Hell Is Not a Prison, but a Room

 A Happy New Year poem about the ability to escape from a self-imposed Hell:

 

Hell is not a prison, but a room,

And you can walk out anytime you choose.

Perhaps you think your treasure is your tomb;

Perhaps you fear you have too much to lose.

Year's end's an opportune time to take stock,

Needing such inducements for reflection,

Embracing change quite literally by the clock

While thumbing through the usual selection.

Yet escaping Hell's a yes or no --

Embrace the life you have or let it go.

And if it's no, then leave, but if it's yes,

Remember that you chose it, more or less.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

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

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/hellis.html. For more New Year’s poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/newyearsdaypoems.html .

Christmas and Hanukkah on the Same Night

 

A Christmas poem about Hanukkah and Christmas being on the same night:

 

Christmas and Hanukkah on the same night!

How is that for double delight?

Reason says neither could ever have been.

Imagination says Reason can't win.

Sing of the beauty whose truth would be lost!

The gain in precision is not worth the cost.

Minimal worlds get the minimum right.

A world without faith's moral suasion is slight.

Souls require what selves can't requite.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Holiday Brass Ensemble. By Doug Maxwell. Music free to use at YouTube. Photo Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/xmasan.html. For more Christmas poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/xmaschristmaspoems.html .

How Explain the Miracle of Light

 

A Hanukkah poem about the miracle of light:

 

How explain the miracle of light?
A lamp's a miracle, refueled or no.
Nor is there aught that ought be more than night,
Unless some unmade maker make it so.
Know that nothing is but miracles,
Kindled from the void we know not how;
And God, if God there be, the greatest miracle,
Here within the sepulcher of now.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

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

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/howexp.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

Seasons of Sunshine, Seasons of Rain

 A Season’s Greetings poem about the turning of the seasons:

 

Seasons of sunshine, seasons of rain,

Each with its joy, each with its pain,

All come to revel, then vanish again,

Singing with voices one mirrors in vain.

 

Oak trees in leaf, oak trees stripped bare,

Now giving shade, now simply there,

Swaying as wind whistles through their green hair,

Gaunt, frozen dancers in still, frigid air.

 

Rejoice in the winter, rejoice in the spring,

Embrace the hot summer when sweet songbirds sing,

Embrace the cool autumn when warblers take wing,

Then again winter, which closes the ring.

 

Infinite pleasure, infinite woe,

Nothing above, nothing below,

Grace come a’stumbling through deep drifted snow,

Still the best gift that life can bestow.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: White River. By Aakash Gandhi. Music free to use at YouTube. 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/.html. For more Season’s Greetings poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

Holidays Are Holy Here in Heaven

 A humorous poem from an 11-year-old who has died early and is waiting in Heaven for his friend:

 

Holidays are holy here in heaven.
(Ordinary days are awful, too.)
Love is mandatory day and night.
If you get mad, you're not allowed to fight.
Desperate deeds are difficult to do!
As you know, I'll always be eleven.
Years pass, and there's still no sign of you.
So please come soon, 'cause we're still buddies. Right?

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Chords of Harmony. By Aakash Gandhi. Music free to use at YouTube. Photo Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/holida.html. For more humorous poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/humorouspoems.html .

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day

 A number poem for 61 with some lines borrowed from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18:

 

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
In truth, thou shoulds't be catalogued in fall.
X-rays do show the darling Buds of May
Traveling still along th'arterial wall.
Yet thou has't late become more temperate,

Older as thou art than thy flesh seems.
Nor do thine eyes betray thy body's date,
Even as within thy spirit gleams.

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/shalli.html. For more number poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

 

Audio and Video Music: A Kiss for Amanda. By D. J. Williams. Music free to use at YouTube. 

Seventy-Three Is Always at the Ready

 A number poem for a political activist in honor of Election Day:

 

Seventy-three is always at the ready,

Eager to march, to sign, to speak, to sing.

Victory’s the goal, but not the point,

Even though the time is out of joint,

Nor is guilt or self-regard the thing,

Though motivation’s never one, but many.

Yet for her, the love of life is plenty:

 

The love of people, animals, the Earth,

Human rights, freedom, justice, beauty,

Reveling in struggle, in doing right,

Embracing the quixotic gift of duty,

Engaged ever in the painful bliss of birth.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

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

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/73i.html. For more political poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

Horror Is a Color in Our Rainbow

 A Halloween poem about horror as part of our nature:

 

Horror is a color in our rainbow,

A chimerical, spectral inner arc of black.

Light bursting through the prism of our dreams

Lingers as a set of separate beams,

Of which pure terror is a prominent track,

Where we may feel our bones freeze to the marrow,

Exercising instincts else gone slack.

Nor does all truth lie tucked between two seams.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Don’t Look Inside. By Biz Baz Studio. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/horro4.html. For more poems for Halloween, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/halloweenpoems.html .

Death Came to Me When I Was at a Meeting

An Epitaph for a Social Activist

 

Death came to me while I was at a meeting,
Opened up my chest and wandered in.
Nor did it leave until a few days later,
Satisfied it need not come again.
It was a death both unforeseen and fitting,
Living as I did for what I did,
Being one averse to merely being,
Engaged in service to the world I would.
Remember me, then, as I was when death
Made its sudden entrance to my heart:
Attentive in my seat, my wife beside me,
Night come, the meeting just about to start.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Elegy. By Asher Fulero. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/death2.html. For more epitaphs, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/epitaphs.html .

The Right to Live as Distinct Peoples

 Adapted from The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

 

Indigenous peoples have the collective right

To live as distinct peoples

And shall not be subjected to

Any act of genocide

Or other act of violence,

Including the forcible

Removal their children.

 

Indigenous peoples have the right

Not to be subjected to forced assimilation

Or the destruction of their culture.

 

States shall prevent

Any action that has the aim or effect

Of depriving them of their integrity

As distinct peoples,

Or of their cultural values

Or ethnic identities;

Or dispossessing them

Of their lands, territories, or resources;

Or any form of forced population transfer;

Or any form of forced assimilation or integration;

Or any form of propaganda

Designed to promote or incite

Racial or ethnic discrimination

Directed against them.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Borderless. By Aakash Gandhi. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/theri4.html. For more poems for Indigenous Peoples Day, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/indigenouspeoplesdaypoems.html .

Yes, There Is a Lot One Need Atone for

 A poem for Yom Kippur about the need to atone for what you failed to do as much as for what you did:

 

Yes, there is a lot one need atone for.

One is in this pickle every year.

Maybe progress is too much to ask for,

Knowing how few angels live down here.

In fact, one must atone for what one didn't,

Perhaps as much or more than what one did.

Perhaps one's most egregious evil isn't

Understood till one lifts up the lid,

Revealing what one's life of privilege hid.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

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

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/yesthe.html. For more poems for the Jewish High Holy Days, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/yomkippurpoems.html .

Remorse Is Not a Synonym for Shame

 A poem for Rosh Hashanah comparing remorse to shame:

Remorse is not a synonym for shame.

One is mainly outer; the other, inner.

So might fear of shame deter a sinner

Hidden 'neath the gilt of a good name.

 

However, remorse comes from within, a feeling

Arisen from the grave of innocence,

Still haunted by a mystic moral sense

Hemorrhaging a sorrow that is healing.

 

A fear of shame requires imagination,

Needing an imaginative eye,

As remorse needs an imaginative I

Harrowed by empathic transformation.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Nocturne. By Asher Fulero. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/remors.html. For more poems for the Jewish High Holy Days, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/yomkippurpoems.html .

Sing for All the Years You Have Been Granted

 A 70^th birthday poem of celebration for the gifts of life:

 

Sing for all the years you have been granted,
Each blessing sing, each child, girl and boy!
Verses sing for all the things you've wanted:
Each victory, each pleasure, and each joy!
No matter age or illness, sing undaunted,
Though you may be by dreams or memories haunted,
Yet sing, and life and love this day enjoy!

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Pouring Out. By Asher Fulero. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/singfo.html. For more birthday poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/birthdaypoems.html .

The Night My Heart Stopped

 A poem about a moment of silent communication between the poet and a racoon:

The night my heart stopped
I was sleeping with my wife
In a tent at the edge of a wood.

The Earth spun and spun.
Silent, in a cold sweat,
I felt myself going under.

I crawled out of the tent,
Careful not to wake my wife,
And onto a chaise lounge.

Under the spinning stars
My heart started and stopped,
Started and stopped, started . . .

I lay where a path emerged
From the wood, and along the path
Came a large raccoon.

He walked over to me
And raised himself up
Not four feet from my eyes.

We stared at each other
With focused understanding,
Words without words,

Eyes beyond eyes,
A giving and a taking
That stilled my raucous heart.

Satisfied, he lowered
Himself to the ground
And turned toward the wood.

"Thank you, brother," I said,
"Thank you." But he was gone,
Slipped back into darkness.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Falling Snow. By Aakash Gandhi. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/theni2.html. For more poems about animals, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/animalpoems.html .

Happy Fifteenth Anniversary

 A 15^th anniversary poem comparing marriage to two trees planted close together:

 

Happy fifteenth anniversary!

A long time to be planted side by side!

Praised be those whose love and faith abide.

Praised be those who would deep rooted be.

Years entangle closely planted trees,

From canopy to root together tied,

Interwoven tightly, so that eyed

Full flower, which is which is hard to see.

Two trunks, one greater whole, both root and branch,

Each able to withstand a stronger wind,

Each more intact together than alone.

Nor is this close proximity by chance,

This will to be so intimately combined,

Having each for each shed leaves on stone.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

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

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/hap103.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

Labor's a Commodity, like Fish

 

A Labor Day poem about the evil of treating labor like any other commodity:

 

Labor's a commodity, like fish,

As children are fast-frozen and filleted,

Beating down the price. Fortunes are made

On selling to us all so cheap a dish.

Remember how the world is being run,

Determined by the market's iron laws

As slaves and children jingle in its jaws.

Yet is there nothing, nothing to be done?

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

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

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/labors.html. For more Labor Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/labordaypoems.html .

Eighty-Two Lives by a Waterfall

 A philosophical number poem about the simultaneous experience of time and eternity:

 

Eighty-two lives by a waterfall,

In tune with time and the music of its flow.

Grace holds its tongue as one goes through its song,

Here for aye, though no one’s here for long,

Time falling, falling to the rocks below,

Yet fluttering in place like a wind-blown shawl.

 

To be for just one breath is to be all.

Words are ripples of what one might know.

One flows beneath what one gets right or wrong.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Wandering Soul. By Asher Fulero. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/82a.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

Sing of Life That, Though It Has an End

 A philosophical number poem about the experience of eternity within time:

Sing of life that, though it has an end,

Embodies what does not and will be ever,

Viewpoint on eternity that lends

Existence the illusion of forever.

Nor should one fail to recognize this gift

That one shares ultimately with quince and slime:

Years down which one’s little boat may drift,

Taking one through landscapes beyond time.

How beautiful to live and simply be,

Removed from time by love and reverence.

Each moment is a brief eternity;

Each eon also, though not quite so dense.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Audio and Video Music: Chords of Harmony. By Aakash Gandhi. Music free to use at YouTube.

To see this poem on my site, go to sing22.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

Factor In the Fickleness of Fortune

 A number poem about how best to dream as one gets older:

 

Factor in the fickleness of fortune

In calculating charts that can be read.

For though the numbers do not lie, the data

Trend towards unknown variables instead.

Yet one must dream, albeit with more caution.

 

There is no substitute for an equation.

When one’s a certain age, there is less later.

One dreams more wisely as one looks ahead.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Timeless. By Lauren Duski. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/facto2.html. For more number poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

For What Does One Live, but for Goodness and Beauty

 

A number poem about the beauty of a life devoted to art:

 

For what does one live, but for goodness and beauty?

One’s goodness is beauty; one’s beauty is good.

Remember that when what one loves is one’s duty,

To labor brings one all the joy that one would.

Yet this does not always work out as it should.

 

Fear not the days of frustration and sorrow;

Old wounds reopened, new ones unhealed.

Undaunted by pain, you’ll turn back to tomorrow,

Renewed by the love that sustains your ideal.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: White River. By Aakash Gandhi. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/forwh2.html. For more poems about a variety of professions, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/professionspoems.html .

Seventeen Is Such a Lovely Age

 A number poem about being seventeen:

 

Seventeen is such a lovely age,

Ever on the edge of something new!

Vested in a multitude of plans,

Even as the calendar commands.

No choice has yet been made that one need rue,

Though soon, perhaps too soon, time turns the page.

Even at this sweet rehearsal stage,

Each must reduce the many to the few,

Needing dreams to comb through tangled strands.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Lifting Dreams. By Aakash Gandhi. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/17d.html. For more number poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

To Love Is to Be Naked to the Wind

 A love poem about a new romance:

 

To love is to be naked to the wind,

Holding hands with someone you can’t know.

Invested in a bond that seems secure,

Resisting what seems graceless and less sure,

Trusting in a gift none can bestow,

You turn to one and leave the rest behind.

 

Nothing is more beautiful or pure,

Innocent, quixotic, gentle, kind.

Nor have you any hint how it will go

Except a will that this romance endure.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

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

 

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

My Heart Is like a Symphony

 A poem, never sent, from a mother to a child whom she was forced to surrender:

 

My heart is like a symphony
That sings of only pain.
Of all that makes a life worthwhile,
Only you remain.

Only in the thought of you
Safe and cared for well
Can I find happiness within
My self-inflicted hell.

Only in my love for you
Is there sufficient grace
For me to want to live at all
In this forsaken place.

Ah, God! Were life not beautiful
And love not full of light,
I could, perhaps, embrace the rage
Of an embittered night.

But as it is, I cannot help
But hope for what might be:
That though I gave you up, you might
Someday, somehow love me.

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: E Minor Prelude. By Frederic Chopin. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/myhea.html. For more poems to children, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/childrenpoems.html .

Beware of Inequalities Too Wide

 

A Bastille Day poem about the dangers of allowing inequalities between classes to grow too wide:

 

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

 

Audio and Video Music: Bittersweet. By SYBS. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/bewar2.html. For more Bastille Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/bastilledaypoems.html .

Identity Requires Memory

 

A poem for Independence Day (USA) about the importance of knowing one’s nation’s history:

 

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

 

Audio and Video Music: Borderless. By Aakash Gandhi. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/identi.html. For more poems for Independence Day (USA), go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/july4thpoems.html .

 

Everything We Give Was Never Ours

 A poem for Eid al-Adha about what it means to give a gift:

 

Everything we give was never ours.

It was a gift, as was life itself.

Dependent as we are, like fragile flowers,

An unborn soul is seed upon God's shelf.

Let yourself then meditate on this:

A sacrifice can be no sacrifice.

Death leaves one with nothing one might miss.

How can one think one owns what has no price,

As every gift one gives is given thrice.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Pachabelly. By Huma Huma. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/ever14.html. For more Eid al-Adha poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/eidaladhapoems.html .

Fear Not, for the World Is Full of Beauty

 A Father’s Day poem to the almost-father of several miscarriages.

 

Fear not, for the world is full of beauty,

And love’s the song that brings it all to life.

Those who don’t have children often might

Have other songs to sing of joyful duty.

Even so, one ought to feel the longing

Reverberating through one’s canyon walls

‘Mid all the other lost dreams one recalls,

So that one’s sorrows might enrich one’s singing.

Days like these remind one of the loss,

Allow one to feel pain without remorse,

Yielding to the loveliness of being.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: No. 2 Remembering Her. By Esther Abrami. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fearn3.html .  For more Father’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fathersdaypoems.html .