
just after she was told
in Gabriel's address
she’d quicken soon
because she’d be
by spirit and by overshading power won
and give birth to in nine month’s time
the Most High’s holy son.
She did not feel thereby
herself undone
or that her “yes” to Gabriel
was costly or against her will
constrained.
Instead, she praised the Lord
with ringing words, refrains,
that signaled she was raptured,
pleased,
to be the...
bur sang a song of joy
just after she was told
in Gabriel's address
she’d quicken soon
because she’d be
by spirit and by overshading power won
and give birth to in nine month’s time
the Most High’s holy son.
She did not feel thereby
herself undone
or that her “yes” to Gabriel
was costly or against her will
constrained.
Instead, she praised the Lord
with ringing words, refrains,
that signaled she was raptured,
pleased,
to be the...
#Christian
180 reads
6 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
25th Dec 2023 4:48pm
25th Dec 2023 4:48pm
Christmas
The dawn breaks
the swaddled child awakes
His mother wonders
as he cries for milk
if it is true and will be known
that this small squalling one
will certainly
as was so suddenly
proclaimed to her
some months ago
by an angelic messenger
who knows God’s strength
become the scion who
inherits David's throne
and if it’s so
that heaven’s firmly joined
to earth
by an adulterated birth.
the swaddled child awakes
His mother wonders
as he cries for milk
if it is true and will be known
that this small squalling one
will certainly
as was so suddenly
proclaimed to her
some months ago
by an angelic messenger
who knows God’s strength
become the scion who
inherits David's throne
and if it’s so
that heaven’s firmly joined
to earth
by an adulterated birth.
#Christmas
192 reads
2 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
8th Dec 2023 4:18pm
8th Dec 2023 4:18pm
At the Nativity
I spoke quite softly then to Miriam,
but she was crying out against
her labour pains.
And so she took no note
of what I, her husband, said,
though it was couched in love.
She only heard the gilded choruses
of angels singing high above our heads
and all the hillside echoes
of their “fear not” filled refrains.
but she was crying out against
her labour pains.
And so she took no note
of what I, her husband, said,
though it was couched in love.
She only heard the gilded choruses
of angels singing high above our heads
and all the hillside echoes
of their “fear not” filled refrains.
#Christmas
163 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
3rd Dec 2023 4:41pm
3rd Dec 2023 4:41pm
Hope
Shall I go out again
on Christmas eve
to stand upon the nearby hill
and pray to hear what once occurred
near Bethlehem
occur once more:
a host of heaven’s messengers
in purposed travel from afar
intent to breach the barrier
between the starry realm above
and all the bonds of earth
sing chorused wonders to the world
of God’s redemptive love?
I’ve trod this way before
when I was young
(and several times since then)
and fervently looked up,
so locked in hope
to see a gloried...
on Christmas eve
to stand upon the nearby hill
and pray to hear what once occurred
near Bethlehem
occur once more:
a host of heaven’s messengers
in purposed travel from afar
intent to breach the barrier
between the starry realm above
and all the bonds of earth
sing chorused wonders to the world
of God’s redemptive love?
I’ve trod this way before
when I was young
(and several times since then)
and fervently looked up,
so locked in hope
to see a gloried...
#Christmas
134 reads
0 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Baldwin
