Stand Up for Justice, but Always Do It Justly

March 26, 2015

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is an epitaph for someone who lived a conscientious life.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Stand up for justice, but always do it justly,
Easing conscience conscientiously.
You cannot hope to render right but rightly.
Means are ends, though unintentionally.
One must be the world that one envisions,
Unwaveringly creating what one would,
Requiring that each of one’s decisions
Embody only what is just and good.
In life I tried to be my own ideal,
Careful to remain at heart naïve,
Having a good sense of what is real
Even as I lived as I believed
Life should be, leavening what I must leave.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

Lovers and Good Friends Are Joined by Longing

March 19, 2015

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem about love and longing.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Lovers and good friends are joined by longing,
The glue that holds humanity together.
We have an innate hunger for belonging,
Designed to make us love each other better.
So do not think dependence is a failing.
It is inseparable from who you are.
You might have a yen for solo sailing,
But loneliness still haunts you from afar.
Allow yourself your weakness. It’s a strength
To have the courage to accept your needs.
Lovers find that courage, or at length
Find, as passion fades, that love recedes.
Passions are tides that, restless, come and go.
But love is a spring that draws from deep below.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/cooo5yQ0fmI.

Mothers Are Not Only of the Womb

March 12, 2015

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Mothering Sunday (British Mother’s Day) about non-birth mothers.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Mothers are not only of the womb.
One can mother children not one's own.
The love one gives makes gardens out of stone,
However one is kindred to each bloom.
Even as we render tribute due,
Remember that it also is for you,
Song to one who would the task assume.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/qxtwH66_Ljg.

Purified of Arabs or of Jews

March 5, 2015

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Purim about why Palestinians and Jews must share their land.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Purified of Arabs or of Jews,
Until the phantoms fade the land will scream,
Remembering the slaughter of the dream,
In which dark deeds that only madmen choose
Made room for those no blessing could redeem.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/_umPRoxHZs4.