Gary Baldwin Poet Ballad

Notes About The Poem

I leaned heavily into the voice and imagery from the the old testiment book of Song of Solomon, and specifically  from the Elizabethen nomenclature of the 1611 King James Version of the Bible. Another title for the O.T. text is "Song of Songs" which comes from the Hebrew to express the absolute superlative, or the most beautiful. So beautiful in fact that Jewish boys were not allowed to read it until they came of age. I've also included a paraphrased easter egg from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana which is a classic musical treatise based on a 13th century Bavarian monk's poems with the same sacred/profane theme. If you can spot it I'll throw you a doggy chew!

If we move into a spiritually non-religius understanding of the Song of Solomon, sexuality suddenly becomes as sacred and inclusive as it is sullied and exclusive within the four walls of the major religious constructs, to whom I gave over 25 of my most virile years.

FYI - I've posted a piece of prose explaining Aioue

Song to Aioue

 Listen to my words and desire me my sun-ripened lady
For I will be as magniloquent and indiscreet
as a biblical poet

The sculpting of your Siamese contour 
pours into my empty cup like apricot brandy
I filled the night's chalice with knots of desire
and it satisfied me deeper than mere friction

Aphrodite has kissed your firm twins
As a cluster from the vineyards of Glen-Eden
on a sun-drenched September afternoon

Secretory perfumes from your pubic stubble
And gardenia from your thick locks
so fragrant I see their scent
I take them in with every sense engorged

SELAH

When I make you moan and frown
 you stare vertically through closed eyes
Then drunkenly mutter, “I cum”

When I breach your lips, north and south in unison 
we give birth to the child of incandescence
She has your raven eyes. 
I look into them and I see the light of Aioue

Her aura is primal, fleeting, and beyond intoxication
We become one flesh in the eyes of the cosmos
I see you my love, my friend!

These words are meant for one who is brooding for loves
They who walk with heaven beneath their feet
live under the shade of authenticity
Walk with me under the cloak of shadows

  CHAIYYA

At this moment your honeyed cream remains on my palate
When I showed you how we French kiss 
yes those are the moments!

Bedeviled nectars are not devilish, but imbibed in the shade
Nay, they are turned rancid only by the manufactured light
that casts the shadow from our cloak
Therefore, no one shall judge our chamberings

When we are not together I wax
For me the duplicity is hard 
but I cannot live without pleasures!

I savor the darkness as per the design of the ancients
who learned to love and to invent pleasures
They are familial ghosts from a region in my belly
and we commune

SELAH

The inclinations I have toward paramours 
has been buried so deeply 
that I cannot locate from whence they come

In the balance between propriety and abandon
I have chosen what is in front of me
I will be reminded of my choices
when we walk again

I don’t know if I love you 
because I hate that word
Maybe someday I’ll invent a better one

My beautiful little doxy
I cannot nor would not sponge away 
the scent of your existence from my mind
nor the music of your moans from my ears 

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Ink Empress September 20, 2026 at 11:26 PM Dear Gary This was quite the read, me and my co judge we did love it , the fearlessness nature of it plus, We didnt know whether to blush or cry at certain lines but I must say its very creative! I love how youv ended too! One word to describe this would be , " honest" beautiful sensual romantic ballad! Welll delivered for the prompts! Pleasure reading this Thank you for sharing Congratulations on your win Sending you light always And its a fave for me too Gary Baldwin September 21, 2026 at 1:36 AM Thanks Ink Empress! I like to refer to it as Victorian eroticism. Some of the back story on part the imagery.... In the wine growers region on the Fingerlakes in Upstate New York there is a vineyard on the west side of Seneca Lake name Glenora. On the lake shore they have an estate called Glen Eden. When I was growing up my grandparents owned the vineyard next door. In the fall, all along the gently sloping landscape going down to the lake, one could sometimes catch the smell of ripening Niagaras and concords wafting in the tepid air. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBHz8XamRHE I love this video that connects the physical with the spiritual. I find a lot of ideals in it that make a lot of sense in less than an ideal world. This guy was the pastor of an Evangelical church when he filmed it.