"baldwin" poems
By
rgpage
The cool evening breeze filled with a scent of approaching rain.
Caught by playful window shears
as it passes through an open pane, to reach their
length and breadth toward the waiting bed.
He was a lover of music and his woman,
a passionate man with a sensitive heart.
She was in love with the melodic way
his gentle fingers moved with sensual touch
over her soft silk like skin of art.
He started gently around her ears softly prying
them open with the quiet richness of her melodies.
Each note of his gentle kisses leading her to a sensual abyss,
easing her down from the edge, controlling her descent, to her goal.
Down the swirling dark and light blends of the music rendered from her soul.
She was his instrument on which he placed
his soft loving fingers, moving them effortlessly,
caressing her most sensual delicate keys…Each body part
smoothly rubbed added richness to her sensual sound driven by lust
and loving trust.
Her ******* he fondled, licking and kissing, squeezing and rubbing.
Silently giving thanks, to her creator for such an amazing instrument.
Both of her hands with long slender fingers tangled in the long dark locks
of his hair as she eases her maestro’s head up tighter against her soft
beautiful mounds.
The loving melody continues with his touch now joined with the sound
of raindrops splashing into uncovered metal buckets and cans. The drops
carried on the breeze through the playful dancing shears came through the other end as nothing more than refreshing cooling mist.
Her body was his loving piano, and as with the 88 keys of his magnificent
Baldwin, the sensual areas of her equally magnificent body, when properly stroked, filled not only the bedroom but the whole house with the most glorious ****** notes known to man.
After a while the symphonic ****** builds as he masterfully impales her with his instrument of love coming into constant contact with the one special key of keys. Its special sound as his strokes came harder and faster brought the whole master piece to a beautiful melodic end as the two lovers bath in the rain’s gentle mist…
Aug 6, 2013
Aug 6, 2013 at 12:40 PM UTC
Ya know, I really don't believe a word you've said.
I keep running over the lies and secrets floating in my head.
You say you wanted everyone happy and not for me to hurt.
Then why didn't you back the **** off, instead of continuing to flirt?
You two spent so much time alone, and you knew what it would do.
You knew you'd cheat on your fiance. And you knew I'd want to hurt you.
Ross Baldwin, what the **** Are you really just that dumb?
Yes, I'll use your real name. Because I straight up don't give a ****
I hope everyone you know finds this, and I hope that they see
Just how badly you ****** up. I'm tired of letting you be.
This is my passive attack. ***** me again and I'll make sure they find this.
You're my best friend and I'm not taking this **** I'm tired and I'm ******
If you leave your fiance for her, you better run and hide.
Because I'll pay everything back. You'll burn for every time you two lied.
May 13, 2013
May 13, 2013 at 1:15 AM UTC
We celebrate Juneteenth as if the war was not still being fought
Across news stations and echoes of Jefferson's dreams
The last slaves freed, but this country was never
Reconstructed, just patched up just replaced
Chains with debt, a Theseus ship of spoils pulled
From the wreckage of **** And I sit the echoes
of police sirens slung like clubs across the backs of the
Boys that sat in my classroom and wondered
Why every white person they met always had
To yell so much. As if there was nothing at all
to be exchanged besides recreating Hegel’s dialectic.
As if the only way to win was in blood. And perhaps
That is what Juneteenth really teaches us, that blood
Shed long enough will lead to ghosts, whispered
Warnings we ignore. As if a million bodies buried across
The South was not enough of a reminder that we needed
To **** to have the enslaved seen as people. We celebrate the
Day we no longer had to bury bayonets in bodies
To treat humans as humans. And they still can't see it.
Don’t realize that if you take away the last plate of food,
That if you turn off the power, that if the dollar can't fill the tank
What comes from desperation is a blood-born tsunami
full of the ghosts of dead racists and stolen children,
full of collateral damage and crackheads hooked on crystal
Sold to them by the CIA.
This country cannot swallow the blood needed to clear its cup.
But at least we gonna barbeque and vote, and Dream, and read.
At least we gonna explain to the children that this was the day
The last slaves were freed when there are still hungry mouths to feed.
At least we gonna sit with Baldwin, or Miles, or Kendrick, and unhinge
Our throats like snakes swallowing what the storms sing from suffering.
At least we can carry that truth. If only for a day. If only to free the last
Mind slaves still believing that the war is over, the dead silent,
The constitution holy, the senate fair, the president controls gas prices,
The bullet not already loaded, the school doors not already locked,
The rich earned it, the news aint propaganda, the children martyrs
The blood in our bodies not singing requiems to the pain of our ancestors,
At least we gonna pretend that this country actually free.
Jun 17, 2022
Jun 17, 2022 at 5:48 AM UTC
Sun feigns heat
in a clear slate of blue above;
I gaze upon pale, brown hills and fields
through the smoke of my breath
wishing it would at least snow.
There was talk of cow-tipping
when I was in fifth grade,
but cows would've broken their necks.
Ground covered in frozen grass
is no comfort for fallen cows at 15 Fahrenheit.
Our small lake
transformed into a debating ground for skaters and hockey players,
each vying for control over the weekend's
primary source of entertainment.
(The dreadful alternative: afternoons shopping with parents.)
When it finally snowed, a wonderland was made,
a knee-high, get-out-of-school-free card.
We charted expeditions in corn fields, wooded creeks
and stone-colored barns that were beguiling in the white
of Chadds Ford pastures like untended English castles.
Woods like a Pollack of burnt sienna and white,
their only sound is weight of snow bearing down on limb.
Beyond those whispers, just a roaring silence
when I'm still as ice fingers
trying to touch the ground from the roof.
The cats of Baldwin's Book Barn nap easily within,
as we dig for a pearl amongst makeshift shelves
full of hard-bound reads for snow-bound youth.
These felines, grown, need not the words,
but the pages themselves for fine beds.
A blue-white glow from outside casts a cold light,
illuminating prints of Helga and Christina's World,
a reminder to all who live down the road.
On such a winter day, I didn't care to remember
that soon there would be Spring kittens in the books,
and a lake full of children's swimsuits.
Nov 6, 2013
Nov 6, 2013 at 8:16 PM UTC
Her voice poors out of her mouth
She is able to stand on that stage and share her talent
She is talented
That voice is thick and strong and loud enough to reach hundreds of ears
That voice is smooth and gentle and soft enough to please hundreds of hearts
What good is a second-rate piano player compared to a voice like that?
Her skirt will always be longer, more flirty
Her teeth with always be straighter, tucked further away with the pensive look she has
It is my love for Victor Hugo against her love for Victor Hugo
My love for Broadway versus her love for Broadway
But all I have is 10 stubby fingers to tickle the worn Baldwin in my living room
She has that voice in a room full of red velvet seats
It is my interest in Kristin Chenoweth against her interest in Kristin Chenoweth
We both like to read
We both like the theatre
We both like you
But what can compare to a voice like that?
Apr 16, 2013
Apr 16, 2013 at 10:03 PM UTC
A poem.
Can be on many theme?
And many topics too.
And can express many into a debate.
Even causing problems upon a date.
A poem.
That creative expressionism of your mind.
Where you just spilling out things deep inside?
Wait!
The uncreated loves to put them down.
Oh, they offer many reasons.
But many times.
It just because they can't create.
A poem.
That has been around for centuries.
And truly apart of Americans history.
Emily Dickinson, James Baldwin and O'henry.
Has left behind plenty.
They make you think.
They make you cry.
And keep you connect to your mind.
Whether it's about romance.
Yes, that includes love.
We need poems around.
To release the frustration inside.
Jun 20, 2012
Jun 20, 2012 at 10:35 AM UTC
One way flights into the sky & let fate control the destination of my destiny.
Sail the supple curves of the oceans waves and may the rocking motion rock me into an everlasting fantasy.
Read about Baldwin's palpable endeavors, cover to cover and marvel at Sylvia Plath's anthologies that run shivers up and down my basketball-court of a spine.
Let Shakespeare educate me on love, heartbreak, tragedy and the reality of all stoicism and cynicism bestowed upon my naiveness.
Truth is, I don't know where I'm going, but whether it be the sky, the sea or within ink-stained papers, let them guide me to a place of genuine sincerity.
Dec 26, 2013
Dec 26, 2013 at 12:11 AM UTC
Jay-Z sounds like he's underwater. And the showerhoses tilt shut and the bathroom door opens to reveal - well, what I thought was a sealing wound thankfully turned out to be headphone covers and my brother's obscured big toe. Trembling.
He walks as if he was the rapper himself - chest hunched, back lurching forward like that of a street cat who doesn't know he's made it. Shaky feet, wet hair, darkened eyes that hadn't been shut for days.
''For my father was black, and beautiful, and beautiful, therefore, black. There was a blackness to him that was beautiful. A blackness entirely clear and his own.'' -James Baldwin, Notes on a Native Son (paraphrased).
His legs if you roll up the pajama bottoms are filled with quilt patched mosquito bites and blacks and blues. Self-inflicted. Eyebag patches punched back into his face resurfacing in the hidden contours of his thigh. Trembling. Allow me to reintroduce myself. Trembling.
He is and he isn't. No native son of ours black but yellow covered, yellow but eyes tinged with red, and awash in shadows black and blue - he is beautiful - puffy eyed, brickfaced boombox carrying screamer of profanity and tongue tied silence all and still - he is black, and he is beautiful.
An underwater mixtape taking shape to be a broken record anthem.
Apr 14, 2015
Apr 14, 2015 at 12:36 PM UTC
I sit here trying to decide what Writer influenced me,
I had my Existentialist Period very young Jean Paul Sartre, seemed dark and Complex, but... Albert Camus Captured it for me, the Emergence of Allen Ginsberg, bridge the Atlantic...the Pop of music influenced it all, from the Doors to Dylan
But Deep Down in the Dark of My soul is Jack Kerouac"who I am sure must have been influenced by JD Salinger" From Keorouac, to Ken Keasy and Hunter Thompson seem to be a good place to end
Others such as e.e. cummings, James Baldwin, Carl Sandburg, Herman Hesse, J,R.R. Tolkien, Lewis Carol, Issac Asimov. Robert Heinlein, and Stan Lee all had their places to... I feel Honored to be influenced By Such Amazing Talent.....
May 21, 2015
May 21, 2015 at 2:33 AM UTC
You walked with Janice
to Baldwin’s the Herbalist
at the corner of Elephant
and Walworth Road
she wore her blue patterned dress
and red beret
and white socks
and red sandals
and in her small purse
she had money
her gran gave her
to buy sarsaparilla
in a half pint glass
and you
in your cowboy shirt
and jeans and plimsolls
with your holster
and six shooter
in the belt
around your waist
and clutching money
your mother’d given you
for doing a few chores
Gran would never let me
go on my own
Janice said
but when I said
you were going
Gran said all right
but no sweets
they rot your teeth
I like the liquorice sticks
you can buy there
you said
they make your teeth white
or so my mum said
Janice looked at your gun
in the holster
and said
you can protect me
from outlaws with your gun
sure
you replied
she smelt of lavender
and toothpaste from tins
and she moved nearer to you
and her arm touched yours
as you walked along
here we are
she said
and opened the door of Baldwin’s
and you both went in
and went to the counter
and asked the man
for two half pints
of sarsaparilla
and when he poured them
and you each paid him
you stood by the window
with your glasses
and sipped
and looked
at the passing traffic
and people
you feeling like Wyatt Earp
in the saloon
and Janice looking out
as if she feared
outlaws would be coming
pretty soon.
Jul 29, 2012
Jul 29, 2012 at 3:02 PM UTC
I like sending you notes
in my fast
misspelled scrawl
yet you always so elegant
with perfect grammar
oh such denotation
who knew? punctuation could make me swoon
-Katherine Baldwin-
Feb 6, 2013
Feb 6, 2013 at 10:41 PM UTC
Helen climbed
the concrete stairs
to Benny's flat
where his mother answered
and Helen said
is Benny home?
no he's out Helen
his mother said
out where?
Helen said
he went out
with his six-shooter
and cowboy hat
so he's maybe
on a bomb site
try the one
up Meadow Row
he's often there
his mother said
Helen nodded
and said thank you
and walked down the stairs
and across the Square
and down the slope
across Rockingham Street
and up along Meadow Row
she'd not brought
her doll Battered Betty
as her brother
had torn off an arm in play
and it needed mending
when she came
to the greengrocer shop
on Arch Street
she walked along
to view the bomb site
and putting a hand
over her eyebrows
to block out the morning sun
she gazed at the huge bomb site
anxiously(she didn't like
bomb sites alone)
she saw him over
by the railway bridge
firing his six-shooter
at an imaginary enemy
she called out to him
and walked across
the rough ground
of the bomb site
towards him
he stopped firing
and put his six-shooter
away in an holster
with a twirl of fingers
been looking for you
she said
your mum said
you might be here
Benny pushed back
his cowboy hat
to the back of his head
his quiff of hair
standing up
had a gunfight planned here
so had to leave early
he said
gunfight
she said
with who?
she looked around
at invisible enemies
Frank and Jessie James
he said
and their gang of course
she looked in the direction
he pointed and nodded
need any help from me?
she said
looking at Benny
through her thick lens spectacles
no I shot them both
and the gang fled
he said
did you get shot?
she asked
only in the arm
he said
pointing at his left arm
she looked at his 7 year old arm
but didn't see
a wound or blood
but pretended
looks bad
she said
maybe I should put
an handkerchief around it
ok if you like
he said
she fiddled in her skirt pocket
and brought out
a small girl's handkerchief
and tied it around his arm
and tied a knot
is that better?
she said
yes it is
he said
didn't want to bleed to death
no
she said
and they walked off
across the bomb site
let's go to Baldwin's
the herbalist shop
and get some sarsaparilla
to make more blood
he said
and she looked at his arm
and saw imaginary blood all red.
Jun 29, 2016
Jun 29, 2016 at 1:57 AM UTC
***~for my poet friends who will understand exactly
the nature of our ailment/adventure~***
it begins when once poem titled,
which, a first clue, nothing more, a mumbled prophesy,
an arrow to duration & direction home but unknown,
a one-way stop sign neatly lettered in the
smallest sized letters with the disclaimer above
you sojourn to an uncultivated land, not sown.
you travel to places “finding out what you
don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out,”
no guide, no well trodden path, no cultural prescribed woke diktats,
you are,
taken unwilling more than you lead, where endings
surprising, unforeseen, return tickets never offered for sale
pick words, more likely,
they pick you,
the only constant your rapid metabolism,
a winter snow blow, swirling churning, even midst
the most languid, sultry southern summer day
mind the mind.
mind the ground frozen until a tiny tickle trickle verse
becomes a full-on ground melt, wet and soggy,
******* you into a
rice-rock-hard pellet-poem thriving,
you observe your own drowning in a
6 inch deep wet paddy
the bottom line,
the net net, summary judgment
you commenced with urgent hesitancy for the
risks are great now, pen dagger chest pointed,
you, ****** in crosshairs, your own graven idol image
having found out what you
don’t want to know,
having found out what you
don’t want to find out
find myself weeping,
fists holding my head,
communing with floorboards oak hardened,
groaning acknowledging,
this, this, THIS***
*this discovering, uncovering,
this is
why I write,
this is
why I dare not write anymore!*
12/13/2019
~~~~~
postscript Friday the 13th, 3/26
~~~~~~~
or why I cannot stop…
Dec 14, 2019
Dec 14, 2019 at 10:42 AM UTC
Reacting to the new dangerous trend of taking the ****** off in an until then consensual ****** act.
Dear America,
I strolled down your famous Sunset Avenue
Tasted the marine-inspired SF clam chowder
I had dreams about a Hollywood Undead venue
I had in mind Madonna, Monroe and their powder…
Dear America,
You gave me Ginsberg, Baldwin and Brooks
You gave me Hawthorne, Poe and Hemingway
You gave me strength and glory along the way
You gave me all my poems found in these books.
Dear America,
Today I want to tell you about stealthing
No I’m not talking about your crusade and sword
I want to tell you about a new trend and word
Consisting of taking your ****** off in the act
Dear America.
Irving told me he saw a desperate mother– it made me cringe
At the hospital, watch her son slowly pass and leave her
In his arm they gave him an against whatever AIDS shot syringe
This mother planted the needle in her arm.
Dear America,
The gay community was stigmatized because of barebacking
Horses of desire that they decided to tame
And you tell me your youths are, as we are speaking
Making love risking their lives, and no one is to blame?
Trumpets of shame I hear, crumbling the walls of reason
This brand new world to our bodies is nothing but treason
What is that? Is stealthing **** America? I don’t know, say,
What was your reaction when they took your freedom away?
Dear America,
To the insolence of the 1970s youth, the recklessness
This generation responds with an air of stupidity
Go waste yourselves on the altars of dumbness
We won’t move a finger, to again witness this madness?
April 28, 2017
Lyon, France
Apr 28, 2017
Apr 28, 2017 at 5:17 AM UTC
I won't be that girl,
the one who follows "the one"
because he's "the one".
or so she naively thinks.
I won't follow you,
never. and certainly not
to another state-
all the way to Oberlin.
I won't change my mind,
change my life plans and life goals
just to be with you-
for I can survive alone.
I won't even look
for colleges where you do.
I'll stay in the east
and I'll be content with that.
I won't try to go.
So why am I applying
I will let you go.
to Baldwin-Wallace?
Nov 4, 2010
Nov 4, 2010 at 9:58 AM UTC
Gypsy smiles with aching minds put forty ounce bottles to pursed lips, and we're still not drunk enough to have excuses in the morning.
Our lives have become the lyrics to a Tom Waits anthem.
Dusty Carhartts and broken knuckles beg the question: "What kind of collective living exists when nobodies home?"
My mind is racing like the CSX flyby out of Baldwin, and I'm tempted to jump in front of that ************ tonight cause I'm too scared to change the world.
She walks up and hugs me and I pray that it's more than the beer hugging me.
"Another World is Possible" is painted behind us in strokes of motivation the others just don't have.
There was no dust kicking up behind me as I walked away. There wasn't even a break in the conversation.
Aug 22, 2016
Aug 22, 2016 at 10:47 PM UTC
*I cast a backward look—how the times changed
To the beautiful face in the stroller
She Smile, I smiled, the guardian frown
A child is not born to hate
Hate is taught:
Hate is the new formula in their supplements
home is where it multiply so easily:
Let not occupy kinship bias
Defused the bigots:
Save our innocent children:
No child is born to hate;
~~~~
*World's Wit and Wisdom
Children have never been good at
listening to their elders, but they
have never failed to imitate them.
James Baldwin, 1924 - 1987*
Oct 14, 2018
Oct 14, 2018 at 10:50 AM UTC
I still think about you every day
But it doesn't make me stomach twist
and my heart pound
I'm still happy when you text
but it doesn't stop the world anymore
it just makes a small sound
Is this how it fades?
-Katherine Baldwin-
Jun 21, 2013
Jun 21, 2013 at 2:07 AM UTC
sigh my name
in 1000 different tongues
of men and angels
come to me lift me
words flow
I'm swept away
-Katherine Baldwin-
Dec 5, 2013
Dec 5, 2013 at 1:54 AM UTC
you make me shy
and nervous
I edit myself so much
I try to give you the best me
but you make me feel so raw
you seem so wise
maybe just quiet
I spew all my thoughts
please tell me how you move with such grace
every action has such forethought
I want to take you apart to see how it all works
to see you come undone
trip up and stumble on your own words
so bring all that resolve and poise
it will make it so much sweeter
when you are falling at my knees
-Katherine Baldwin-
Feb 5, 2013
Feb 5, 2013 at 1:12 AM UTC
"This innocent country set you down in a ghetto in which, in fact, it intended that you should perish… You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity." - Baldwin
Nov 26, 2014
Nov 26, 2014 at 10:51 PM UTC
*pronouns as non-identifiers of nouns equate to excess psychiatric diagnoses.
yet using this direct symptomatic identification of matters is unsatisfying
due to the fact that one would rather expand one's vocabulary in other interesting
areas other than: bilingual bipolar, unipolar depression etc.,
usually starting with family genus in latin, of carnivores.*
it was the most amazing dream, i was walking through dreamy venice
to a beach enclave with many boats,
bella, my alsatian shepherd was walking with me,
but i didn't have her free roaming without a leash
or on a leash: my right hand was behind my back
and her snout was cupped in my hand, and she was sniffing something
and walking obediently;
i was trying to get onto a seaplane.
someone else with a dog was there, i let bella have a wee dip in
swimming with elephants and horses, head bopping above the
sea, three men and a sycophant woman were there too
looking mighty interested in something that would otherwise
dictate a chance-opportunity of autography - then the lament
started. 'i'm stranded on the shoreline! i can't get to the seaplane
without a boat! i don't have a boat!'
then... out of nowhere... alec ******* baldwin appears...
out of the blue... twinkle in his eye and a diamond solution
in his pocket - says to me he has a boat, flicks out a keyring with
a beeper to start up the engine for a boat - i thank him
for "out of the blue" solution and he says: 'what are friends for, eh?'
the story goes that baby me used to put his hand into
the alsatian's gob to try and pull the dog's tongue out
and speak with it; well, the hand that did that is still harsh on typos.
Sep 19, 2015
Sep 19, 2015 at 7:22 AM UTC
In a dream
you took all the poems
I wrote for you
and turned them into sound
how you played out my heart
so lovely it was
trembling on the air
you spilled my emotions all over those cords
talented hands
creating and undoing
from their tips sang
my weak words into everlasting song
-Katherine Baldwin-
May 1, 2013
May 1, 2013 at 1:38 AM UTC