Palates Can Be Palettes of the Soul

March 21, 2013 #729

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Passover.

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

Palates can be palettes of the soul,
As tastes can paint a picture of the past.
So might ritual foods make memories last,
Summoning up fond fragments of the whole.
Of matzah, then, charoset, bitter herb,
Vivid harbingers of what has been,
Each Pesach sing, and with your tongue again
Recall the revelation that they serve.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Sing of Ireland, That Salad Bowl

March 14, 2013 #728

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for St. Patrick'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/week.html/.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Sing of Ireland, that salad bowl!
The greens are tossed with bits of yellow and brown.
Perhaps the tossing might make some folks frown,
Although the taste be tangy to the soul.
There is no past for which the bells don't toll,
Regardless how its ways are handed down.
In time its heroes, once of great renown,
Come faded to the fun house of the whole.
Know, then, that the Ireland of old
'Ere long will be what none alive remember,
Save for remnants treasured by a few.
Deep within the heartache that takes hold,
An ancient ecstasy becomes an ember,
Yielding over years to Irelands new.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Mothers Must Make Mornings Seem Worthwhile

March 7, 2013 #727

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Mothering Sunday (British Mother'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/week.html/.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Mothers must make mornings seem worthwhile,
Offering a life of love and beauty.
The music in their hearts becomes the song
Humming in their children all life long,
Enduring legacy, exacting duty,
Requiring an honest inner smile
Sustained by love – well-tended, willed, and strong.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

February 28, 2013 #726

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a play on words.

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

There has to be some tension in attention
And something supple in a supplication.
One finds little content in contention
And too few revels in a revelation.

An insight ought to mind and heart incite
And alter what one worships at one's altar.
At times one needs a rite to get things right,
But then could use a salter for one's psalter.

Sound advice can often come through sound,
And payment made in kind, when hearts are kind.
Found relations new relations found,
Would one not mind a playful turn of mind.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Borders Are Obscenities

February 21, 2013 #725

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

Borders are obscenities,
Barbed wire through the heart,
Guardians of amenities
Tearing us apart;

Scars across the living Earth,
Remnants of old wounds;
Bastions of good luck at birth;
Death among the dunes;

Walls to stop a surging sea,
Keeping back the tide
Of those of us who are not we
Yet would join us inside;

Fortresses of fortunes good
And prison camps of bad;
Boundaries of brotherhood
In mines and sensors clad;

Soon, we hope, to be just lines
Unnoticed as we pass
Some unobtrusive welcome signs
Half hidden in tall grass.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Vital Signs Include the Pulse of Love

February 14, 2013 #724

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/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Vital signs include the pulse of love
As measured by the grace with which one lives.
Love maintains the spirit's health and gives
Each life a dignity that none need prove.
Nor need a lover need a lover of
The moment to enjoy what this day brings.
In every heart an unspent hope has wings,
Nestled in, but placed to make its move.
Embrace, then, what you cannot do without.
'Ere night the pulse of love should make you dance
So that your movement mirrors what you feel.
Dance with grace too beautiful to doubt,
Alive to the allurement of romance,
Yearning with a joy you can't conceal.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

February 7, 2013 #723

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for the Chinese, or Lunar New Year (the Year of the Snake).

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

They also serve themselves who lie in wait,
However much they may be moved to strike.
Empty-headed fools do as they like,
Yielding the ill fortune they call fate.
Eventually, things fall into place
As patience reaps its ultimate reward.
Remember that the wise are rarely bored
Or restless as the game goes on apace.
For those who play it well, with subtlety,
Taking nothing as it might appear,
Having much desire and little fear,
Each moment is suspended ecstasy.
Success is sweetest when it is well earned,
Not snatched from some unmeditated wind.
All one loves may well be left behind,
Kindred of the heart or blood, not kind,
Each a lesson from which one has learned.

© by Nicholas Gordon