December Finds Himself Again a Child

 

A calendar poem for December:

 

December finds himself again a child
Even as he undergoes his age.
Cold and early darkness now descend,
Embracing sanctuaries of delight.
More and more he stares into the night,
Becoming less and less concerned with ends,
Emblem of the innocent as sage
Restored to wonder by what he must yield.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Please. By Wayne Jones. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/decemb.html. For more calendar poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html .

Sing of the Annual Cavalcade of Seasons

 

A Season’s Greetings poem about how the tilt of the Earth’s axis affects so many aspects of our lives:

Sing of the annual cavalcade of seasons,
Each passing through the portals of the heart,
A slow parade of brightly colored passions
Swirling round and round the rimless dark!
One sings in harmony with what one hears,
Now consonant, now dissonant, yet ever
Seasonal, as the ponderous pageant turns
Gracefully from one year to another.
Remember that a cosmic accident,
Earth’s tilted axis vis-à-vis its sun,
Ever shapes the heart’s environment,
The music that pervades the songs within.
In every thought and feeling, every pleasure,
Need, desire, pain, regret, perception,
Granted that free choice seems in one’s power,
Sing what you alone could not have written.

 © by Nicholas Gordon

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

 To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/sing23.html. For more Season’s Greetings poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html .

It Wasn't Over When You Died

 

IT WASN'T OVER WHEN YOU DIED

A poem about how child abuse can be passed on through generations:

 

It wasn't over when you died,
When I was still too young to know
The damage that you did inside,
The pain that I would undergo.

When I was still too young to know,
You did to me what things you would.
The pain that I would undergo
Came later, once I understood.

You did to me what things you would
While I lay numb and still. The hate
Came later, once I understood
The sorrow that you came to sate.

While I lay numb and still, the hate
Arose in you as love, as need.
The sorrow that you came to sate
Then passed between us in your seed.

Arose in you as love, as need
To undergo yourself in me,
Then passed between us in your seed,
Became your lasting legacy.

To undergo yourself in me,
The damage that you did inside
Became your lasting legacy.
It wasn't over when you died.

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Journeyman. By Aakash Gandhi. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/itwasn.html. For more poems about child abuse, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/childabusepoems.html .

October Is Self-Confident and Strong

 

A calendar poem for October:

 

October is self-confident and strong,
Crisp and ready for the captious wind.
Though life lies less ahead and more behind,
Old age can barely peek through well-clad bones.
Beauty so outrageous can't be wrong,
Even as death steals among the stones,
Resting where the leaves lie battered, blind.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

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

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/octobe.html. For more calendar poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html . 

Adelaide Is Gracious to a Fault

 A name poem for Adelaide about an abused child who grows up with an exaggerated fear of conflict:

 

Adelaide is gracious to a fault,
Desiring harmony more than she does desire.
Each disagreement threatens to turn dire.
Likes and dislikes never leave the vault.
A child of war becomes adept at peace.
Intuitively she skirts the hidden mines,
Determined not to cross long-vanished lines,
Eluding rage long after rage has ceased.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: A Kiss for Amanda. By DJ Williams. Music free to use at YouTube. Photo Credit: AI.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/adelai.html. For more name poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html .

Movement Comes Most Often Without Motion

 

A psychological poem about unconscious change:

 

Movement comes most often without motion.
Incremental thaws can peel a rock.
Years wash away the stubbornest emotion,
While silence can the rustiest thought unlock.
There are magic whispers quietly in mourning
That soothe what we will never know as pain,
And songs that come upon us without warning,
Undoing all the buttons that remain.
Our skin is quite a permeable border
Across which strangers freely come and go,
Subversive to our phantom sense of order
Yet never touching what we think we know.
Thus without motion do we silent move
Unknowing, until suddenly we love.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Arms of Heaven. By Aakash Gandhi. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/motion.html. For more psychological poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/psychologicalpoems.html .

There Is a Joy that Banishes All Reason

 

A poem about the difficulty of freeing oneself from an addiction:

 

There is a joy that banishes all reason,
An ecstasy so vast it has no shore,
A craving that devours all decision,
A lust for nothingness that lusts for more.
There are angels in pursuit of pain
Who take Satanic pride in degradation,
Who'll drag you down the hill and back again
Hosanna-ing your sweet humiliation.
Just like a fire fanned by a hot, dry wind,
Or like a flood that sweeps away all will,
This wall of pleasure leaves no one behind,
No sign of life where all one loves lies still.
So does the soul in anguish hate the joy
That soothes the hate that does the soul destroy.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

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

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/addict.html. For more poems about addiction, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/alcoholismaddictionpoems.html .

Just Think of How It Was That Hot July

 

An American Independence Day poem about what it might have been like on July 4, 1776:

 

Just think of how it was that hot July
Under threat of being hanged for treason.
Let yourself have faith enough to die,
Yet let that faith be in the power of reason.
Feel the heady fear of rash rebellion,
Of chaos, blood, death, vengeance, mayhem, blight.
Unleash with noble words that ancient hellion
Reigning cruelly over years of night.
They turned out to be right, those bold, brave men.
However, think what terrors faced them then.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

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

 

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

June

 

A calendar poem for June:

 

June is promise bent on a reward,
Unsparing in his self-inflicted vow,
Not knowing that the golden time is now,
Ever the bright dream he struggles toward.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

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

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/june.html. For more calendar poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html .

Mai Is Well Aware She Is the Future

 

A psychological poem for Mai about how her identity is shaped by her generation:

 

Mai is well aware she is the future

And much depends upon who she becomes.

If someone took her generation's picture,

Mai knows its beauty would be everyone's.

One is rooted deeply in one's time,

New source of seed and leafmeal for the soil,

The graceful iteration of a rhyme,

Equally a prototype and foil.

Clearly, what each does induces all

Alike to turn, to model, and to change.

Remember that as one we rise and fall,

Lest pride our hearts from our shared selves estrange.

Our choices, all of them, confused or clear,

Sustain a common moral ecosphere.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: No.1 A Minor Waltz. By Esther Abrami. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/mai.html. For more psychological poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/psychologicalpoems.html .

Here Is Neither Here nor There

 

A philosophical poem about the mystery of being:

 

Here is neither here nor there;

Now's eternity.

In every meaning that has meaning,

There is mystery.

 

Nothing is a pseudo-concept:

Nothing can be nothing.

Being, then, must be eternal:

Always, ever, something.

 

How might that be? I have no clue

What it is or how

It came to be. I only know

The miracle of now.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Bike Sharing to Paradise. By Dan Bodan. Music free to use at YouTube.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/herei5.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

Each Moment Is like Sunlight on the Heart

 

A poem for Eid al-Fitr about returning to the holiness of ordinary life at the end of the greater holiness of Ramadan:

 

Each moment is like sunlight on the heart,
Infinity within infinity.
Descend now from the whole back to the part,
As fast gives way to feast, and One to me.
Love is worship, as is pure, chaste pleasure;
Food is worship, music, dance, delight.
Immersed in talk, we savor what we treasure,
The days of fasting fading fast from sight,
Returning, turning, burning through the night.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Parzival. By William Rosati. Music free to use at YouTube. Photo Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/eachm2.html. For more Ramadan poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/ramadanpoems.html .

Purified of Arabs or of Jews

 

A poem for the Jewish holiday of Purim about the need to share the Holy Land:

 

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

 

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

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/purifi.html. For more poems for Purim, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/purimpoems.html .

Holocausts Are Sui Generis

 

A poem for Holocaust Remembrance Day:

 

Holocausts are sui generis.
One sees in all the same totality.
Lest one think they're not so numerous,
One finds some in Deuteronomy.
Can the annihilation of Sihon,
An utterly explicit genocide,
Under God's command to overrun
Some lands where only Jews might now reside,
Thus stated be aught else? How can a Jew
So soon, so soon, such nightmares still pursue?

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Parzival. By William Rosati. Music free to use at YouTube. Photo Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/holoca.html. For more poems about Jewish history and culture, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/jewishpoems.html .

Hatred Has No Color, Creed, or Race

 

A poem for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday about the ubiquity of hatred:

 

Hatred has no color, creed, or race.
All hate, more or less, and thus destroy
The fragile ecosystem of the heart,
Restoring which requires faith and grace.
Each must love for any hope of joy,
Disciplining hate with well-honed art.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

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

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/hatred.html. For more poems for MLK’s birthday, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/martinlutherkingpoems.html .

Every Moment Is a Revelation

 

A poem for Epiphany about the revelation that waits behind the scrim of every moment:

 

Every moment is a revelation
Placed behind the scrim of what one sees.
In every unremarkable sensation,
Poised to dance, some truth awaits a breeze.
How might one then step behind the veil,
Alive in ways one was not meant to live?
None can bear such beauty long, nor fail,
Yet yearning, to revere what grace might give.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Falling Snow. 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/every6.html. For more poems for Epiphany, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/epiphanypoems.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 .

I Cannot Tell You How Much I Have Loved You

 

A poem from a parent to an adult child about the beauty of parental love:

I cannot tell you how much I have loved you,
Nor give you an accounting of my joy,
Nor share with you the hopes with which I've held you,
Nor shadow forth the dreams I would employ.
You cannot know the pleasure that you gave me,
Nor grasp the grace in which I've spent my days,
Nor understand the standing that would save me
Whenever darkness met my morning gaze.
You've been to me a moment everlasting,
Though lasting but the moment of us all,
And given me a glimpse of what, in passing,
Must pass for what awaits beyond the wall.
Such love I wish for you as I have known,
But that must come from children of your own.

© 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/icann3.html. For more poems to children, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/childrenpoems.html .

Given the Fragility of Life

May 23, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is health.

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

A get-well-soon poem for someone who has recently come through surgery:

Given the fragility of life,
Each of us remains a miracle,
Though new emerged from some bright sea of pain.
When every second feels just like a knife
Entering the soft flesh of the will,
Life whispers soon we will be well again.
Linger, then, along the edge of shade;
Soon enough you will be in the sun,
Open-armed, erect, and unafraid.
Old wounds remind us of fierce battles won,
Nor will our patient faith not be repaid.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/givent.html. For more poems about health, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/healthpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Health.
May 17: Perhaps You Think that, Yes, You Are an Island
May 18: I Wear My Mask for You
May 19: Zzzoom
May 20: After the Virus
Mat 21: I Pray for You and Wish I Could Do More
May 22: O Lord, Help Me Be a Burden
May 23: Given the Fragility of Life

Note: Google has decided to discontinue Feedburner, the free service that sends you this daily email. At the age of 80, I have decided that this would be a good time for me to discontinue the Poem of the Day. This will be the last Poem of the Day email.

I will still be posting a new Poem of the Week each week at my Web site (https://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html), as well as regularly adding new poems, drama, and fiction to the site. And you are welcome to follow me on:
Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/PoemsbyNicholasGordon)
Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/poems_for_free)
YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyyixnna5SPO5EIe4IAKkXQ)
and Twitter (https://twitter.com/poemsforfree).

It has been a pleasure sending out, first, the Poem of the Week and later the Poem of the Day for nearly a quarter century. Thank you for being a subscriber and best wishes to you all,

Nick

O Lord, Help Me Be a Burden

May 22, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is health.

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

A religious poem about someone who prays for the strength to be a burden on loved ones:

O Lord, help me be a burden!
My mother and my sister do their duty,
But I can see impatience in their eyes.
Help me, please, endure until my time.

My mother and my sister do their duty,
Loving me as righteousness demands.
Help me, please, endure until my time,
And midst my pain to live with ample grace.

Loving me as righteousness demands,
They teach me how to lean upon your love,
And midst my pain to live with ample grace.
O lift me up upon your unspent shoulders!

They teach me how to lean upon your love,
But I can see impatience in their eyes.
O lift me up upon your unspent shoulders!
O Lord, help me be a burden!

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/olord.html. For more poems about health, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/healthpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Health.
May 17: Perhaps You Think that, Yes, You Are an Island
May 18: I Wear My Mask for You
May 19: Zzzoom
May 20: After the Virus
Mat 21: I Pray for You and Wish I Could Do More
May 22: O Lord, Help Me Be a Burden

Note: Google has decided to discontinue Feedburner, the free service that sends you this daily email. At the age of 80, I have decided that this would be a good time for me to discontinue the Poem of the Day. The last Poem of the Day email will be sent out on May 23rd.

I will still be posting a new Poem of the Week each week at my Web site (https://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html), as well as regularly adding new poems, drama, and fiction to the site. And you are welcome to follow me on:
Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/PoemsbyNicholasGordon)
Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/poems_for_free)
YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyyixnna5SPO5EIe4IAKkXQ)
and Twitter (https://twitter.com/poemsforfree).

It has been a pleasure sending out, first, the Poem of the Week and later the Poem of the Day for nearly a quarter century. Thank you for being a subscriber and best wishes to you all,

Nick