Poem of the Week

December 27, 2007 #466

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a New Year’s poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week."

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Here we have another new beginning,
Another chance to be what we are not.
Praised be those who recognize the rot,
Portion out the guilt, and go on living.
Years change far more frequently than we,
Nor are our changes more than painted screens,
Each placed to maximize our meager means,
Windows on a world that none can see.
Yet, truth be told, we know well what’s within.
Each resolution fails to touch the heart,
As in the end we are, as at the start,
Remorseful reprobates, half hope, half sin.

Poem of the Week

December 20, 2007 #465

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a Christmas poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week."

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Make the most of every Christmas morning
Even when the weather’s not so clear.
Riches come and go with little warning,
Rendered only to what souls are there.
Yet some would spend their Christmas at hard labor,
Choosing to ignore the gifts of grace,
Having much, though little that they savor,
Resigned to serve the lords of time and place.
In Christmas there is work and there is pleasure,
So interfused one cannot separate
The labor from the loving, common treasure
Made from giving, much beloved weight,
A burden and a blessing both, that one
Should relish till the precious day is done.

Poem of the Week

December 13, 2007 #464

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a Season’s Greetings poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week."

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Simple pleasures rest on complex piers
Engineered to stand against the wind,
A latticework of love that lasts the years,
Steel lace on which we ply our passions blind.
On certain days, however, we recall
Necessary links to worlds below,
Seasons of remembrance that with small
Gifts of grace rekindle what we know.
Revel, then, within, and celebrate
Each tangled thread that binds you to your life,
Embracing the regrets that are your fate,
Traveling again the roads to light.
In such sweet seasons love, however wrought,
Neither what you feared nor what you sought,
Grants audience to sentiment unstained,
So pure but treasured tinctures are retained.

Poem of the Week

December 6, 2007 #463

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a Chanukah poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week."

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Careful when you light the Chanukah candles!
Have some water nearby just in case
A candle teeters at some crazy angle,
Not having been quite twisted into place.
Unexpected things can sometimes happen:
Kindling can blow in across a flame
And make of a charade a conflagration,
Holy fire furnished by The Name.

Poem of the Week

November 29, 2007 #462

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for the holiday season.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week."

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Holidays are taken best with food
As empty stomachs lead to irritation,
Particularly bad for conversation,
Prone to undermine a festive mood.
Yet holidays with food can often be
Helpful in maintaining a relation,
Offering a timely celebration,
Locus for extended family.
In holidays a temporary junction
Delays eventual disintegration
As generation follows generation,
Years of culinary dedication
Sensing well the beauty of its function.

Poem of the Week

November 22, 2007 #461

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a Thanksgiving Day poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week."

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thank you for the harvest and the healing,
Health, wealth, hunger, all the goods of Earth,
All that we inherited at birth,
Need, joy, love, pain, grief, desire, feeling.
Know that we are grateful for our being,
Singing silent praises in our hearts,
Giving in the temples of our arts
Invocations to the act of seeing.
Vain though it may be to think you’re hearing,
In us there is an ancient urge to speak,
Not for any answers that we seek,
Glad just to converse—like love, like breathing.

Poem of the Week

November 15, 2007 #460

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a number poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week."

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Fifty-nine takes pleasure in her songs,

In which she finds a mirror for her grace.

For her the morning gathers in the mourning,

Tucking it away where it belongs

Yet making sure it has sufficient space.

Nor does she give regret the pride of place,

Instead preferring tuning forks to tongs,

Needing but the sweetness of her singing,

Elegant and pure, to light her face.

November 8, 2007 #459

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a Veterans Day (USA) poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week."

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Vets are war’s debris, the wreckage after.
Even as we honor those who died,
The amputees, the traumatized, the drifters
Endure for us the wounds that saved our lives.
Remember them at tax time and when voting;
Allocate what amply meets their needs.
No obligation is more plain or pressing,
Shining like a spotlight on our dreams.

Poem of the Week

October 30, 2007 #458

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a Halloween poem. I'm sending it out earlier than usual because I will be away this Thursday.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week."

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Horror is a kind of play,
A need to undergo
Life along the borderline,
Lest death be just a name.
On Halloween we dream away
What wailing we well know,
Enchanted by the danger sign
Each savors up and down the spine,
Near haunts that are no game.

Poem of the Week

October 25, 2007 #457

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a religious poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week."

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Note: There have been two recent changes to my site. I have added a fiction section at http://www.poemsforfree.com/fictio.html, and you can now get the poem of the week as a feed rather than as an email. If you would prefer that method of delivery, just click on the feed icon at http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html.

People who are certain are a curtain
Draped between the object and the word.
One sees only formulas repeated
Tirelessly, like stones thrown at the wind.

Such faith is evidence of little faith,
For faith knows very well it cannot know.
Doubt becomes a glass through which one sees
A star or two between fast-moving clouds.

A truth will never last as long as Truth,
For truths must be devoured before they melt.
One may believe, of course, but not too tightly;
When one looks, one sees one’s God is free.

Poem of the Week

October 18, 2007 #456

Dear Subscriber: 

This week’s poem of the week is an anniversary poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site 
by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the 
Week."

Yours, 

Nick Gordon

Forty years of marriage are a pass
On which one rests to see the view both ways,
Remembering the valleys left behind,
Taking in the grandeur just ahead.
Yet there is far too much for one to see.

Years of youth must blend like distant brass
Even as love knots the migrant days
And time blows through the moment like a wind.
Regret and gratitude are here well wed,
So much alike, one could the other be.