How Can I Say What Is Too Much for Words

April 30, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

An anniversary poem about how each might know how the other’s love feels:

How can I say what is too much for words?
A rainbow cannot fit into my heart.
Perhaps we should be musical as birds
Perched singing of our love with practiced art.
You cannot taste my happiness, or feel
A little of the chill of your caress.
No word or metaphor can make it real,
Nor song contain the truth I would express.
In my love there are mountains miles high,
Valleys rainbow carpeted, and wide
Enough for clear, still lakes to steal the sky ...
R-R-R-R!!! I cannot tell you what's inside!
So you must turn to what you feel for me,
And read therein my tender rhapsody.
Reach deep, my love, and I will be there, too:
You have me in your heart, as I have you.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/howca2.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Anniversaries.
April 26: Here There Are No Platitudes to Share
April 27: Home Must Be a Daily Re-Creation
April 28: How Beautiful the Blandishments of Spring
April 29: How Beautiful the Light upon the Water
April 30: How Can I Say What Is Too Much for Words

Dreams Do Come True

February 2, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A love poem about the need for dreams to survive disillusionment before they can come true:

Dreams do come true, but only when
They make it through despair,
Limping into everyday
Transformed beyond repair.

No dream would be a dream if it
Could pass for something real,
Nor would we sail for paradise
Would it its shoals conceal.

So it is with love: the dream
Long longed for, now possessed,
Must be a dream no longer, but
An emperor undressed.

Stark naked it must come to us
In unaccustomed shame,
And we must take it in our arms
And love it all the same.

And we must love love as it is
That dreams might still come true,
Mangled into miracles
To make our lives anew.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Love.
February 1: A Love Duet for Contrary Voices
February 2: Dreams Do Come True

Poem of the Week

July 21, 2011 #643

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is an anniversary poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week."

You can post a comment on the poem or read other comments on it at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Seven years! Is that the famous itch?
Each marriage tells a story all its own.
Very few can hitch without a hitch.
Enduring love, however, needs a home.
Nor can a couple couple long without
Yearning for some token of the heart.
Ecstasy is not what love's about.
A passion is made permanent by art.
Rejoice, then, in what heart and mind decree!
Seven is good luck – so may it be!

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

February 10, 2011 #620

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Valentine's Day.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week."

You can post a comment on the poem or read other comments on it at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Vintners know the value of the soil.
A wine's taste is determined from below.
Love, like wine, takes sun and rain and toil.
Each may vary; the soil remains just so.
Nor can lovers choose the soil their roots
Take hold in. That lies deeper than the will:
In dreams, in loves long past, in lies and truths
None knows, but from the taste that lives distill.
Even so, the toil and the care --
'Twixt sun and rain, 'twixt seasons bad and good --
Sustain the passion, beautiful to share,
Destined to bring forth what joys it would.
All loves bear fruit, that take the time to grow,
Yielding most to those who patience know.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

January 13, 2011 #616

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week."

You can post a comment on the poem or read other comments on it at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

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

Poem of the Week

June10, 2010 #585
 
Dear Subscriber:
 
This week’s poem of the week is a wedding poem.
 
You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week." 
 
You can post a comment on the poem or read other comments on it at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.
 
Yours,
 
Nick Gordon
 
The bells ring not for just these two
Who will be joined in love today.
They also ring for me and you.
 
And not just for the families who
Now celebrate, as well they may.
The bells ring not for just these, too.
 
And not just those who know or knew
These families well, who came their way.
They also ring for me and you.
 
And not just those who came to view
The bride, the gown, the whole array.
The bells ring not for just these, too.
 
And not just those whose love is true,
Or those who would their doubts allay.
They also ring for me and you.
 
For all are joined in love, and do
Rejoice to hear the sweet bells play!
The bells ring not for just these two.
They also ring for me and you.
 
© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

September 10, 2009 #546

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is an anniversary poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week." You can also cast a vote for it to boost its popularity on Yahoo Buzz.

You can post a comment on the poem or read other comments on it at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happy sixth anniversary!
As years pass, the coating wears away,
Perhaps revealing more than one can see,
Perhaps revealing more than one can say.
Yet what one feels is more than ecstasy.

So is love far more than one can bear --
In grace, in truth, in sacrifice, in power.
Xylophones play on unheard, the air
Tingling somewhere deep beneath the hour,
Heaven within the heart that seeks it there.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

August 6, 2009 #542

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a set of proverbs.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week." You can also cast a vote for it to boost its popularity on Yahoo Buzz.

You can post a comment on the poem or read other comments on it at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

ON MARRIAGE, SEX, AND LOVE

1. One needs always to remember that the point of marriage is not sex but love.
2. Love, like the air, is often taken for granted. But a happily married couple both know that they need love and are grateful to have it.
3. Sex brings ecstasy and then satisfaction. Love brings grace and then fulfillment.
4. One can enjoy both sex and love, but one cannot pursue both. For the pursuit of sexual ecstasy is self-centered and tends towards isolation, whereas the pursuit of love is other-centered and tends towards communion.
5. Marriage is difficult and requires constant compromise. One cannot share a life without losing autonomy, but what one gains is well worth the loss.
6. The only way to be completely autonomous is to be completely alone.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

January 29, 2009 #517

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a love poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com and clicking on "Poem of the Week." You can also cast a vote for it to boost its popularity on Yahoo Buzz.

You can post a comment on the poem or read other comments on it at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Love comes unexpectedly,
An arrow to the heart,
But stays only reluctantly
Through patience, will, and art.

The full-length version of the story
Has both joy and pain,
Boredom, lust, betrayal, glory,
Anger, comfort, shame.

It ends in grief, inevitably,
Through death or separation,
The harshness of the agony
As strong as the relation.

So why, then, love? And why persist
In love long after passion
Has gone its way? And why resist
An urge one need not ration?

The answer is in something more
Than fantasy and pleasure --
A passion passion never saw,
A hunger beyond measure;

A longing for the One in one
One longs for all one's life,
And is, and has, and will become
In time as man and wife.

© by Nicholas Gordon