The Wind Brings Down Its Icy Load

November 30, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme, as the days grow shorter and colder, is the approach of winter.

Today’s poem contrasts the bitter cold without with the warmth within.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The wind brings down its icy load;

Curtains close across the sky.

Travelers shudder on the road:

There will be shelter by-and-by.

All one has seen and one has sown

Now feeds the feasts of fantasy.

Merriment goes on within;

Trees and candles dance with light.

Without, the world is grey and grim;

Within the house, all is bright.

How might one stand against the wind

But with the joy one brings to it?

The window hints of happiness;

The wanderer walks quickly past.

The week-old ice is treacherous;

The snow is falling thick and fast.

Shelter cannot be a place

For those whose spirits will not rest.

Bells ring through the chilly air;

People purchase gifts on time.

Windows, doorways, front yards bear

Of inner truth the outward sign:

Love beneath commercial cheer;

Loneliness decked out in din.

The season freezes all but love;

Winter grips the waterways.

Upon white meadows nothing moves;

Life sleeps through the nights and days.

O love! At once both flame and fuel,

Light well what meets the inner gaze!

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/thewi2.html. For more poems about the holiday season, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Winter.

November 28: And Now, with the Pensive Coming of the Winter

November 29: January

November 30: The Wind Brings Down Its Icy Load

January

November 29, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme, as the days grow shorter and colder, is the approach of winter.

Today’s poem is written for January, born into the winter cold.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

January waits, unsentimental,

Again born into beauty, cruel and kind.

Nor cold nor darkness fools the wily child,

Unweeping in a brutal wind and wild,

As the Earth turns passionless and blind.

Rejoicing in her birth, she dons the mantle,

Yearning to recall what lies behind.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/januar.html. For more poems about months or seasons, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Winter.

November 28: And Now, with the Pensive Coming of the Winter

November 29: January

And Now, with the Pensive Coming of the Winter

November 28, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme, as the days grow shorter and colder, is the approach of winter.

Today’s poem anticipates the special beauty of winter.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

And now, with the pensive coming of the winter,

It’s time to see the beauty of bare trees

And glimpse the rugged silver of the river

So long hidden by the summer leaves.

It’s time to feel the crisp, cold clarity

Of frost that rips right through the veil of air,

Revealing distant mountains one can see

Distinctly, as though suddenly quite near.

Oh, yes, one may be shuddering with the cold

And shuffling like a penguin ‘cross the ice.

Yet as the year comes closer to its close,

It’s time to treasure well the lingering light.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/andnow.html. For more poems about months or seasons, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Winter.

November 28: And Now, with the Pensive Coming ofthe Winter

When God's as Real as Santa Claus

November 27, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is gratitude, in honor of Thanksgiving, which falls on November 24.

Today’s poem is about whom to thank when you don’t believe in God.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

When God's as real as Santa Claus,

And temples are works of art;

When the Bible's living literature,

And the Universe has no heart:

One feels grateful,

But to whom?

When the ritual vestments of faith

Are seen only from outside;

And the strength to live in the void

Becomes a matter of pride:

One feels grateful,

But to whom?

When life seems bursting with beauty,

But everything's accidental;

When calling the noumenal "Thou"

Seems impossibly sentimental:

One feels grateful,

But to whom?

When death is an absolute end,

And pain lets one barely get by;

Prayer's a harmless delusion

And the solace of heaven a lie:

One still feels grateful,

But to whom?

This human urge to say thank you,

Unavoidably orphic,

Requires, just for a moment,

A Creator, anthropomorphic:

So that one can feel grateful

To Whom.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/santa.html . For more poems about gratitude, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/thanksgivingpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Gratitude.

November 21: Thank You for the Gift of Understanding

November 22: Gratitude, like Love, Is Part of Being

November 23: Thank You for All that You Have Given

November 24: Thanksgiving Is a Moment to Remember

November 25: Thanksgiving Is a Time for Giving Thanks

November 26: To Live Is to Be Prey

November 27: When God’s as Real as Santa Claus

To Live Is to Be Prey

November 26, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is gratitude, in honor of Thanksgiving, which falls on November 24.

Today’s poem is a Thanksgiving poem about eating and being eaten.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

To live is to be prey. Meals for microbes.

Horror hangs in the blood like a barracuda

As packs of ravenous viruses howl at the moon.

No flesh is but food. Fierce hunger waits at the crossings

Knowing nothing but lust for the taste of our gristle,

Singing hallelujahs to the Lord.

Give thanks, then, too, for the gift of robust hunger;

In humble gratitude, for the legacy of lust.

Vividly we live and die, our suffering

In perfect harmony with our feeding frenzy;

Nor can we be else but both murderers and murdered,

Grateful for the unsought grace of being.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/tolive.html . For more poems about gratitude, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/thanksgivingpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Gratitude.

November 21: Thank You for the Gift of Understanding

November 22: Gratitude, like Love, Is Part of Being

November 23: Thank You for All that You Have Given

November 24: Thanksgiving Is a Moment to Remember

November 25: Thanksgiving Is a Time for Giving Thanks

November 26: To Live Is to Be Prey

Thanksgiving Is a Time for Giving Thanks

November 25, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is gratitude, in honor of Thanksgiving, which falls on November 24.

Today’s poem is a Thanksgiving poem about compassion for the animals we eat.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thanksgiving is a time for giving thanks;

However, the reception's not so clear.

As we pass the drumsticks or the shanks,

No Maker holds such severed flesh less dear.

Kindness is a requisite for grace;

So must we be to all that suffer pain.

Gratitude seems slightly out of place

In places where compassion is less plain.

Very few this day will give much thought

In passing to the creatures that they eat.

Nor will we feel the empathy we ought,

Given that we are ourselves but meat.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/than24.html . For more poems about gratitude, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/thanksgivingpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Gratitude.

November 21: Thank You for the Gift of Understanding

November 22: Gratitude, like Love, Is Part of Being

November 23: Thank You for All that You Have Given

November 24: Thanksgiving Is a Moment to Remember

November 25: Thanksgiving Is a Time for GivingThanks

Thanksgiving Is a Moment to Remember

November 24, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is gratitude, in honor of Thanksgiving, which falls on November 24.

Today’s poem is a Thanksgiving poem about friendship.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thanksgiving is a moment to remember

How little we can do to move the stars.

All we are and have we must surrender,

Nor is Earth less inscrutable than Mars.

Knowing this, we know the need for friends

Sharing both our pleasures and our pain,

Giving, though it may not serve their ends,

In joy the love that will our love sustain.

Very much like water in a lake,

In sum we serve as mirrors to the sky.

No one alone can heaven's picture take.

Given friends, we know the reason why.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/thanks.html . For more poems about gratitude, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/thanksgivingpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Gratitude.

November 21: Thank You for the Gift of Understanding

November 22: Gratitude, like Love, Is Part of Being

November 23: Thank You for All that You Have Given

November 24: Thanksgiving Is a Moment toRemember

Thank You for All That You Have Given

November 23, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is gratitude, in honor of Thanksgiving, which falls on November 24.

Today’s poem is a thank you poem to God.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thank you for all that you have given:

Happiness and terror, love and death,

Agony and pleasure, pulse and breath,

Night's monstrous dreams, by lusts and longings driven,

Knowledge, hope, despair, and ecstasy.

You gave us, us, by pain and passion riven,

One brief, bright burst of need and glory. Yet,

Unsatisfied, we hunger more to be.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/than10.html . For more poems about gratitude, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/thanksgivingpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Gratitude.

November 21: Thank You for the Gift of Understanding

November 22: Gratitude, like Love, Is Part of Being

November 23: Thank You for All that You Have Given

Gratitude, like Love, Is Part of Being

November 22, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is gratitude, in honor of Thanksgiving, which falls on November 24.

Today’s poem is about gratitude to God for the gift of being.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Gratitude, like love, is part of being,

Remaining when all else is left behind,

Absurd and yet quite natural, a yearning

To give to light the worship of the wind.

In gratitude we find a gift worth giving

To something that no gift can serve at all,

Understanding that the gift of living

Depends upon some will beyond the wall,

Eliciting our gratitude and awe.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/gratit.html . For more poems about gratitude, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/thanksgivingpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Gratitude.

November 21: Thank You for the Gift of Understanding

November 22: Gratitude, like Love, Is Part of Being

Thank You for the Gift of Understanding2

November 21, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is gratitude, in honor of Thanksgiving, which falls on November 24.

Today’s poem thanks God for allowing us to understand how little we understand.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thank you for the gift of understanding

How little one can hope to understand.

A universe is all we have at hand,

Nothing too confusing or demanding.

Knowledge is like spindrift on the sea

Sitting on the surface of a wave.

Granted one can know how things behave,

Ill-formed to know how they might come to be.

Vast Your Being, beyond imagination!

Immeasurable, of neither shape nor size.

Nor ought one lose one’s sense of adoration,

Gift equal to the gifts of mind and eyes.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/than47.html . For more poems about gratitude, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/thanksgivingpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Gratitude.

November 21: Thank You for the Gift ofUnderstanding

Logan

November 20, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is beauty.

Today’s poem is a name poem about enjoying the beauty of nature.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Logan loves the laurel in the glen.

Often when it blooms he wanders there,

Grace bursting in his heart, the urge to share

Alight with all the wonderment within,

Now lost in Eden, free from pain and sin.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/logan.html . For more poems about beauty, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Beauty.

November 14: At Evening the Boats Crowd Towards Shore

November 15: Tell the World How Lovely Is the Earth

November 16: By the Tulips

November 17: Flutes Are Doubled by the Violins

November 18: I Wanted Nothing Less than Hope

November 19: Fifty-Four

November 20: Logan

Fifty-Four4

November 19, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is beauty.

Today’s poem is a number poem about an artist’s motivation.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Fifty-four returns life's many favors.

Into what she does she pours her heart.

Fortune will reward the work one savors,

The roles where love of beauty spurs one's labors,

Yearning that must underlie all art.

Feeling is a shape, a tone, a color,

Out of which in time will come a whole.

Underneath all being is the Other,

Returning to whom is the artist's goal.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/54d.html . For more poems about beauty, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Beauty.

November 14: At Evening the Boats Crowd Towards Shore

November 15: Tell the World How Lovely Is the Earth

November 16: By the Tulips

November 17: Flutes Are Doubled by the Violins

November 18: I Wanted Nothing Less than Hope

November 19: Fifty-Four

I Wanted Nothing Less than Hope

November 18, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is beauty.

Today’s poem is about why artists sometimes seem attracted to ugliness.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I wanted nothing less than hope,

But, relishing despair,

I plunged into the nearest hell

And spent some weekends there.

I saw no answers on the walls,

No rebirth in the rain,

No saving grace in suffering,

No rapture born of pain.

What held me there? It must have been

The jackal, crazed and lean,

Who took my face between his paws

And, hungry, picked it clean.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/leshop.html . For more poems about beauty, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Beauty.

November 14: At Evening the Boats Crowd Towards Shore

November 15: Tell the World How Lovely Is the Earth

November 16: By the Tulips

November 17: Flutes Are Doubled by the Violins

November 18: I Wanted Nothing Less than Hope

Flutes Are Doubled by the Violins

November 17, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is beauty.

Today’s poem is a humorous number poem to a conductor of youth orchestras.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Flutes are doubled by the violins.

Organ tones are held by brass and basses.

Racing madly, the inner strings and winds

Try with all their might to keep their places.

Yet the brass blare hides a multitude of sins.

The conductor waves his arms while making faces,

Wincing as one errant oboe wins,

Out of step as the next mad dash begins.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/flutes.html . For more humorous poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/funnypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Beauty.

November 14: At Evening the Boats Crowd Towards Shore

November 15: Tell the World How Lovely Is the Earth

November 16: By the Tulips

November 17: Flutes Are Doubled by the Violins

By the Tulips

November 16, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is beauty.

Today’s poem is about the beauty of people in a garden.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

By the tulips people stop to take

Pictures. One wonders which are more

Beautiful: the people or the tulips?

Lush, almost flourescent, like cups,

Like vases, like wet crimson towels

Hanging loose about the naked style.

Or an Annamese girl in striped mini

Just below her drawers, on her forehead

A pale red moon. Or two Indian women

In brilliant prints and gold nose pellets,

Nipples pressing through silk. Or an old

Man with his mother, identical blue chips

Glinting through corrugated skin. Families

Like flower beds, varieties of love

And anguish, phenotype and genotype,

And Babel, magnificent garden!

Or the glory of laughter, that needs

No language, the glee of children racing

Away, the silence of tulips calling

Wildly, pouring out love in perfume.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/tulips.html . For more poems about beauty, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Beauty.

November 14: At Evening the Boats Crowd Towards Shore

November 15: Tell the World How Lovely Is the Earth

November 16: By the Tulips

Tell the World How Lovely Is the Earth

November 15, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is beauty.

Today’s poem is a number poem for a park ranger, whose job is to help people enjoy the beauty of the Earth.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Tell the world how lovely is the Earth.

Hear, O World! The Earth! The Earth is lovely!

Introduce the guests to their own home.

Remind them, please, that everything's on loan,

That what they borrow they should not use roughly,

Yielding back a jewel of equal worth.

Find words to give them words that are their own.

One can be a midwife of rebirth.

Undo with patience people in a hurry,

Restoring melodies they then can hone.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/tellth.html . For more poems about the environment, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/environmentalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Beauty.

November 14: At Evening the Boats Crowd Towards Shore

November 15: Tell the World How Lovely Is theEarth

At Evening the Boats Crowd Towards Shore

November 14, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is beauty.

Today’s poem is about the beauty of sailing.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

At evening the boats crowd towards shore,

The yachtsmen eager for a night of talk

In bars and cafes, weary of the wind.

At dawn they drift back into the harbor

And sail loosely scattered into the bay.

From shore there is nothing more beautiful:

A schooner moves reluctant with the tide,

Sails taut, yet trailing the current,

Hung as if absorbed in meditation;

Or a sloop leaning into the water,

Ropes groaning, skin cracked in salt and sun--

Why does it do battle with the wind?

In winter, white with moonlight, the harbor

Holds nothing in the darkness of its arms.

The boats await the coming of the yachtsmen,

Who once again will fill the bay with grace.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/boats.html . For more poems about beauty, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Beauty.

November 14: At Evening the Boats Crowd TowardsShore

Searching for Significance

November 13, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is politics in honor of Election Day (USA), which falls on November 8.

Today’s poem is about how the desire for political change can lead to violence.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Searching for significance,

One finds a bloody trail

Leading to a sea of bones

Upon a sun-drenched shore.

In the end there's no defense

For something that must fail,

As politicians work the phones

To dredge up one vote more.

All social schemes eventually,

Besieged, must turn to those

Who make a livelihood of death

Serving unchecked zeal.

For those who would change history

Unleash a world of woes

Upon those who, with bated breath,

Wait for hearts to heal.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/search.html . For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Politics.

November 7: Elections, as You Know, Are Bought and Sold

November 8: After All, the Market Runs on Greed

November 9: Even When There’s Little Choice, We Choose

November 10: Fifty-Eight

November 11: Proverbs for Legislators

November 12: Proverbs on the State

November 13: Searching for Significance

Proverbs on the State

November 12, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is politics in honor of Election Day (USA), which falls on November 8.

Today’s poem is a set of proverbs on the nature of the State.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

1. The end of the State is security: of property and person; from conquest, injury, hunger, exposure, and injustice.

2. To obtain security, citizens cede a portion of their liberty. This "social contract" is agreed to every time a citizen recognizes the legitimacy of the State.

3. States are legitimate, therefore, to the extent to which they provide security.

4. States rule through violence, either exercised or threatened. The degree of violence varies inversely with the degree of legitimacy; that is, the more security a state provides, the less violence it needs to rule.

5. States are also, and paradoxically, instruments of oppression, enforcing laws and practices that transfer wealth to the ruling class.

6. These contradictory visions of the State--as provider of security and as oppressor--are and have always been simultaneously true. The tension between them is played out in every decision, act, and pronouncement of government.

7. A state that is too oppressive loses legitimacy so completely that no amount of violence can prevent its overthrow. A state that is too just loses the support of the ruling class, which engineers a change either in policy or in government. Thus all states exist somewhere on a continuum between these two extremes. This is true regardless of their form of government.

8. The advantage of democracy is that the regular replacement of government by majority rule mitigates oppression. The disadvantage is that weak governments may fail to make citizens sufficiently secure.

9. To survive, democracy must provide enough security to make the relative weakness of a divided and restrained government worth the increase in liberty and justice. Otherwise, citizens will be willing to cede additional liberty in return for additional security, and democracy will fail.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/statpr.html . For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Politics.

November 7: Elections, as You Know, Are Bought and Sold

November 8: After All, the Market Runs on Greed

November 9: Even When There’s Little Choice, We Choose

November 10: Fifty-Eight

November 11: Proverbs for Legislators

November 12: Proverbs on the State

Proverbs for Legislators

November 11, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is politics in honor of Election Day (USA), which falls on November 8.

Today’s poem is a set of proverbs for legislators.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

1. Law is a necessary evil.

2. Pass as few laws as possible, consistent with the demands of justice and the maintenance of order.

3. Where custom is sufficient, there is no need for law.

4. Do not pass laws that cannot, or will not, be enforced, for such breed contempt for both the law and the State.

5. Penalties must be minimally sufficient to deter infractions, given adequate enforcement. Less renders the law ineffective; more inflicts unnecessary pain.

6. There is an inverse proportion between the severity necessary to deter infractions and the certainty of punishment.

7. Enshrine your principles in constitutions, codify your common sense in laws, and leave the rest to regulation.

8. Even more than on your wisdom, the legitimacy of the State depends on your integrity.

9. In public life, integrity requires not only an honest heart but an honest face.

10. Your primary object must always be not the satisfaction of your constituents but the continued legitimacy of the State, for upon that depends the welfare, even the survival, of us all.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/legipr.html . For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Politics.

November 7: Elections, as You Know, Are Bought and Sold

November 8: After All, the Market Runs on Greed

November 9: Even When There’s Little Choice, We Choose

November 10: Fifty-Eight

November 11: Proverbs for Legislators

Fifty-Eight2

November 10, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is politics in honor of Election Day (USA), which falls on November 8.

Today’s poem is a number poem about someone for whom the joy of life is motivation for political action.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Fifty-eight comes often to the table,

Intent on the conundrums of the day.

For her the chance that there she might be able

To shape the world for good in some small way

Yields pleasure that no hunger can allay.

Even as she yearns for peace and justice,

In her the simple moment brings delight,

Gift of being, palpable and lustrous,

However strewn upon the field of night,

The reason and the rage for doing right.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/58b.html . For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Politics.

November 7: Elections, as You Know, Are Bought and Sold

November 8: After All, the Market Runs on Greed

November 9: Even When There’s Little Choice, We Choose

November 10: Fifty-Eight

Even When There's Little Choice, We Choose

November 9, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is politics in honor of Election Day (USA), which falls on November 8.

Today’s poem is an Election Day poem about the preciousness of the right to vote.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Even when there's little choice, we choose,

Lest we lose the habit of our duty.

Ever tempted to the rite refuse,

Come the day, we recognize its beauty.

There is no greater dignity than this:

In each an equal sense of sovereignty,

Ownership not easy to dismiss,

Nothing less than what makes people free.

Do, then, exercise this sovereign right

As though it could be lost, as well it might,

Yielding in small steps that few can see.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/evenwh.html . For more Election Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/electiondaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Politics.

November 7: Elections, as You Know, Are Bought and Sold

November 8: After All, the Market Runs on Greed

November 9: Even When There’s Little Choice, WeChoose

After All, the Market Runs on Greed

November 8, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is politics in honor of Election Day (USA), which falls on November 8.

Today’s poem is about the shortcomings of a number of political choices.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

After all, the market runs on greed,

The sunlight of this social ecosphere,

Self-adjusting as supply and need

Set prices to the tune of hope and fear.

The state can intervene, of course, but then

The Capitol might well outgreed the Street,

Playing games with games beyond its ken,

Positioned where the votes and money meet.

What to do? We've tried Utopia,

A nightmare far, far worse than any dream,

Strangling the source of cornucopia,

Sacrificing millions to a scheme.

We are born into a world of sin,

Which if we just accept, we die within.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/after3.html . For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Politics.

November 7: Elections, as You Know, Are Bought and Sold

November 8: After All, the Market Runs on Greed

Elections, as You Know, Are Bought and Sold

November 7, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is politics in honor of Election Day (USA), which falls on November 8.

Today’s poem is a poem for Election Day about campaign contributions.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Elections, as you know, are bought and sold

Like favors from a well-proportioned whore.

Each scandal is a tale often told,

Creating a brief sigh, and nothing more.

The problem is systemic, deeply rooted

In our view of speech that should be free.

Our courts say even money can’t be muted,

No more than words in our democracy.

Dare we try to limit the expense,

And muzzle those whose PACs are a pretense,

Yielding time to all sides equally?

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/elect3.html . For more poems about Election Day, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/electiondaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Politics.

November 7: Elections, as You Know, Are Boughtand Sold

You Never Thought that It Would End This Way

November 6, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is death, in honor of the transition from Halloween to All Saints’ Day and then to All Souls’ Day, which is the Mexican Day of the Dead.

Today’s poem is about death as a fitting end for love.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

You never thought that it would end this way,

Yet such an end does not at all seem strange.

If love is true, then death must make the change,

Ending love by taking life away.

Yet though our love is over, mine will stay,

A triumph over death I will arrange,

Rechanneling a fate I cannot change,

That we might still on fields of fancy play.

You never thought we'd share such months of pain,

That you would die in agony, while I

Would be as much a nurse for you as friend.

Yet I would live the whole thing through again

Just once more to look you in the eye

And tell you, yes, this is how it should end.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/younev.html . For more poems about death, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/deathpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Death.

October 31: In Memory of Those Who Died

November 1: Here’s a Little Ditty

November 2: I Am the Mirror of Our Love

November 3: I Didn’t Get a Chance to Say Goodbye

November 4: Every Time I See My Pansies

November 5: There Is a Residue of Hope

November 6: You Never Thought that It Would EndThis Way

There Is a Residue of Hope

November 5, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is death, in honor of the transition from Halloween to All Saints’ Day and then to All Souls’ Day, which is the Mexican Day of the Dead.

Today’s poem is to a deceased father about the end of grief.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

There is a residue of hope

In every act of grief,

A beauty at the source of pain,

A truth that brings relief.

Mourning is a morning song

Sung just before the light,

Though little else is visible

To those that watch the night.

And all our tears must turn to grass,

And all our sorrows be

But dissonance that we'll resolve

In some new harmony.

And all our pain must shine upon

The meadows of our grace

That you might share our happiness

And lend our light your face.

Ah, Father! Yes, the music plays

As we dance in the sun,

For dawn returns the joy of life,

And we must all dance on.

Ah, Father! Yes, we must dance on

And leave you far behind,

Though love undo the dying day

And comb the rising wind.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/residu.html . For more poems about death, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/deathpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Death.

October 31: In Memory of Those Who Died

November 1: Here’s a Little Ditty

November 2: I Am the Mirror of Our Love

November 3: I Didn’t Get a Chance to Say Goodbye

November 4: Every Time I See My Pansies

November 5: There Is a Residue of Hope

Every Time I See My Pansies

November 4, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is death, in honor of the transition from Halloween to All Saints’ Day and then to All Souls’ Day, which is the Mexican Day of the Dead.

Today’s poem is about a daughter who remembers her dead mother when she goes into in her garden.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Every time I see my pansies

Vivid in the golden sun,

You are with me in my garden,

And I am once again a child.

Vivid in the golden sun,

Their beauty brings me close to tears,

And I am once again a child

Learning to assume your grace.

Their beauty brings me close to tears

As I join hands with you in love,

Learning to assume your grace,

Dancing to your inner music.

As I join hands with you in love,

You are with me in my garden,

Dancing to your inner music

Every time I see my pansies.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/everyt.html . For more poems about death, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/deathpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Death.

October 31: In Memory of Those Who Died

November 1: Here’s a Little Ditty

November 2: I Am the Mirror of Our Love

November 3: I Didn’t Get a Chance to Say Goodbye

November 4: Every Time I See My Pansies

I Didn't Get a Chance to Say Goodbye

November 3, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is death, in honor of the transition from Halloween to All Saints’ Day and then to All Souls’ Day, which is the Mexican Day of the Dead.

Today’s poem is from a caregiver to the one he or she cared for.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I didn't get a chance to say goodbye

To you, to tell you that I loved you, to say

What now must be one long, unbroken cry

Of pain, now that at last you've gone away.

I cannot tell you what a joy it was

To be the one to tend you in your need.

The burden was a gift, for giving does

Not burden one who loves, though loving bleed.

I wish I could have been with you when you,

Perhaps aware, perhaps not, turned towards death

Alone, with no one there to wonder to,

To share your fear, your hand, your one last breath.

I wish, I wish, I wish . . . but it is done,

And now I must surrender what is gone.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/ididn3.html . For more poems about death, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/deathpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Death.

October 31: In Memory of Those Who Died

November 1: Here’s a Little Ditty

November 2: I Am the Mirror of Our Love

November 3: I Didn’t Get a Chance to Say Goodbye

I Am the Mirror of Our Love

November 2, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is death, in honor of the transition from Halloween to All Saints’ Day and then to All Souls’ Day, which is the Mexican Day of the Dead.

Today’s poem is about the impending death of a pet.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I am the mirror of our love,

And you its brazen fire.

To me our love is merely joy;

To you it is your breath.

I am the marker that must move;

You, the fixed desire.

You are what I most enjoy;

I am life or death.

And now you must be put to sleep,

And I remain awake

With years of love ahead of me,

And many pets to go.

But I'm the one who can't help weep

While you, just for my sake,

Come rest your chin upon my knee

And beg to share my woe.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/iamth2.html . For more poems about death, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/deathpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Death.

October 31: In Memory of Those Who Died

November 1: Here’s a Little Ditty

November 2: I Am the Mirror of Our Love