Submissions by Baldwin
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
EROTIC POEM
Published
25th May 2023 2:44pm
25th May 2023 2:44pm
We Kissed
We kissed. We kissed again.
We made up for the years apart.
But shall I tell you now what I remember best?
It’s this:
How when we met, you drew so slowly close,
to come to me,
your aim at first
to only soft my lips with yours,
and fall your mouth, in stilling snowflake’s touch,
in cool and ling’ring gentleness on mine,
and how you paused, drew in a breath, and then,
with new intent to make me ache to drink in all of you,
let slyness sparkle in your eyes.
We made up for the years apart.
But shall I tell you now what I remember best?
It’s this:
How when we met, you drew so slowly close,
to come to me,
your aim at first
to only soft my lips with yours,
and fall your mouth, in stilling snowflake’s touch,
in cool and ling’ring gentleness on mine,
and how you paused, drew in a breath, and then,
with new intent to make me ache to drink in all of you,
let slyness sparkle in your eyes.
#passion
#PopCulture
244 reads
4 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
17th May 2023 11:33pm
17th May 2023 11:33pm
After Reading Stevens' Emperor
Tell the boaster of big cars
the mechanic’s son, to go and sip
from poets’ flubs luminescent words.
Let the henches swaddle in much cloth
as men wear in despair, and sound the noise
that bowers on the past day's skyscrapers.
Set be the emptying of drams
The only kingmaker is the kingmaker of loud screams.
Rake from the stresser of veal
packing the twee watch fobs, those feet
on which she once loitered with a dunce
and led him low discovering some grace.
When her thorny teats exude, they’re numb
and know how bold they are...
the mechanic’s son, to go and sip
from poets’ flubs luminescent words.
Let the henches swaddle in much cloth
as men wear in despair, and sound the noise
that bowers on the past day's skyscrapers.
Set be the emptying of drams
The only kingmaker is the kingmaker of loud screams.
Rake from the stresser of veal
packing the twee watch fobs, those feet
on which she once loitered with a dunce
and led him low discovering some grace.
When her thorny teats exude, they’re numb
and know how bold they are...
#WritingPoetry
#PopCulture
138 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
17th May 2023 9:14pm
17th May 2023 9:14pm
I am a Bell
I am a bell
I know my knell
is not an empty thing.
as the Syrian has said.
It sounds the hours
when time’s in doubt,
divides the day
and with assurance
fills the night.
It calls to prayer
and signals dread
as well as vital summonings,
alarums and victories,
fine celebrations and
occasions for rejoicings, too.
and when to go
deliciously to bed.
To say that it
is nothing but a hollow sound
unfullfilling, unfullilled,
or lacks humility
shows...
I know my knell
is not an empty thing.
as the Syrian has said.
It sounds the hours
when time’s in doubt,
divides the day
and with assurance
fills the night.
It calls to prayer
and signals dread
as well as vital summonings,
alarums and victories,
fine celebrations and
occasions for rejoicings, too.
and when to go
deliciously to bed.
To say that it
is nothing but a hollow sound
unfullfilling, unfullilled,
or lacks humility
shows...
#sensual
#PopCulture
167 reads
1 Comment
LOVE POEM
Published
13th May 2023 8:02pm
13th May 2023 8:02pm
Gilly Juliet
You hid behind your door
at my approach.
Ensured the phone was off the hook,
refused to heed the call
my finger made upon your bell.
And I,
all outward upward swelled towards you,
my chest
a barrel filled beyond capacity
and tautened rough
against its bandings and its staves,
heavy, heaving, strained
with leashed-up words
I wanted then to say,
was left,
head hung and hollowed out,
a cold stone in my stomach’s pit,
outside,
denied the chance to speak,
and made a...
at my approach.
Ensured the phone was off the hook,
refused to heed the call
my finger made upon your bell.
And I,
all outward upward swelled towards you,
my chest
a barrel filled beyond capacity
and tautened rough
against its bandings and its staves,
heavy, heaving, strained
with leashed-up words
I wanted then to say,
was left,
head hung and hollowed out,
a cold stone in my stomach’s pit,
outside,
denied the chance to speak,
and made a...
#UnrequitedLove
223 reads
2 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
12th May 2023 1:03pm
12th May 2023 1:03pm
piety
I’ve laid the bull’s bones
and its thigh fat on
the altar stone
and set the pyre beneath them into flame
then prayed my sacrifice
would find some favor in
the eyes of Him,
the holy one
I call The Name..
But I was not so pious or
so brainless as to think
that breathing in the rising smoke,
however sweet the smell of it,
would take me up to Him
or cause me anything but agony
within my lungs
and make me Him disdain.
No, such a thing, I knew,
would root me to the earth
in coughing fits...
and its thigh fat on
the altar stone
and set the pyre beneath them into flame
then prayed my sacrifice
would find some favor in
the eyes of Him,
the holy one
I call The Name..
But I was not so pious or
so brainless as to think
that breathing in the rising smoke,
however sweet the smell of it,
would take me up to Him
or cause me anything but agony
within my lungs
and make me Him disdain.
No, such a thing, I knew,
would root me to the earth
in coughing fits...
#sacrifice
#PopCulture
164 reads
2 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
7th May 2023 5:12pm
7th May 2023 5:12pm
Blame
Why should I be shamed
for choosing what my senses said
convincingly
was something full of light
but then was afterward
revealed by cunning devils
and their kin
to be a damning sin?
The only person who’s to blame
for this entrapmenting
is God.
For He created man
without endowing him
with His omnisciency,
and made him from the start
as creaturely and weak,
unable, absent grace,
and even then,
to know with...
for choosing what my senses said
convincingly
was something full of light
but then was afterward
revealed by cunning devils
and their kin
to be a damning sin?
The only person who’s to blame
for this entrapmenting
is God.
For He created man
without endowing him
with His omnisciency,
and made him from the start
as creaturely and weak,
unable, absent grace,
and even then,
to know with...
#morality
#PopCulture
#CallToAction
175 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
30th Apr 2023 4:31pm
30th Apr 2023 4:31pm
the elements of poetry
"I believe a good subject matter, and a good, flowing rhythm are the two essential elements that make poetry." J-Z
I wonder if old J-Z knows
that if the language used
inside a rhythmed line that flows
unhindered in the way
it runs upon a page
is not itself beguiling, fresh
and full of images and sense
that cause a reader to be swept up in
a new experience
the composition
that the lines are set within
is hardly poetry
no matter how exalted, grand,
its subject’s thought to be.
To wit
...
I wonder if old J-Z knows
that if the language used
inside a rhythmed line that flows
unhindered in the way
it runs upon a page
is not itself beguiling, fresh
and full of images and sense
that cause a reader to be swept up in
a new experience
the composition
that the lines are set within
is hardly poetry
no matter how exalted, grand,
its subject’s thought to be.
To wit
...
#WritingPoetry
139 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
28th Apr 2023 9:01pm
28th Apr 2023 9:01pm
Bards
I wonder if all bards
of ages past
who sang of love
however pure
or God’s good world
were clean?
I think that if we searched
their catalog,
we'd find a few quite bawdy songs
and some that are obscene.
I’ll wager, too,
the songs that they were most proud of
are those
that stirred men to desire
and set the souls of humankind
on fire.
of ages past
who sang of love
however pure
or God’s good world
were clean?
I think that if we searched
their catalog,
we'd find a few quite bawdy songs
and some that are obscene.
I’ll wager, too,
the songs that they were most proud of
are those
that stirred men to desire
and set the souls of humankind
on fire.
#music
#PopCulture
160 reads
0 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
27th Apr 2023 8:43pm
27th Apr 2023 8:43pm
lashed
I listen hungrily
for you to sing again
the silvered song you sang to me last night.
It is not often that
my heart’s made limitless
while all disordered, lashed,
or I am robbed of breath
and words,
my body stricken, rooted to the earth
my senses tempest tossed
and surged electrically
I wish it so
while I come nearer to my end
to be once more
within it ravaged, graced,
and lost.
for you to sing again
the silvered song you sang to me last night.
It is not often that
my heart’s made limitless
while all disordered, lashed,
or I am robbed of breath
and words,
my body stricken, rooted to the earth
my senses tempest tossed
and surged electrically
I wish it so
while I come nearer to my end
to be once more
within it ravaged, graced,
and lost.
#love
#PopCulture
183 reads
0 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
25th Apr 2023 5:46pm
25th Apr 2023 5:46pm
Song
I heard today some notes
that shaped the ending of my Oxford days
and wove themselves
within the memory of my last love.
And present time was banished for a while
as I was swept up in a wave
of thoughts and images
of a gilded Autumn long since past
when I was held amazed,
tongue-tied, heart flared,
by Gilly's gaze and Gilly's grace.
that shaped the ending of my Oxford days
and wove themselves
within the memory of my last love.
And present time was banished for a while
as I was swept up in a wave
of thoughts and images
of a gilded Autumn long since past
when I was held amazed,
tongue-tied, heart flared,
by Gilly's gaze and Gilly's grace.
#memories
#PopCulture
210 reads
13 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
22nd Apr 2023 9:49pm
22nd Apr 2023 9:49pm
Liar?
There is here a man
whose writing oft displays
a poor grasp of the things that Scripture says.
And when it's shown
his claims about them are untrue
he edits his text and changes its words***
to conceal that he made some great boo-boos
and blatantly lies
that he never inscribed
what a critic has noted he did
so he can maintain
unwarranted claims
to knowledge he doesn’t possess
and that he is not talentless.
***Note that I have changed what I originally wrote in lines 3-6,...
whose writing oft displays
a poor grasp of the things that Scripture says.
And when it's shown
his claims about them are untrue
he edits his text and changes its words***
to conceal that he made some great boo-boos
and blatantly lies
that he never inscribed
what a critic has noted he did
so he can maintain
unwarranted claims
to knowledge he doesn’t possess
and that he is not talentless.
***Note that I have changed what I originally wrote in lines 3-6,...
#WritingPoetry
#PopCulture
210 reads
10 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
17th Apr 2023 9:10pm
17th Apr 2023 9:10pm
Resurrection
I did not know that when
Lord Jesus shed
by heaven’s grace
his cerements
his purpose was to be
a mirth maker,
a clown.
Yet there’s a fellow here
insisting that it’s sound
to claim the resurrection aimed
to bring mankind
some merriment.
Should I take him
at his word?
Or has he said
what’s known by anyone
who’s Bible versed
and looked up just where “mirth”
is used within the holy text
and what it means**
and whether it is ever said
to be the...
Lord Jesus shed
by heaven’s grace
his cerements
his purpose was to be
a mirth maker,
a clown.
Yet there’s a fellow here
insisting that it’s sound
to claim the resurrection aimed
to bring mankind
some merriment.
Should I take him
at his word?
Or has he said
what’s known by anyone
who’s Bible versed
and looked up just where “mirth”
is used within the holy text
and what it means**
and whether it is ever said
to be the...
#WritingPoetry
#PopCulture
275 reads
32 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Baldwin
