Politics Must Temper Greed with Dreams

 

A poem for Presidents Day:

 

Politics must temper greed with dreams,
Regarding both as reasons to seek power,
Ends that would forego non-peaceful means
So long as each in turn might claim its hour.
In such ebb and flow the Founders found
Democracy, that perfect imperfection,
Establishing for all a common ground:
None rule without winning an election.
The key to governance is compromise,
Seeking a consensus that will yield,
'Mid interest groups of every stripe and size,
Distinct majorities that power wield.
Autocrats take power by violent means,
Yet democrats take power through greed and dreams.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Renaissance Castle. By Doug Maxwell. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/polit2.html. For more poems for Presidents Day, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/presidentsdaypoems.html .

You Are the Landscape of My Life

 

A poem for Valentine’s Day:

 

You are the landscape of my life,
The only place I feel at home,
The view familiar to my heart,
The woods and fields I call my own.

 

You are the music of my life,
The melody I silent sing,
The harmony beneath my words,
The rhythm of my wandering.

 

You are the space in which I live,
The boundary of my ecstasy,
The pleasure palace of my dreams,
The flesh that fills my fantasy.

 

All this you are to me and more,
A soul so much a part of mine
That when I look within, you are
In me, my love, my valentine.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Kiss the Sky. By Aakash Gandhi. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/youa10.html. For more poems for Valentine’s Day, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html .

You're like Music Playing in My Head

 

A love poem describing the experience of new love:

 

You're like music playing in my head
Everywhere I go from day to day.
I try a door and think of you instead,
Not knowing where I am or what I'll say.
I live in a perpetual embrace,
Hugging the sweet thought that you are mine.
Walking through a park I touch your face,
Not caring if there's rain or bright sunshine.
The cause must be, of course, our love is new;
It can't go on like this for years and years.
I must take note of other things than you
And clear my head of smiles and grateful tears.
Yet such talk seems fantasy to me:
The world's the dream, and you reality.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Forever Yours. By Wayne Jones. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/youre.html. For more poems about love, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html .

There've Been, of Course, Many Holocausts

 

A poem for Holocaust Remembrance Day:

 

There've been, of course, many holocausts.
How come only one gets to be "The"?
Each equally horrific, though some are lost,
Hard to tally, or ancient history.
Only one was just pure genocide,
Lacking any other conceivable aim.
Obliteration, total and worldwide,
Could be the only goal that might explain
A factory of death, efficiently
Unloading loved ones from boxcars to be gassed,
Shoving them naked into ovens, routinely
Turning millions into heaps of ash.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Chariots of War. By Aakash Gandhi. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/ther52.html. For more poems for Holocaust Remembrance Day, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/jewishpoems.html .

Maybe Racial Hatred Is Baked In

 

A poem for Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday:

 

Maybe racial hatred is baked in,
A trait evolved through natural selection.
Remember the doctrine of original sin:
That cleansing of the soul requires salvation.
If racial territoriality,
Not at home except with one's own kind,
Looking, staring at others resentfully,
Unwinding zero-sum games in one's mind,
Takes conversion rather than conversation,
Human nature being tribal still,
Even in a multi-nation nation,
Reason rarely touching deep-down will:
Knowing this, what happens to my dream?
Individual souls can be reborn.
Need faith a whole society redeem?
Given time, can humanity reform?
Just remember: Though dreams may light the way,
Real change, in fits and starts, comes day by day.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Renaissance Castle. By Doug Maxwell. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/mayber.html. For more poems about , go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/martinlutherkingpoems.html .

Sing of Marriage and of Loves That Last

 

A 17^th anniversary poem:

 

Sing of marriage and of loves that last,

Each year again a cause for jubilation,

Voices and arms raised in celebration,

Elevating either gloss or glass!

Nor can one find one's way across the vast

Time 'twixt birth and death without relation,

Ever the locale of one's location,

Ever the love that binds one to life fast.

Nor ought one be a tree without deep roots,

Yielding to the next fierce hurricane,

Ever fearful of each gathering storm.

A self and soul work best when in cahoots,

Rationale and rational the same,

Singing with full throat a joyful song.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Allemande. By Wahneta Meixsell. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/sing24.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

Every Road Is Headed for Damascus

 

A poem for Epiphany about the burden of an epiphany:

 

Every road is headed for Damascus.
Pick any one you like, or randomly.
Intent on getting somewhere? No one asks us,
Preps us, points us towards epiphany.
How will you respond? What will you see,
Accosted by that vision? Will it task us,
Name us, seize us, scar us permanently?
Yet how, yet how unwitness what just passed us?

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Allégro. By Emmit Fenn. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/ever15.html. For more poems about Epiphany, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/epiphanypoems.html .