Welcome to the Prime of Life

July 31, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is summer.

Today’s poem is about midlife comparing the middle of life to summer.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

WELCOME TO THE PRIME OF LIFE

1

Welcome to the prime of life!

The sun-drenched peak! The mountaintop!

You are the best you’ll ever be.

It’s all downhill from here.

Welcome to the prime of life!

In the maelstrom, on the clock!

Heavily invested

In family and career.

You wonder, whether man or wife,

If there could be more. The lock

Yields to your uncertain key.

What you feel is fear.

2

I’ve had affairs. Oh, yes, I’ve had affairs!

And I’ll have many more. My wife, I’m sure,

Has had some of her own. Who cares?

We are no longer starry-eyed and pure.

Midlife is a time to change,

A time to test and rearrange.

The prisoner rebels:

New partners for new selves!

For every stage of life,

A different man or wife.

I’ve had affairs. Oh, yes, I’ve had affairs!

I know my husband’s had some of his own.

We loved each other once, but now who cares?

Midlife is a time to be reborn.

Midlife crisis,

Youth entices.

While still active,

Still attractive,

One last chance

For romance.

We let our marriage drift until one day

One dalliance too many turned to love.

The wreckage of our lives around us lay.

We wept and raged, at long last deeply moved.

Midlife’s time to recognize

The inner damage done by lies.

It’s time to face the ugly truth

Long hidden by the dreams of youth,

And to change, for only so

Can one transplant oneself and grow.

3

How beautiful to make it through these years,

Shooting through the rapids of our rage,

The doubts, desires, disappointments, tears,

The turmoil that defines this restless age.

How beautiful to look back on our love

And know that it is stronger for these trials!

For passion long imagined puerile proved,

And light-filled lust no longer love beguiles.

Thank God we’re through it, sailing into fall,

The long, hot summer of our lives now over!

The wind is steady at our backs, and all

The widening waters calm, though growing colder.

4

The long, hot, fruitful days of life’s brief summer,

The prime of life passing all too quickly,

With thunderstorms that gather in the heat

And burst across the thirsty, dried-out plains,

Uprooting ancient trees, with swollen rivers

Raging, swirling, flooding, fast receding,

With fierce fires that open up the canopy,

Giving light to seedlings and to change,

With rippling, ripening fields, the winter’s store,

Exploding into heavy-headed grain,

With gardens lush and bountiful, with woods

Alive with life unleashed by lust and love,

Full, fat, feisty, feasting on the sun!

How long the labor lit by lengthened days!

How sweet the nights concealed in fleeting darkness!

The taste of life full, fruity, well-fermented.

The sunsets lingering, shot-through with yearning.

The dawns a bird’s full-throated cry of joy!

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/welco3.html. For more psychological poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/psychologicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Summer.

July 25: Summer

July 26: It’s Been So Good to Have You as a Friend

July 27: One Late Summer Afternoon

July 28: Elizabeth

July 29: Fruit Abounds Amid the Press of Labor

July 30: Thirty-Two

July 31: Welcome to the Prime of Life

Thirty-Two

July 30, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is summer.

Today’s poem is a number poem comparing a thirty-two year old to a slowly ripening summer field.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thirty-two's a slowly ripening field,

Hot and happy in the summer sun.

Intense and long, the days are filled with light.

Reason knows that past the blue is night,

That all that ever is will be undone;

Yet for now that letter is still sealed.

Time moves slowly, certain of its yield,

While gentle breezes through the barley run.

Odd wisps of memories float high and white.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/32.html. For more number poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Summer.

July 25: Summer

July 26: It’s Been So Good to Have You as a Friend

July 27: One Late Summer Afternoon

July 28: Elizabeth

July 29: Fruit Abounds Amid the Press of Labor

July 30: Thirty-Two

Fruit Abounds Amid the Press of Labor

July 29, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is summer.

Today’s poem is a number poem describing a mother in the summer of her life.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Fruit abounds amid the press of labor.

Old, abandoned plants produce sweet plums.

Rivers run unseen through ripening fields.

The heartscape sings, dreams unremembered answer.

Youthful still, the mother waits and listens.

 

There is much in summertime to savor,

Hard though the work until the harvest comes.

Revel, then, in what all seasons yield,

Even as each leaf becomes a dancer,

Even as the white world gleams and glistens.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Summer.

July 25: Summer

July 26: It’s Been So Good to Have You as a Friend

July 27: One Late Summer Afternoon

July 28: Elizabeth

July 29: Fruit Abounds Amid the Press of Labor

Elizabeth

July 28, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is summer.

Today’s poem is a philosophical name poem about a gardener reaching for the ideal.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Elizabeth spends summer afternoons

Leaning over roses and potatoes,

In radiant concentration as she prunes.

Zeno's thoughts are less with her than Plato's

As she snips and clips in steeply slanted light,

Blessed alike by tulips and tomatoes.

Each creature yearns to be, but never quite

Touches what it is, as dissonant tunes

Hover at the silent edge of night.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Summer.

July 25: Summer

July 26: It’s Been So Good to Have You as a Friend

July 27: One Late Summer Afternoon

July 28: Elizabeth

One Late Summer Afternoon

July 27, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is summer.

Today’s poem is about the recognition of death waiting behind a late summer afternoon sky.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

One late summer afternoon

As the stars waited patiently

Behind a deep cobalt sky,

I took my usual suburban walk,

Up this hill, down that hill,

Past tiny lawns and tidy gardens,

Till I stopped, and imagined the stars

Behind the sky, waiting,

Then took a deep breath and went on.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Summer.

July 25: Summer

July 26: It’s Been So Good to Have You as a Friend

July 27: One Late Summer Afternoon

It's Been So Good to Have You as a Friend

July 26, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is summer.

Today’s poem is a friendship poem comparing friendship to the light of a summer sun.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

It's been so good to have you as a friend:

As sweet and rich as honey-colored sun

Slanting steep across a summer lawn,

Gilding life with all that love can lend.

And now that you yourself have griefs to tend,

I want to be the strong and caring one

To count to you the lovely things you've done

Until these troubles pass and sorrows end.

You are so beautiful in form and soul

That you bring happiness to all you're near:

Just as a sea rose, flowering in mist,

Makes a paradise of some bleak shoal,

Turning truth to something far more clear,

No pain unsoothed or rain-swept cheek unkissed.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Summer.

July 25: Summer

July 26: It’s Been So Good to Have You as aFriend

Summer

July 25, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is summer.

Today’s poem is an acrostic calendar poem describing the slow motion of summer.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Summer slides but slowly to the sea

Underneath a bright blue breathless sky.

Memory meanders into dream,

Making time spill over its thin stream,

Each moment motionless, a golden eye,

Radiant image of eternity.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Summer.

July 25: Summer

Forever Is a Fantasy of Time

July 24, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is faith.

Today’s poem is about a truth beyond reason.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Forever is a fantasy of time:

One imagines time without an ending.

Reason cannot grasp eternity,

That outside time is outside comprehending.

Yet one can know it well, if so inclined.

The pith of every being is divine,

Which one can reach ascending or descending.

One is one with One eternally.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/forev5.html. For more philosophical poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Faith.

July 18: I’ll See You When the Sun Goes Down

July 19: Lest You Leave Your Longings in the Sunshine

July 20: Every Friday Night I Bless My Children

July 21: Erase My Soul

July 22: Seventy-Three

July 23: Christine Joyce Ann

July 24: Forever Is a Fantasy of Time

Christine Joyce Ann

July 23, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is faith.

Today’s poem is a name and love poem comparing romantic love to faith.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Christine Joyce Ann has rekindled my heart!

Her nature is pure, without pretense or art.

Reason may tell you that such cannot be.

If so, then I cannot see what I see,

Singing of love through the dust of my days,

Through the bliss of my nights and the length of my ways,

In moments of passion, in moments of rest,

Needing no proof of the truth I know best.

Each moment I sing of my loved one I feel

Joy that proclaims my perceptions are real!

Oh, yes, I know some would call me a fool,

Yielding to rapture where reason should rule.

Choosing to love is like faith in that one

Embraces the fortune that faith has begun.

And thus life is lifted to be what one would.

No harsh view can dance with the grace of the good,

Nor stand once faith's powers are well understood.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Faith.

July 18: I’ll See You When the Sun Goes Down

July 19: Lest You Leave Your Longings in the Sunshine

July 20: Every Friday Night I Bless My Children

July 21: Erase My Soul

July 22: Seventy-Three

July 23: Christine Joyce Ann

Seventy-Three

July 22, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is faith.

Today’s poem is a number poem about how inner love and faith can help one bear old age.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Seventy-three refocuses on love

Even as she now must live alone.

Very little waits behind the door.

Every day is like the day before.

Nestled in her heart are sleeves of stone.

Time hangs like fog no sun will soon remove.

Yet there is much that makes her yearn for more.

To be is to be loved and blessed with grace,

However one might live or soon might die.

Revelations come like words long known,

Each an invitation to embrace

Ecstasy that needs no reason why.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/73.html. For more number poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Faith.

July 18: I’ll See You When the Sun Goes Down

July 19: Lest You Leave Your Longings in the Sunshine

July 20: Every Friday Night I Bless My Children

July 21: Erase My Soul

July 22: Seventy-Three

Erase My Soul

July 21, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is faith.

Today’s poem is a poem for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr about the beauty of Ramadan devotion and prayer.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Erase my soul and let me be

Invisible as air.

Detain me in Your emptiness

And let me be just prayer.

Let my passion disappear;

Focus well my mind.

Immerse me in infinity

Till at peace I turn to see

Ramadan behind.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Faith.

July 18: I’ll See You When the Sun Goes Down

July 19: Lest You Leave Your Longings in the Sunshine

July 20: Every Friday Night I Bless My Children

July 21: Erase My Soul

Every Friday Night I Bless My Children

July 20, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is faith.

Today’s poem is about the beauty of the Jewish tradition of blessing one’s children before the Sabbath meal.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Every Friday night I bless my children.

I put my hands upon their inclined heads

And say the words my father said to me:

"May God shine His countenance on you."

I put my hands upon their inclined heads,

Chanting with a pure, intense delight.

"May God shine His countenance on you,"

I pray as though my love might make it so.

Chanting with a pure, intense delight,

Each week I play this part with equal joy.

I pray as though my love might make it so,

That God might live with them as He with me.

Each week I play this part with equal joy,

And say the words my father said to me,

That God might live with them as he with me

Every Friday night I bless my children.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Faith.

July 18: I’ll See You When the Sun Goes Down

July 19: Lest You Leave Your Longings in the Sunshine

July 20: Every Friday Night I Bless My Children

Lest You Leave Your Longings in the Sunshine

July 19, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is faith.

Today’s poem is a poem for the Lunar New Year about how the beauty of traditional worship can help guide faith.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Lest you leave your longings in the sunshine

Unprotected from night's bitter shade,

Now you may take them on the lunar wind,

Alive to phantoms vivid as your face

Reveling in front of Reason's door.

Nor could your own inventions offer more,

Even those transfigured from your race,

Which, privatized, seem downsized, somehow thinned.

Yet here is all the wealth the past has made,

Each relic well preserved in ancient brine,

A treasure-trove of comedy and grace

Resting where your faith would else be 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/lest.html. For more poems about religion, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/religiouspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Faith.

July 18: I’ll See You When the Sun Goes Down

July 19: Lest You Leave Your Longings in theSunshine

I'll See You When the Sun Goes Down

July 18, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is faith.

Today’s poem is a Christian poem to a dead loved one about how faith helps one bear grief.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I'll see you when the sun goes down

And all the stars go crazy,

And Christ returns to claim His throne

Upon this erring earth.

And you and I will be amazed

At all that now seems hazy;

For now is faith, but then will be

The glory of rebirth.

Death will die, and we will sing

With angels at our ears,

And all my love for you will pour

Like rivers from my song.

And joy will never end, for we

Will be beyond the years,

And time before the end of time

Will not seem very long.

How beautiful Creation will

Then be! Much more than now,

When visible to faith alone

As we endure our pain.

How wonderful the gift of grace

From Christ that will allow

Me well to bear my grief until

I see you once again.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Faith.

July 18: I’ll See You When the Sun Goes Down

In Heaven I Met Karl Marx

July 17, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is revolution, in honor of Bastille Day, which falls on July 14.

Today’s poem is about meeting five revolutionary figures in Heaven.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

In Heaven I met Karl Marx.

Lenin was there, too, Stalin,

And Hitler along with Jesus Christ.

There was no Hell.

I asked Karl to explain the justice in this arrangement.

He said there was no way of measuring

The good in a person's life.

He admitted he had been wrong

About history and some other things

And expressed regret about all

Who'd been slaughtered in his name.

Hitler, Lenin, and Stalin did, too,

Along with Jesus Christ,

Who was sad that more than any

Had been broken and burned for him.

All said it was a consequence

Of being so sure they were right.

None of them made excuses.

Ilyich did not blame Josef,

Adolph did not plead madness,

Neither Karl nor Jesus balanced

The bad with the good they had done.

Instead they seemed at peace

Completely with what had been,

In a clarity of repose

Which seemed quite perfect for Heaven.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Revolution.

July 11: Beware of the Future: We Are the Ancien Régime

July 12: Everything We Thought Was True Was Not True

July 13: Those Who Have Power and No Pity

July 14: Beware of Inequalities Too Wide

July 15: The World Might Well Be Remedied

July 16: Proverbs on Ideology

July 17: In Heaven I Met Karl Marx

Proverbs on Ideology

July 16, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is revolution, in honor of Bastille Day, which falls on July 14.

Today’s poem is a set of proverbs on ideology.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

PROVERBS ON IDEOLOGY

1.     Ideology is like blinders that allow a horse to go in a single direction without distraction.
2.     It is more satisfying, logical, and effective to see life as a coherent whole. It is also reductive.
3.     Religion is more or less ideological depending on the degree of fundamentalism.
4.     A cult is an extreme instance of ideology.
5.     What makes ideology so attractive is that it simplifies life, allowing the current of feeling to flow unimpeded by eddies and counter-currents. Which is precisely what makes it so dangerous.
6.     People who adopt an ideology sometimes feel as though they have been reborn into a world in which their lives have purpose and meaning. Naturally, they then come to deny or ignore any part of truth that threatens that precious sense.
7.     A cult of personality is a common feature of ideology, which is often personified by a charismatic authority figure who takes advantage of the fact that his or her followers have abandoned skepticism.
8.     Far more evil is done by people who believe they are doing good than by people who believe they are doing evil.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Revolution.
July 11: Beware of the Future: We Are the Ancien Régime
July 12: Everything We Thought Was True Was Not True
July 13: Those Who Have Power and No Pity
July 14: Beware of Inequalities Too Wide
July 15: The World Might Well Be Remedied
July 16: Proverbs on Ideology

The World Might Well Be Remedied

July 15, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is revolution, in honor of Bastille Day, which falls on July 14.

Today’s poem is about how revolutions so often lead to dictatorships.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The world might well be remedied,

The revolution won,

Eyes turned back towards paradise

And memories to stone.

Power might indeed devolve

To those who now have none,

Saints upon the barricades

Whose time has come and gone.

For in the act of overthrow

There sits a golden throne,

Empty till the tide returns

To those who rule alone.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/thewo3.html. For more political poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Revolution.

July 11: Beware of the Future: We Are the Ancien Régime

July 12: Everything We Thought Was True Was Not True

July 13: Those Who Have Power and No Pity

July 14: Beware of Inequalities Too Wide

July 15: The World Might Well Be Remedied

Beware of Inequalities Too Wide

July 14, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is revolution, in honor of Bastille Day, which falls on July 14.

Today’s poem is a Bastille Day warning about the dangers of too-wide social inequalities.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Beware of inequalities too wide

And chasms that cannot be bridged by dreams.

Societies fray first along the seams,

Then rip apart, exposing rot inside.

In chaos hopes for liberty abide;

Life in its Edenic newness gleams;

Longing is more brutal than it seems;

Ecstatic demons 'cross the wastelands glide.

Do, then, recall the day of the Bastille

As one whose burst of glory would reveal

Yearnings that would stain the turning tide.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/bewar2.html. For more poems for Bastille Day, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/bastilledaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Revolution.

July 11: Beware of the Future: We Are the Ancien Régime

July 12: Everything We Thought Was True Was Not True

July 13: Those Who Have Power and No Pity

July 14: Beware of Inequalities Too Wide

Those Who Have Power and No Pity

July 13, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is revolution, in honor of Bastille Day, which falls on July 14.

Today’s poem is about those who, seizing power in the name of democracy and freedom, use it for personal profit.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Those who have power and no pity,

Who would avenge the right by sword,

And profit from justice,

And do well by doing good;

Those who would gain by others' grief

In the name of freedom,

And allocate the Earth's abundance to themselves,

And allow the marketplace to starve children;

And those who would see such things happen and do nothing:

The mark of Cain is on them,

And on their followers,

And on their generations.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Revolution.

July 11: Beware of the Future: We Are the Ancien Régime

July 12: Everything We Thought Was True Was Not True

July 13: Those Who Have Power and No Pity

Everything We Thought Was True Was Not True

July 12, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is revolution, in honor of Bastille Day, which falls on July 14.

Today’s poem is about former American communists coming to terms with their dreams of revolution.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Everything we thought was true was not true.

Everything we thought was right was wrong.

The leaders whom we idolized were madmen,

Mass murderers, whose crimes we helped along.

We were the volunteers for genocide,

The dupes who gave out leaflets for the devil,

For whom obscene dictatorships were good

And our own democracies were evil.

We were the organizers of the poor,

The builders of unions, champions of justice,

Sacrificing self only to serve

A mortal yearning for significance.

We were blind in service to our passions.

We were deaf in service to our need.

Now we must drive the truth straight through our hearts

That we might die at peace with what we did.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/every2.html. For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Revolution.

July 11: Beware of the Future: We Are the Ancien Régime

July 12: Everything We Thought Was True Was NotTrue

Beware of the Future: We Are the Ancien Régime

July 11, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is revolution, in honor of Bastille Day, which falls on July 14.

Today’s poem is a Bastille Day warning to the present about future revolutions.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Beware of the future: We are the ancien régime.

As to them their world of privilege seemed

Solid as the centuries, so we

Take ours to be the way the world should be.

In the sheltering wake of our billionaires

Looting the world, our own market shares

Leave us little room for denial. Come!

Embrace the prisoners of the Bastille! Some

Defend their privilege, but let it go!

Ancien régimes find some honor so,

Yielding up their heritage of woe.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/bewar3.html. For more poems for Bastille Day, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/bastilledaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Revolution.

July 11: Beware of the Future: We Are the Ancien Régime

Identity Requires Memory

July 10, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Independence Day, in honor of Independence Day (USA), which falls on July 4.

Today’s poem is an Independence Day poem about the importance of history.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Identity requires memory.

No less than people, nations must recall

Days past, lest they wander witlessly,

Erased each moment, guided by the wind,

Pushed by lusts no wisdom can forestall.

Events are facts that one cannot rescind,

Nor can forgetting consequence forego.

Despite one's wish, the past is not behind:

Even now, it works its wayward will.

Nor can we understand what we don’t know.

Contain your cavils, then, and snide thoughts still,

Even as we celebrate our story,

Described with all the clarity and skill

A scholar can sustain in heart and mind,

Yielding what for now is history.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/identi.html. For more poems for Independence Day, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/july4thpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Independence Day.

July 4: Just Remember: Freedom’s Not a Given

July 5: To the Founding Fathers

July 6: Just Words Declared Our Freedom Long Ago

July 7: July 4^th Is a Day for Barbeques

July 8: In What We’ve Done We Take the Greatest Shame

July 9: Innocence Is like an Open Door

July 10: Identity Requires Memory

Innocence Is like an Open Door

July 9, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Independence Day, in honor of Independence Day (USA), which falls on July 4.

Today’s poem is an Independence Day poem about the dangers of and the need for innocence.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Innocence is like an open door:

Not safe, but requisite to being free.

Darlings of our rhetoric, we wonder,

Evil as the rest but for our words.

Perhaps we know what horrors are in store

Even as we dream of what might be,

Needing, as we preach and teach and plunder,

Defenses that would Xanadu preserve.

Even so, the freedom we are for

Now stands for all a common legacy,

Called forth by masters tearing worlds asunder,

Embraced by slaves consumed with righteous hunger,

Destined to dispute those whom it serves.

All innocents must keep their hopes at sea,

Yearning for an ever-distant shore.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/innoce.html. For more poems for Independence Day, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/july4thpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Independence Day.

July 4: Just Remember: Freedom’s Not a Given

July 5: To the Founding Fathers

July 6: Just Words Declared Our Freedom Long Ago

July 7: July 4^th Is a Day for Barbeques

July 8: In What We’ve Done We Take the Greatest Shame

July 9: Innocence Is like an Open Door

In What We've Done We Take the Greatest Shame

July 8, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Independence Day, in honor of Independence Day (USA), which falls on July 4.

Today’s poem is an Independence Day poem about Americans coming to terms with the evil they have done while fighting terror.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

In what we've done we take the greatest shame.

Nothing that was done to us excuses it.

Despite the evil of our enemies,

Evil never justifies more evil,

Perhaps because it never leads to good.

Each tortured prisoner pollutes our name.

None has unchecked power but abuses it.

Defying friends, ignoring verities,

Embracing our illusions without scruple,

Now we must repent, as well we should.

Conquerors must always take the blame.

Each rules ruthlessly its state or loses it.

Demons overran our conquerees

As we washed our hands of our debacle,

Yielding to what washed our dreams in blood.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/inwhat.html. For more poems for Independence Day, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/july4thpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Independence Day.

July 4: Just Remember: Freedom’s Not a Given

July 5: Your Light Still Lingers in Our Distant Morning

July 6: Just Words Declared Our Freedom Long Ago

July 7: July 4^th Is a Day for Barbeques

July 8: In What We’ve Done We Take the GreatestShame

July 4th Is a Day for Barbeques

July 7, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Independence Day, in honor of Independence Day (USA), which falls on July 4.

Today’s poem is an Independence Day poem about how we celebrate the holiday.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

July 4th is a day for barbeques

Underneath an unforgiving sun;

Later, fireworks, perhaps the news,

Yawns, some love, and then the day is done.

For most it is a day for celebration

Of something so familiar that its grace,

Unnoticed as a routine revelation,

Remains interred in its accustomed place.

This neglect of what sustains one’s life

Has its twin in the love of man and 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/julyfo.html. For more poems for Independence Day, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/july4thpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Independence Day.

July 4: Just Remember: Freedom’s Not a Given

July 5: Your Light Still Lingers in Our Distant Morning

July 6: Just Words Declared Our Freedom Long Ago

July 7: July 4th Is a Day forBarbeques

Just Words Declared Our Freedom Long Ago

July 6, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Independence Day, in honor of Independence Day (USA), which falls on July 4.

Today’s poem is an Independence Day poem about the hypocrisy of our pretensions.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Just words declared our freedom long ago,

Untouched by time, sincerity, or will,

Little meant, much mouthed, a well-wrought show

Yearning to be put in practice still.

There was no truth in them, not even then,

Harbingers of hope long since betrayed,

Ever the disguise of gentlemen,

Fashion for a yearly masquerade.

O judge them harshly, for they are but lies,

Unworthy of the dream that gave them birth!

Regard not their pretensions, but their ties

To those who would be lords upon the earth,

Hard souls who hide their greed in freedom's cries.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/justwo.html. For more poems for Independence Day, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/july4thpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Independence Day.

July 4: Just Remember: Freedom’s Not a Given

July 5: Your Light Still Lingers in Our Distant Morning

July 6: Just Words Declared Our Freedom Long Ago

To the Founding Fathers

July 5, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Independence Day, in honor of Independence Day (USA), which falls on July 4.

Today’s poem is an Independence Day poem paying homage to the Founding Fathers.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Your light still lingers in our distant morning,

A star that we perceive across the void.

We chart our passage by your words, still burning

Long after your bright core has been destroyed.

No longer do we speak of "natural" rights,

Nor can we think that Reason guides our will.

We've been through far too many gruesome nights

To hope we have reduced our lust to kill.

Yet hope remains the engine of our fire,

Hope that someday all of us will be

Happy in the least that we require:

Well-fed, well-housed, safe, secure, and free.

This dream we still pursue. Though darkness come,

Your wisdom, hope, and courage through us 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/july4.html. For more poems for Independence Day, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/july4thpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Independence Day.

July 4: Just Remember: Freedom’s Not a Given

July 5: To the Founding Fathers