We Went Too Far Too Fast, and Yet

April 11, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A love poem from someone who wants to step back without breaking off:

We went too far too fast, and yet
I don't want this to end.
How do I step back from love
And keep you as a friend?

How do I feel affection and
Refrain from undue touch?
How do I tell you how I feel
And still not say too much?

I know I led you to expect
Far more than I should give
Before I have the strength to know
Just how I want to live.

The fault is mine, all mine, and so
I now must ask of you
Forgiveness, and the simple space
To do what I must do.

Please don't draw away from me
In anger or in pain,
For in our mutual respect
We both have much to gain.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Troubled Loves.
April 5: Although We’re No Longer Together, I Still Love You
April 6: Love So Often Must Depend on Timing
April 7: There Has to Be a Way Across These Mountains
April 8: There Is a Dark and Gloomy Place
April 9: This Will Not Work if You Don’t Want to Try
April 10: We’ve Been Dating Now More than a Year
April 11: We Went Too Far Too Fast, and Yet

We've Been Dating Now More than a Year

April 10, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A love poem asking for more than the other is willing to give:

We've been dating now more than a year,
And I'd like to date you many more;
But there are things that I've been waiting for,
And why you still avoid them isn't clear.
What is it in our intimacy you fear?
What hurdles of the mind, what inner law
Shuts the gates of pleasure just before
Our love can gallop off in full career?
Is it some alignment of our stars
That twists your taste just as we near the line?
Some gremlin that turns ecstasy to ice?
Or is it some tough principle that bars
Affection from erasing yours and mine,
Joining us in one bright paradise?

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/weveb2.html. For more love poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Troubled Loves.
April 5: Although We’re No Longer Together, I Still Love You
April 6: Love So Often Must Depend on Timing
April 7: There Has to Be a Way Across These Mountains
April 8: There Is a Dark and Gloomy Place
April 9: This Will Not Work if You Don’t Want to Try
April 10: We’ve Been Dating Now More than a Year

This Will Not Work if You Don't Want to Try

April 9, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A love poem to a spouse in the midst of marital difficulty:

This will not work if you don't want to try.
There is no way to love except to choose.
You cannot go through people as through shoes:
With each love lost a bit of you must die.
We are all yours, the three of us, and I
Still love you though I know that I may lose.
My love is there to answer or refuse;
I wait upon your definite reply.
Do not say yes for any sake but yours,
Nor sacrifice your happiness for duty,
Nor swim against the current of your will.
But you will find abundance on these shores,
And in your love a more abiding beauty
Than any that might barren hunger still.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Troubled Loves.
April 5: Although We’re No Longer Together, I Still Love You
April 6: Love So Often Must Depend on Timing
April 7: There Has to Be a Way Across These Mountains
April 8: There Is a Dark and Gloomy Place
April 9: This Will Not Work if You Don’t Want to Try

There Is a Dark and Gloomy Place

April 8, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A name and love poem to a lover who can’t make up his mind:

There is a dark and gloomy place where choices
Have their homes and wait upon your touch.
After long and futile waits for voices,
You must, alas!, sign on to such-and-such.
A family in a circle warm and loving:
Less sweet? or more? than living lone and free?
A choice in darkness, both sides fiercely shoving:
My heart is yours, whichever it might be!

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Troubled Loves.
April 5: Although We’re No Longer Together, I Still Love You
April 6: Love So Often Must Depend on Timing
April 7: There Has to Be a Way Across These Mountains
April 8: There Is a Dark and Gloomy Place

There Has to Be a Way Across These Mountains

April 7, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A love poem about lovers who are going through tough times:

There has to be a way across these mountains.
Somewhere there's a pass we haven't found.
The setting sun casts rows of jagged shadows
Swallowing what little hope remains.

Cold descends, the iron will of darkness,
When we can nothing do except survive.
Love like burning embers keeps us breathing
As bitterness engulfs the icy stars.

Ah, my love! There will be, will be morning!
The sun will rise up like an answered prayer.
We will find our way across these mountains
To build our lives on rich, well-watered plains.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Troubled Loves.
April 5: Although We’re No Longer Together, I Still Love You
April 6: Love So Often Must Depend on Timing
April 7: There Has to Be a Way Across These Mountains

Love So Often Must Depend on Timing

April 6, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A love poem about the role of timing in love:

Love so often must depend on timing.
We loved each other, but at different times.
Now, still friends, we share our hearts by smiling.

One or then the other winds up pining
As one who loved in vain another finds.
Love so often must depend on timing.

Or one moves far away, and when returning,
Discovers distance of another kind.
Now, still friends, we share our hearts by smiling,

Yet love remains like moonlight, setting, rising;
Even as a sliver, it still shines.
Love so often must depend on timing,

Two desires never quite combining,
Ever close, but never quite aligned.
Now, still friends, we share our hearts by smiling,

Doing the right thing, never crossing
Even by a hint the other's lines.
Love so often must depend on timing.
Now, still friends, we share our hearts by smiling.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/loves2.html. For more love poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Troubled Loves.
April 5: Although We’re No Longer Together, I Still Love You
April 6: Love So Often Must Depend on Timing

Although We're No Longer Together, I Still Love You

April 5, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A love poem to a former lover about the difficulty of letting go:

Although we're no longer together, I still love you.
Each moment of each day, I'm thinking of you.
Everywhere we once were, I still miss you.
Every place that's new, I want to show you.

I know I have my flaws and didn't do
Many of the things I should have done.
I live in self-served pain with my regret,
Salvaging my pleasure with my sorrow.

I do not ask you to come back to me.
The past is past and needs now to be buried.
I tell you this because I cannot bear
That you not hear the beating of my heart.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/altho6.html. For more love poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Troubled Loves.
April 5: Although We’re No Longer Together, I Still Love You

Blessed Are Those Who Cherish Well Their Loves

February 11, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day, which is celebrated on February 14.

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

A Valentine’s Day poem about the importance of cherishing one’s love:

Blessed are those who cherish well their loves!
Each enduring love is like a river:
Making bloom the land through which it moves,
Yielding bounty in exchange for labor.
Very few appreciate this treasure,
As most desire more while giving less,
Liable to miss joy pursuing pleasure,
Each dragged into love under duress.
Nor does one understand so easily
That love requires one to be a lover:
Intimate in ways that set one free,
Needing for one's sense of self the other,
Even as one is oneself an other.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/bless3.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day.
February 8: Hunger Is an Organ Tone
February 9: Although Our Love Is Over, It Remains
February 10: Be with Us in the Circle of Our Love
February 11: Blessed Are Those Who Cherish Well Their Loves

Hunger Is an Organ Tone

February 8, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day, which is celebrated on February 14.

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

A Valentine’s Day poem about the ubiquity of longing:

Hunger is an organ tone,
A single note sustained
Perhaps until one is before
Paradise arraigned.
Yearning doesn't end with love,
Vintner of despair.
All the love one can conceive
Leaves some longing there.
Even in one's lover's arms,
Needing nothing more,
There's a void within the heart
Increasing loss with store.
Nor can one love but feel that pang,
Empty at its core.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day.
February 8: Hunger Is an Organ Tone

Lust for the One You Love

February 7, 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 how love can enrich the pleasures of lust:

Lust for one you love
Is like a garden flower
That must be pruned and weeded
Before it yields its treasure.

Years refine its grace,
But only with devotion
And much imagination
To freshen the familiar.

But, ah! what then the freedom
That comes alone from giving
And knowing that your wishes
Will be your lover's pleasure!

For in the utmost chamber
Lust is quickly sated
While love still brings redemption,
Ever life's sole savior.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lustfo.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
February 3: Fools Desire Flesh; the Wise Love Souls
February 4: Love Comes Unexpectedly
February 5: Love Is Not a Simple Yes or No
February 6: Love Redeems the Passions of the Moment
February 7: Lust for the One You Love

Love Redeems the Passions of the Moment

February 6, 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 philosophical love poem about the fundamental attraction that underlies all being:

Love redeems the passions of the moment
Underneath the qualms that quell the sea.
All the queries that have room to comment
Know quite well how good it is to be!
Love allows the rivers to run freely,
The tides to turn without the least regret,
The mountains to give way to time, sincerely
Pleased with what the eons will forget.
Love turns every moment to forever,
And every thing to unintended song,
And makes a worship out of all endeavor,
And through its suffering, denounces wrong.
Bear witness, then, to love, that you might bear
To be, with neither purpose nor despair.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovere.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
February 3: Fools Desire Flesh; the Wise Love Souls
February 4: Love Comes Unexpectedly
February 5: Love Is Not a Simple Yes or No
February 6: Love Redeems the Passions of the Moment

Love Is Not a Simple Yes or No

February 5, 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 how to identify true love:

Love is not a simple yes or no.
Only will and time ordain its truth.
Visions of sweet pleasure come and go.
Embracing love takes wisdom more than proof.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovei4.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
February 3: Fools Desire Flesh; the Wise Love Souls
February 4: Love Comes Unexpectedly
February 5: Love Is Not a Simple Yes or No

Love Comes Unexpectedly

February 4, 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 depth of spiritual experience that can be had through love:

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 love, yes, the same that binds
A husband to a wife.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovec3.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
February 3: Fools Desire Flesh; the Wise Love Souls
February 4: Love Comes Unexpectedly

Fools Desire Flesh; the Wise Love Souls

February 3, 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 philosophical love poem about the wisdom of choosing love over lust:

Fools desire flesh; the wise love souls.
Friendship, kindness, generosity,
Humor, wit, a harbor free of shoals --
These bring far more joy than ecstasy.
Yet there are those who, bored by harmony,
Prefer an edgy dissonance that holds
The prospect of a life near duty free,
Adventure unconstrained as time unfolds.
There is, of course, no choice without its cost.
One must be this or that or in between.
And what one isn't stays within the heart.
Wisdom lies in knowing what is lost.
The self's less self less selfless, and more mean,
While loving is a rich yet ruthless art.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/foolsd.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
February 3: Fools Desire Flesh; the Wise Love Souls

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

A Love Duet for Contrary Voices

February 1, 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 contrasting free love with commitment:

A LOVE DUET FOR CONTRARY VOICES

ONE

Let me love you as I would,
Not as you will or as I should.
For love, to linger, must be free,
And what you wish for isn't me.

TWO

You might love me as you would,
But I must spurn you, as I should.
For though love is a choice that's free,
Once made, it means that you love me.

ONE

Only you? I might love two,
Or three or four. As might you.
For love will ever have its way,
Regardless what we do or say.

TWO

Those who say that they love two
Love only one--themselves. For you
Confuse desire with love, whose way
Is willed, regardless what you say.

ONE

Is willed? Confuse love with desire?
But what is love without the fire?
A cage in which two birds expire,
Each to each a gutless liar.

TWO

Love begins, yes, as desire,
But then one must maintain the fire,
Lest it, lacking care, expire,
Making one a faithful liar.

BOTH

On this point we both agree:
Love loves not dishonesty.

ONE

But some would love upon the sea,

TWO

While some would love more vertically,
That past and future rooted be
In one well-tended, fruitful tree.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/aloved.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

Poem of the Week

February 2, 2012 #670

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/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Some would look for love when love is nigh,
Or fill their fantasies with love unreal,
Afraid to love, and thus afraid to feel,
Afraid to be entangled in a lie.
For love is a commitment that might tie
One to a choice one would, perhaps, repeal,
Leading to regrets one would conceal,
Since any time, it's true, one's love could die.
Simpler just to dream instead of be,
Since being is so hard, and dreaming easy,
Allowing one one's choices without choosing.
One cannot choose to love and still be free,
A gift of self that tends to make one queasy,
Not knowing what, by keeping, one is losing.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

August 11, 2011 #646

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

Lest your love lie undisclosed,
Simply say what's in your heart,
With neither eloquence nor art,
Unafraid to be exposed.

Some fear their love might be accepted,
Inspiring an expectation;
Others fear humiliation,
Too restrained to be rejected.

Either way, you're sure to lose
By hiding what you know is true.
The love you feel is merely you
Rendered up to whom you choose.

So say it, let your love be known,
And be more fully who you are!
The fear of pain ought never bar
The joy that else might be your own.

© by Nicholas Gordon