What Can I Do to Keep You from Despair

August 1, 2013 #748

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem about mental illness.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

What can I do to keep you from despair?
You turn from me with darkness in your heart.
It doesn't seem to matter that I'm there,

Or how much more or less I show I care
Once the suicidal drumbeats start.
What can I do to keep you from despair?

Life itself seems what you cannot bear
For reasons that no reasoning can chart.
It doesn't seem to matter that I'm there,

Or that I try to make each day seem fair
With all my passionate will and bumbling art.
What can I do to keep you from despair?

I try my best to love you well, and share
With you your pain, and take your part.
It doesn't seem to matter that I'm there.

There is a stranger who takes over where
There was a friend – loving, playful, smart.
What can I do to keep you from despair?
It doesn't seem to matter that I'm there.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/3bPqXnNsXHw .

Death Is a Deliverer

July 25, 2013 #747

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem about death.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

From fierce and pointless pain,
From drugged-out days and nauseous nights
One would not see again;

From life whose only passion is
To free itself from life,
Eternally anesthetized,
Numb to need or knife;

From desperate dependence
And gross indignity,
Lying in the cesspool
Of one's own shit and pee;

From being a non-person
Whose person is abused,
Dethroned from even one's own brain,
Perpetually confused.

Yet though one would no longer be,
The instinct is not gone:
The heart and mind are all for death;
The body lingers on.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/ANJh18RKkQs .

I Love My Little Teddy Bear

July 18, 2013 #746

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for children.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I love my little teddy bear.
I want to take him everywhere.
His arms are always open and
He has to sit, he cannot stand.

He's always smiling when we play
And says whatever I would say.
I take him by an arm or ear
Or leg, whichever one is near,
And carry him around with me,
And sit him down upon my knee,
Or hug him when I go to bed
And put my head beside his head.

He has a little rip inside
His armpit, which my mommy tried
To sew, but it keeps opening.
My mommy said my dad would bring
A new one home, but I said no,
I wanted this one, even though
He may be old, a little worn,
And delicate where he is torn.

I will be gentle with him, for
I would not want to tear him more.
Tell me, those who urge his end:
Would you throw away a friend?

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaOs9yVwX9Q .

Remember, Please, the Reason for Your Fasting

July 11, 2013 #745

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Ramadan.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Remember, please, the reason for your fasting.
A body ought to live beyond the body,
More focused on a life that's everlasting
As all that must be clothed and shod turns shoddy,
Disintegrating slowly into dust,
Amazed, despite well knowing that it must.
Nor is salvation simply for the asking.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/MErebJCbuEQ.

Then, There Was No Right to Eat

July 4, 2013 #744

Dear Subscriber:

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

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Then, there was no right to eat, nor was health
A right, nor freedom for a slave. Native
Peoples were simply dispossessed, and wealth
Accrued to men only. The fierce and furtive
Cries for love, gay or straight, were smothered.
Non-human animals had no rights, nor children
Left to drunken fathers or brutal mothers.
Oh, yes, that government governed least, but no one
Could foresee the brood of rights sprung
From words that rang out across the western world
That summer day, rights now nearly won,
That long lay fearful in predawn silence curled.
The founders were wise, but to be true to them,
We must apply their words to now, not then.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/Mw-xZdCd7C8.