Kumudu

April 1, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is beautiful women.

Today’s poem is a name poem for a woman whose shy beauty is hard to notice.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Kumudu is a small white water flower:

Upon the pond's black sea, one twinkling star.

Most will never notice her perfection,

Unremarkable for her protection,

Delicate as single dewdrops are,

Untouched across the stillness of their hour.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Beautiful Women

March 27: Alberta

March 28: Raviporn

March 29: Antonisha

March 30: Caroline

March 31: Cheryl

April 1: Kumudu

Cheryl

March 31, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is beautiful women.

Today’s poem is a name poem for a woman who will continue to be charming for the sake of her lover.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Cheryl knows the value of a smile.

Her dreams are ripe and ready for the scythe.

Eventually, love will take her over,

Replacing her passionate affair with style.

Yet Cheryl will remain soft and blithe,

Less for herself than for her treasured lover.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Beautiful Women

March 27: Alberta

March 28: Raviporn

March 29: Antonisha

March 30: Caroline

March 31: Cheryl

Caroline

March 30, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is beautiful women.

Today’s poem is a name poem for a woman whose beauty is queenly.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Caroline is noble in her heart.

A thousand years ago she'd be a queen:

Royal in her social grace and art,

Outside unblemished, inside all serene.

Lovers line the streets of her domain

In waiting for a glimpse of her affection.

No one but one shall that sweet gift retain,

Even as all stare at her perfection.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Beautiful Women

March 27: Alberta

March 28: Raviporn

March 29: Antonisha

March 30: Caroline

Antonisha

March 29, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is beautiful women.

Today’s poem is a name poem for a woman whose beauty comes from within.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Antonisha is bursting with beauty,

Now in her flowering spring.

Though one may be winsome, attractive, or pretty,

One’s beauty must come from within.

None can gaze long at the sun of her smile.

Instead, one must soon look away.

Still, one can’t help but look back for a while,

Held by a heart that would angels beguile

And turn hapless night into day.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Beautiful Women

March 27: Alberta

March 28: Raviporn

March 29: Antonisha

Raviporn

March 28, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is beautiful women.

Today’s poem is a name poem for a woman who is still too shy to display her beauty.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Raviporn's a bit of paradise,

Although there isn't yet a man who knows it.

Vivacious in her heart, she rarely shows it,

In her shyness always thinking twice.

Perhaps when time unveils a man she wants,

Opening her flower to the spring,

Revealing the quick smile that makes life sing,

None will resist the charm that grips and haunts.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Beautiful Women

March 27: Alberta

March 28: Raviporn

Alberta

March 27, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is beautiful women.

Today’s poem is a name poem for a woman who takes great pleasure in her beauty.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Alberta lets her golden hair hang low,

Loving well the luster of its sheen.

Bent on being beautiful, she stays

Elusive; yet, aware of passing days,

Resolves to find a mate once she has been

To all her friends and rivals reigning queen,

A paradise where but a king might go.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Beautiful Women

March 27: Alberta

Spring3

March 26, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Spring in honor of the March equinox, or the coming of spring, which falls on March 20.

Today’s poem is about how quickly spring is gone.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Spring surprises us, no matter how

Prepared we are to revel in its bloom,

Returning far too late yet far too soon,

Instantly from bud to blossoming bough.

Nor does it wait for us to take it in,

Gone to green before it well has been.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/sprin3.html. For more calendar poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Spring

March 20: Spring

March 21: Your Hazel Green Eyes

March 22: March

March 23: Death for One Ought Not Mean Death for Two

March 24: Felicia2

March 25: Spring2

March 26: Spring3

Spring2

March 25, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Spring in honor of the March equinox, or the coming of spring, which falls on March 20.

Today’s poem is about the sudden beauty of spring.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Spring springs out singing from the womb,

Passionate and prodigal,

Returning in a blaze of bliss,

Improvident, impetuous,

Neighbor's backyard canticle,

Grace bursting grandly into bloom!

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/sprin2.html. For more calendar poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Spring

March 20: Spring

March 21: Your Hazel Green Eyes

March 22: March

March 23: Death for One Ought Not Mean Death for Two

March 24: Felicia2

March 25: Spring2

Felicia2

March 24, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Spring in honor of the March equinox, or the coming of spring, which falls on March 20.

Today’s poem is a name poem for an abused child who has to live through winter in the spring of her life.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Felicia has a winter in her spring.

Each day the frost within her meets the sun.

Loving isn't easy when a child

Is tended by a rabid dog gone wild.

Closeness means the torture has begun.

Icy though her heart, it yet will sing

As slowly tears just melted through her run.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/felic2.html. For more poems about child abuse, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/childabusepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Spring

March 20: Spring

March 21: Your Hazel Green Eyes

March 22: March

March 23: Death for One Ought Not Mean Death for Two

March 24: Felicia2

Death for One Ought Not Mean Death for Two

March 23, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Spring in honor of the March equinox, or the coming of spring, which falls on March 20.

Today’s poem compares the emergence from grief to the coming of spring.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Death for one ought not mean death for two.

We cannot die of grief unless we will.

Love requires us to love life still,

Lest love be less than life and death are due.

We cannot choose but choose for others, too,

For what we choose does what we are distill,

And open fields with inner sweetness fill,

That those who pass might hope or faith renew.

So may your love for loved ones that remain

Bring you through this season of despair

To some unquiet, sad, but gentle spring.

Emerging from your chrysalis of pain,

May you find a new world blossomed there

With new songs bittersweet that pleasure bring.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Spring

March 20: Spring

March 21: Your Hazel Green Eyes

March 22: March

March 23: Death for One Ought Not Mean Death forTwo

March

March 22, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Spring in honor of the March equinox, or the coming of spring, which falls on March 20.

Today’s poem is a poem for the month of March about the rebelliousness of youth.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

March marches to the beat of her own drum,

Angry in the way of eager youth,

Rebelling against what she will become,

Challenging the too-long-frozen truth.

How beautiful, though raucous and uncouth!

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/march2.html. For more calendar poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Spring

March 20: Spring

March 21: Your Hazel Green Eyes

March 22: March

Your Hazel Green Eyes

March 21, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Spring in honor of the March equinox, or the coming of spring, which falls on March 20.

Today’s poem is a love poem comparing a loved one’s eyes to spring woods.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Your hazel green eyes

Are like woods on a warm spring day

When leaves have just unfolded

And slender branches thick with sap

Bend under the weight of songful birds.

I look into your eyes and see

A timeless world of sun and breezes,

Of shade and dappled love,

As I gaze from my sunlit doorway.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Spring

March 20: Spring

March 21: Your Hazel Green Eyes

Spring

March 20, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Spring in honor of the March equinox, or the coming of spring, which is happening today, March 20.

Today’s poem is about the coming of spring as an infinite moment.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Spring knows well the workings of the wheel,

Past winters past and winters still to come.

Released from time, the moment spreads its wings;

Infinite, it leaves behind all things,

Neither here nor there, nor to nor from,

Grace reborn within what we call real.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Spring

March 20: Spring

The Lord Is the Lord of All Nations

March 19, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is national identity, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, which falls on March 17, and Purim, which fell on March 11 and 12.

Today’s poem is about religion and race from the point of view of someone of mixed race.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The Lord is the Lord of all nations;

I, of all nations, the child.

White and black, yellow, and brown:

All rivers flow into my sea.

I, of all nations, the child

Melded in passionate love.

All rivers flow into my sea,

Joined in the blood of America.

Melded in passionate love,

I turn to those still behind walls,

Joined in the blood of America,

And tell them that love is the Lord's.

I turn to those still behind walls,

White and black, yellow, and brown,

And tell them that love is the Lord's!

The Lord is the Lord of all nations!

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: National Identity

March 13: Going Home to a Place You’ve Never Been

March 14: Praised Be Those Who Remember to Remember

March 15: Let There Be One Race – The Human Race

March 16: So I’m the Patron Saint of Ireland

March 17: So Let It Go, That Mythic Ireland

March 18: Jorge

March 19: The Lord Is the Lord of All Nations

Jorge

March 18, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is national identity, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, which falls on March 17, and Purim, which fell on March 11 and 12.

Today’s poem is a name poem about how, for an immigrant, national identity is elusive.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Jorge is not quite George, nor is he Horhay.

Old or young, he'll always be between.

Rivers flow through boundaries to the sea,

Guided by the law of gravity,

Eroding the land as they carve their winding ways.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: National Identity

March 13: Going Home to a Place You’ve Never Been

March 14: Praised Be Those Who Remember to Remember

March 15: Let There Be One Race – The Human Race

March 16: So I’m the Patron Saint of Ireland

March 17: So Let It Go, That Mythic Ireland

March 18: Jorge

So Let It Go, That Mythic Ireland

March 17, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is national identity, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, which falls on March 17, and Purim, which fell on March 11 and 12.

Today’s poem is a Saint Patrick's Day poem about letting go the dream of a purely Irish Ireland.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

So let it go, that mythic Ireland!

Treasure the past, but let it, let it go!

Perhaps it was at one time wholly our land --

All of it -- but that was long ago.

The time when states were nations is now ending.

Races know no borders; people move

In search of life, their clothes and colors blending

Cultures that must now their presence prove.

Know, then, that not politics, but art,

'Mid neighbors various in faith and race,

Sustains a people's history and heart,

Dependent more on ritual than place.

As on St. Patrick's Day we march in green,

Yet we must let go the blood-drenched dream.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/soleti.html. For more St. Patrick’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/stpatricksdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: National Identity

March 13: Going Home to a Place You’ve Never Been

March 14: Praised Be Those Who Remember to Remember

March 15: Let There Be One Race – The Human Race

March 16: So I’m the Patron Saint of Ireland

March 17: So Let It Go, That Mythic Ireland

So I'm the Patron Saint of Ireland

March 16, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is national identity, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, which falls on March 17, and Purim, which fell on March 11 and 12.

Today’s poem is from St. Patrick to those possessed of racial hatred about the need for love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

So I’m the patron saint of Ireland!

Then let me be for it a sign of peace.

Perhaps few know that I was born in England

And always thought of England as my home.

There was no England then, of course, nor Ireland.

Regardless, here’s an irony that should

Inhabit those possessed by racial hatred:

Come to love even those who wrong you,

Knowing I was an English slave in Ireland.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/soimth.html. For more St. Patrick’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/stpatricksdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: National Identity

March 13: Going Home to a Place You’ve Never Been

March 14: Praised Be Those Who Remember to Remember

March 15: Let There Be One Race – The Human Race

March 16: So I’m the Patron Saint of Ireland

Let There Be One Race -- The Human Race

March 15, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is national identity, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, which falls on March 17, and Purim, which fell on March 11 and 12.

Today’s poem celebrates one humanity with a variety of religions and identities.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Let there be one race – the human race,

And let the whole Earth be one common space.

Let all who live together in this place

Pursue in peace their chosen path to grace.

Let every culture celebrate its past

So that its precious way of life might last,

And that its legacy across the vast

Dark future fields like hand-sown seeds be cast.

Let truth be woven like a tapestry,

And let each slender thread well rendered be

By those whose passionate hearts and minds are free

To look and then make sense of what they 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/letth6.html. For more poems about nationality and race, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/racepoems.html .

This week’s theme: National Identity

March 13: Going Home to a Place You’ve Never Been

March 14: Praised Be Those Who Remember to Remember

March 15: Let There Be One Race – The Human Race

Praised Be Those Who Remember to Remember

March 14, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is national identity, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, which falls on March 17, and Purim, which fell on March 11 and 12.

Today’s poem is a poem for the Jewish holiday of Purim about preserving identity through ritual.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Praised be those who remember to remember!

Unless they do, what we do is in vain.

Ritual reserves a time to render

In myth and play a world that else would wane,

Memories now passed along the chain.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/prais5.html. For more Purim poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/holidaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: National Identity

March 13: Going Home to a Place You’ve Never Been

March 14: Praised Be Those Who Remember to Remember

Going Home to a Place You've Never Been

March 13, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is national identity, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, which falls on March 17, and Purim, which fell on March 11 and 12.

Today’s poem is a St. Patrick’s Day poem about returning to the country your grandparents left three generations ago.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Going home to a place you’ve never been,

To long-loved landscapes that you’ve never seen,

To where your soul was sculpted by a wind

Your parents’ parents left still young behind.

How long do such ancestral memories last?

When, if ever, can the past be past?

You do not know, but only know right now

This place has gripped your heart like home somehow.

Your plane descends above green hills where once

Your people for millennia learned to dance

The dance you learned third hand, yet dancing still,

You land, weeping hard against your will.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/goingh.html. For more St. Patrick’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/stpatricksdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: National Identity

March 13: Going Home to a Place You’ve Never Been

Happy Second Anniversary3

March 12, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

Today’s poem is a 2^nd anniversary poem about the movement from passion to love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happy second anniversary!

Adjustments have been made, and time moves on.

Pleasure is routine, compulsory;

Paradise is just another dawn.

Yet there is yet a bloom upon the rose

So long as there is charity and will.

Even as the passion comes and goes,

Caring is the best seducer still.

Of time and love there is much to be learned;

No happiness can last unless it's earned,

Depending on your need, desire, and skill.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/happ36.html. For more anniversary poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries

March 6: Freedom Is the Power to Will One’s Fate

March 7: Strong Relationships Require Strength

March 8: Thirteen Is a Very Lucky Number

March 9: The Luck in Love Lies Mainly at the Start

March 10: There Is a Mountain Somewhere Near

March 11: Memories This Day Come Singing, Singing

March 12: Happy Second Anniversary

Memories This Day Come Singing, Singing

March 11, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

Today’s poem is a name and anniversary poem about memories and love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Memories this day come singing, singing,

Each a voice in an angelic choir,

Returning with new grace and glory, bringing

Canticles of love and chaste desire.

Even those of sorrow, tinged with tears,

Devoted to a poignant minor key,

Emerge redeemed and softened by the years,

Singing with the rest harmoniously.

Reveries are music two can share.

Over years of love their melodies

Become one sweet and satisfying air,

Embracing all life’s complex harmonies.

Rich, full memories that tuneful prove

This day shall join in one praise song of love.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/memor4.html. For more anniversary poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries

March 6: Freedom Is the Power to Will One’s Fate

March 7: Strong Relationships Require Strength

March 8: Thirteen Is a Very Lucky Number

March 9: The Luck in Love Lies Mainly at the Start

March 10: There Is a Mountain Somewhere Near

March 11: Memories This Day Come Singing,Singing

There Is a Mountain Somewhere Near

March 10, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

Today’s poem is an anniversary poem in which a marriage is seen from above.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

There is a mountain somewhere near

The harbor of our love

Where I can go sometimes to view

Our marriage from above.

I see the vastness of the sea

Outside our sheltered bay,

With boats like toys upon the flat

Bare corrugated gray.

I see the shadows of the clouds,

An archipelago

That neither wind nor current breaks,

Nor charts of sea depths show.

I see the green of nearby hills,

The gardens on our land,

The cultivated wildness

Of nature shaped by hand.

I see the waves sweep up against

The rocks upon our shore,

The white spume leaping, oh, so slow;

The heart awaiting more.

And all the peace of happiness

And passion sharp for life

Come slanting bright across the sky

Because you are my wife.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Anniversaries

March 6: Freedom Is the Power to Will One’s Fate

March 7: Strong Relationships Require Strength

March 8: Thirteen Is a Very Lucky Number

March 9: The Luck in Love Lies Mainly at the Start

March 10: There Is a Mountain Somewhere Near

The Luck in Love Lies Mainly at the Start

March 9, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

Today’s poem is a 13^th anniversary poem about luck in love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The luck in love lies mainly at the start,

Having to do with meeting and attraction.

Indeed, the passion that undoes the heart

Remains, at heart, a chemical reaction.

Thereafter, love is on its own, and must

Each hour, each day, each year renew its glory.

Ellipsis may be suitable for lust;

No love lasts long without a proper story.

The luck in love for us lies far behind:

Here love is knowing, wise, and far from blind.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Anniversaries

March 6: Freedom Is the Power to Will One’s Fate

March 7: Strong Relationships Require Strength

March 8: Thirteen Is a Very Lucky Number

March 9: The Luck in Love Lies Mainly at the Start

Thirteen Is a Very Lucky Number

March 8, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

Today’s poem is a 13^th anniversary poem about all the reasons thirteen is not an unlucky number.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thirteen is a very lucky number,

Having been for years misunderstood.

If thirteen males attended The Last Supper,

Remember, God used Judas for our good.

Though thirteen moons a year might seem too many,

Each extra should be thought of as a gift,

Enhancing nights that else would not have any

Naked lamp to light love’s languid drift.

Yet twelve evokes a masculine perfection,

Embodying a circuit of the sun.

A lunar year, more feminine, needs correction,

Restored by adding beauty, passion, fun.

So may you find this year a lucky one!

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/13isav.html. For more anniversary poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries

March 6: Freedom Is the Power to Will One’s Fate

March 7: Strong Relationships Require Strength

March 8: Thirteen Is a Very Lucky Number

Strong Relationships Require Strength

March 7, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

Today’s poem is a 7^th anniversary poem about love and will.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Strong relationships require strength.

Each must be the one who makes things work.

Vested in a love, one ought to love,

Embracing what one else would be enduring.

No love survives a marriage but by will.

Years of love accumulate, at length

Evolving into fate. The frantic search

Abates, one finds one’s yes, and it will prove

Resilient. One is settled in one’s mooring,

Singing, yearning, dreaming, dancing still.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Anniversaries

March 6: Freedom Is the Power to Will One’s Fate

March 7: Strong Relationships Require Strength

Freedom Is the Power to Will One's Fate

March 6, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is anniversaries.

Today’s poem is a 48^th anniversary poem about free will and love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Freedom is the power to will one’s fate.

One chooses like a leaf blown by the wind,

Reversing, flailing, billowing, settling down

There, precisely where one chose to be.

Yet choice is just the ripple of one’s turning.

Embrace with joy that choice made long ago,

In love still, though so differently than then,

Gift of who you were to who you are,

Having willed the grace that now surrounds you,

The world you can’t imagine now not being.

You choose again, again, what you have chosen,

Each year, each day, again the choice to love,

A choice that wills the wonder of what is,

Resonant with happy tears, with laughter,

So beautiful you cannot look for long.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/freed3.html. For more anniversary poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries

March 6: Freedom Is the Power to Will One’s Fate

Where Do We Go

March 5, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is death.

Today’s poem is about the mystery of the birth and death of consciousness.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Where do we go when we go to a place

That simply is no place at all?

When we step out of time to become nothing more

Than a memory few can recall?

How can we be when we no longer are?

Or, earlier, not yet have been?

A bit of eternity sits in our souls

Though we live in the house of the wind.

Consciousness comes like a stranger to call,

Both us and yet something quite more.

Where it may come from and where it may go

Is a wonder behind a locked door.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Death

February 27: One Night I Saw Aaron

February 28: I Wish That I Could Bring You to the Lord

March 1: The Only Hope Is that There Is No Hope

March 2: Life Is Beautiful, My Child

March 3: She Died Soon After Many Years of Pain

March 4: This Truth Is like a Sea That Has No Shore

March 5: Where Do We Go

This Truth Is like a Sea That Has No Shore

March 4, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is death.

Today’s poem is about the agony of mourning a loved one killed by a drunk driver.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

This truth is like a sea that has no shore,

Chaos infinite in heart and mind:

That you should once have been, and are no more.

To me you are as lovely as before:

Your voice still sings of life, your eyes still shine.

This truth is like a sea that has no shore,

An agony no reason can endure,

A knot of pain no passion can unbind:

That you should once have been, and are no more.

You died because some drunken bastard bore

Across the barrier of one thin line.

This truth is like a sea that has no shore:

That I cannot your battered face restore;

That all my love for you cannot turn time;

That you should once have been, and are no more.

We are all on a death march, numb and raw,

Driven on as loved ones fall behind.

This truth is like a sea that has no shore:

That you should once have been, and are no more.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Death

February 27: One Night I Saw Aaron

February 28: I Wish That I Could Bring You to the Lord

March 1: The Only Hope Is that There Is No Hope

March 2: Life Is Beautiful, My Child

March 3: She Died Soon After Many Years of Pain

March 4: This Truth Is like a Sea That Has No Shore

She Died Soon After Many Years of Pain

March 3, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is death.

Today’s poem is about the beauty of accompanying someone to the brink of death.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

She died soon after many years of pain,

A remnant of the person she once was.

Yet in the days of peace before her death

We shared a pleasure brief but undismayed.

How strange is time! The precious days so slow

Passed like a sunset seeming without end,

Agonizing in its aching beauty,

Distillate of joy before the darkness.

She was the single parent of three sons,

Leaving them just past the door to manhood,

Herself not old, still ripe with postponed passion,

Never now to know again its treasure.

But love was like a dancer in those days,

Filling every moment with its grace,

An evanescent feeling, yes, but present

As sunlight on a green and open field;

A love that felt just like the pith of being,

Naked and alone, but unashamed,

Knowing with the certainty of sorrow

That life is no more rich than at its 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/shedie.html. For more poems about death, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/deathpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Death

February 27: One Night I Saw Aaron

February 28: I Wish That I Could Bring You to the Lord

March 1: The Only Hope Is that There Is No Hope

March 2: Life Is Beautiful, My Child

March 3: She Died Soon After Many Years of Pain

Life Is Beautiful, My Child

March 2, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is death.

Today’s poem is to a child about how the dead live on.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Life is beautiful, my child,

Though many things go wrong,

And you may hear much sadness in

Its strange and lovely song.

Though friends and loved ones die, my child,

They're never really gone.

Nor more nor less than yesterday,

In you they will live on.

They will live on in you, my child,

As everything you see,

Though it must vanish, will remain

Alive in memory.

Alive in what you think and feel

And dream and say and do,

For all who ever were still are

Upon this earth in you.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/lifei2.html. For more poems about death, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/deathpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Death

February 27: One Night I Saw Aaron

February 28: I Wish That I Could Bring You to the Lord

March 1: The Only Hope Is that There Is No Hope

March 2: Life Is Beautiful, My Child