Saturday, April 18, 2020
STRANGERS SIT APART, AND OTHER POEMS BY DONOVAN BALDWIN, WRITTEN MARCH 19, 2020
By Donovan Baldwin
strangers sit apart
brought together by events
meet with unknown friends
-----
dancing in her joy
poetry of her body
beauty and meaning
-----
sleeping like spoons
sharing the pressure and warmth
each breath a caress
-----
i sought her today
hunting faces and places
found her in my heart
-----
loving caresses
bodies in constant motion
how touching that is
-----
crossed the rio grande
del rio to acuña
returned quite debauched
-----
Old walls have stories,
Weathered old buildings,
Long standing trees,
Which someone planted,
Then lived, loved, hated.
Babies were born and
Time passed, the children
And the trees grew,
All got old until,
The human planted roots
In the ground like the tree
The walls crumbled,
And the house grew gray
And died, but,
The story remained.
-----
When I was a boy,
We would drive east on Cypress St.
The road would bend to the north
And become E Street.
At that bend, sat an old,
Unpainted house,
Leaning south towards the bay.
Abandoned by all,
But ghosts I imagined.
I went home and it was gone.
Just the grassy plot
Where it once stood.
-----
Poetry copyright 2020 by Donovan Baldwin
Art: Cafe in Paris by Leonid Afremov
strangers sit apart
brought together by events
meet with unknown friends
-----
dancing in her joy
poetry of her body
beauty and meaning
-----
sleeping like spoons
sharing the pressure and warmth
each breath a caress
-----
i sought her today
hunting faces and places
found her in my heart
-----
loving caresses
bodies in constant motion
how touching that is
-----
crossed the rio grande
del rio to acuña
returned quite debauched
-----
Old walls have stories,
Weathered old buildings,
Long standing trees,
Which someone planted,
Then lived, loved, hated.
Babies were born and
Time passed, the children
And the trees grew,
All got old until,
The human planted roots
In the ground like the tree
The walls crumbled,
And the house grew gray
And died, but,
The story remained.
-----
When I was a boy,
We would drive east on Cypress St.
The road would bend to the north
And become E Street.
At that bend, sat an old,
Unpainted house,
Leaning south towards the bay.
Abandoned by all,
But ghosts I imagined.
I went home and it was gone.
Just the grassy plot
Where it once stood.
-----
Poetry copyright 2020 by Donovan Baldwin
Art: Cafe in Paris by Leonid Afremov
Labels: Acuña, Cafe in Paris, dancing, Del Rio, donovan baldwin, haiku, Leonid Afremov, loving caresses, old walls, painting, poems, poetry, Rio Grande, sleeping like spoons