"Purim" Means "Lots," Which Wicked Haman Threw

 A poem for Purim that juxtaposes human intent and God’s:

 

“Purim” means “lots,” which wicked Haman threw,
Understanding thus the gods would choose,
Regarding when to massacre the Jews,
Ignorant of whose intent was whose,
More God's lot than any lot he drew.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Bucolic Acrylic. By Dan Bodan. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI.

 

Note: My website, https://www.poemsforfree.com, is temporarily disabled due to a domain name registration change. To see more of my work, please visit my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@Poemsforfree .

You Are the Landscape of My Life

 

A poem for Valentine’s Day:

 

You are the landscape of my life,
The only place I feel at home,
The view familiar to my heart,
The woods and fields I call my own.

 

You are the music of my life,
The melody I silent sing,
The harmony beneath my words,
The rhythm of my wandering.

 

You are the space in which I live,
The boundary of my ecstasy,
The pleasure palace of my dreams,
The flesh that fills my fantasy.

 

All this you are to me and more,
A soul so much a part of mine
That when I look within, you are
In me, my love, my valentine.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Kiss the Sky. 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/youa10.html. For more poems for Valentine’s Day, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html .

You're like Music Playing in My Head

 

A love poem describing the experience of new love:

 

You're like music playing in my head
Everywhere I go from day to day.
I try a door and think of you instead,
Not knowing where I am or what I'll say.
I live in a perpetual embrace,
Hugging the sweet thought that you are mine.
Walking through a park I touch your face,
Not caring if there's rain or bright sunshine.
The cause must be, of course, our love is new;
It can't go on like this for years and years.
I must take note of other things than you
And clear my head of smiles and grateful tears.
Yet such talk seems fantasy to me:
The world's the dream, and you reality.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Forever Yours. 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/youre.html. For more poems about love, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html .

There've Been, of Course, Many Holocausts

 

A poem for Holocaust Remembrance Day:

 

There've been, of course, many holocausts.
How come only one gets to be "The"?
Each equally horrific, though some are lost,
Hard to tally, or ancient history.
Only one was just pure genocide,
Lacking any other conceivable aim.
Obliteration, total and worldwide,
Could be the only goal that might explain
A factory of death, efficiently
Unloading loved ones from boxcars to be gassed,
Shoving them naked into ovens, routinely
Turning millions into heaps of ash.

 

© 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/ther52.html. For more poems for Holocaust Remembrance Day, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/jewishpoems.html .

Maybe Racial Hatred Is Baked In

 

A poem for Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday:

 

Maybe racial hatred is baked in,
A trait evolved through natural selection.
Remember the doctrine of original sin:
That cleansing of the soul requires salvation.
If racial territoriality,
Not at home except with one's own kind,
Looking, staring at others resentfully,
Unwinding zero-sum games in one's mind,
Takes conversion rather than conversation,
Human nature being tribal still,
Even in a multi-nation nation,
Reason rarely touching deep-down will:
Knowing this, what happens to my dream?
Individual souls can be reborn.
Need faith a whole society redeem?
Given time, can humanity reform?
Just remember: Though dreams may light the way,
Real change, in fits and starts, comes day by day.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

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

 

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

Sing of Marriage and of Loves That Last

 

A 17^th anniversary poem:

 

Sing of marriage and of loves that last,

Each year again a cause for jubilation,

Voices and arms raised in celebration,

Elevating either gloss or glass!

Nor can one find one's way across the vast

Time 'twixt birth and death without relation,

Ever the locale of one's location,

Ever the love that binds one to life fast.

Nor ought one be a tree without deep roots,

Yielding to the next fierce hurricane,

Ever fearful of each gathering storm.

A self and soul work best when in cahoots,

Rationale and rational the same,

Singing with full throat a joyful song.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Allemande. By Wahneta Meixsell. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI.

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/sing24.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

Every Road Is Headed for Damascus

 

A poem for Epiphany about the burden of an epiphany:

 

Every road is headed for Damascus.
Pick any one you like, or randomly.
Intent on getting somewhere? No one asks us,
Preps us, points us towards epiphany.
How will you respond? What will you see,
Accosted by that vision? Will it task us,
Name us, seize us, scar us permanently?
Yet how, yet how unwitness what just passed us?

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

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

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/ever15.html. For more poems about Epiphany, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/epiphanypoems.html .

How Beautiful the Turning of the Year

 

A New Year’s poem about the artificial beauty of the border between one year and the next:

 

How beautiful the turning of the year!
A moment artificial yet profound:
Point upon an arbitrary chart
Passing like a breath upon the heart,
Yearning with anticipation wound,
New hope new harbored in old-fashioned cheer.
Even when the boundary line is clear,
We recognize the oneness of the ground.
Years, like circles, do not end or start
Except we lay across their truth our art,
Adjusting dates as they go round and round
Revolving to a tune long sung and dear.

 

© 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/howbea.html. For more poems for the new year, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/newyearsdaypoems.html .

Make Time, Make Time to Listen to Your Heart

 

A Christmas poem about the benefits of putting reason away for the holiday:

 

Make time, make time to listen to your heart!
Empty out your thoughts and then just listen!
Reason can't compete with faith and art.
Resist it! It will go into remission.
Yes, listen to the arguments of grace,
Clarifying mysteries no word
Has ever plumbed: the source of time and space,
Reality, Being, you, me -- all absurd.
If everything is equally a miracle,
Sing carols on a cold, crisp winter night,
Taking on the inexplicable,
Making it as lyrical as light.
Although your reason may not wish to stay,
Sing with the angels! Sing! It's Christmas Day!

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: The Beauty of Love. 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/maketi.html. For more Christmas poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/xmaschristmaspoems.html .

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 .