Poem of the Week

September 11, 2008 #499

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem about 9/11.

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

So did you die of history,
Each innocent of dogma dead,
Purloined to play in some fool's head
The drama of his destiny.
Even in your hapless herds,
Miracles to men unmoved,
Being loved as you were loved,
Even thus, you were but words.
Reason seeks what reason knows.
Each alone must bridge the gulf,
Loving all as if oneself,
Else blood with reason endless flows.
Vanquished, you must still live on,
Each murdered soul a monument,
Nor what you mean be what you meant,
The private to the public gone,
Held long as letters carved in stone.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

September 4, 2008 #498

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a philosophical 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 world is one gigantic jam session,
Each instrument improvising madly
On traditional themes. Everything one is,
Or thinks, or says, or does, adds or detracts
From the beauty of the music. Listen:
What you hear is yourself, a solo against
The continuo, or perhaps just a single note
That waters well your desert eyes.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

July 31, 2008 #497

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a Labor Day 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

Note: I will be away for the month of August. The next poem of the week will be emailed on Thursday, Sept. 4.

Let the market set the price of labor!
And who would want to vote for such a life?
Because we live in a democracy,
Our policies are shaped by peaceful strife,
Rewarding those who fight for what they favor.

Despite the logic, what fool would agree,
Alerted to his interest, to turn over,
Yielding neck to economic knife?

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

July 24, 2008 #496

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

You were for us not only love, but bread,
Our source of sustenance as well as joy.
Now not grief but hunger mourns the dead.

We must content ourselves with what we beg,
The bitter gifts no kindness can alloy.
You were for us not only love, but bread.

We miss you, but our hearts have turned to lead.
We cannot one sweet pang of pain enjoy.
Now not grief but hunger mourns the dead.

Nor have we any tears that we might shed
For you, nor thoughts that might grief buoy.
You were for us not only love, but bread,

And so there are no dreams of you in bed,
Nor memories with which my mind might toy.
Now not grief but hunger mourns the dead.

No room, no room, but emptiness instead,
A need that does all other need destroy.
You were for us not only love, but bread.
Now not grief but hunger mourns the dead.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

July 17, 2008 #495

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a number 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

Twenty-eight has come to a decision,
Weary of the unrequited years.
Eventually one tempers one’s ambition,
Nullifying fantasies with fears,
Trading passions for secure careers,
Yet retaining rights to one’s old vision.

Each moment of one’s life still sings its song
In harmony enduring with the whole.
Gifts of love will last one’s whole life long,
However much one shifts one’s glance or goal,
The organ tones beneath one’s dancing soul.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

July 10, 2008 #494

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is an epitaph for a cat.

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

Maybe I was skittish among strangers:
Only you, my loved ones, owned my heart.
Racing into hiding, I would know,
Given time, the foreigners would go:
Here was home, in which they had no part.
As though I knew my fate, I dodged all dangers;
Nor could I alter it, for all my art.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

July 3, 2008 #493

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Independence Day (USA).

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

Fantasies endure the test of time.
Out of myths emerge identities.
Underneath the prose there is the rhyme,
Revealing what was not and could not be.
There is a well-worn scrim across the past,
Hard to see through, absent light behind:
Old, self-serving stories made to last,
Fictive landscapes painted on the mind.
Just listen to the songs of who you are:
Underneath your words are melodies
Long rehearsed, the bedroom door ajar,
Years ago, when truth was meant to please.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

June 26, 2008 #492

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."

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Here we have a little bit of Eden,
An innocence deliberately detained.
Praised be love, that holds the heel of heaven,
Preserving what would else escape from pain,
Yet now renews the heart again, again.

For love depends upon a tended garden
Older than the myth of Adam’s fall,
Underneath the usual confusion
Resisting the implacable illusion
That makes of love a dream beyond recall:
Here it lives within the garden wall.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

June 19, 2008 #491

Dear Subscriber:

This week's poem of the week is a graduation 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."

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Given that we're happy to be here,
Remember what we're gaining and we're losing.
Admittedly, the moment is confusing,
Demanding sad farewells and well-earned cheer.
Underneath the moment is the motion,
A silent passage out to open sea,
Taking place regardless what may be
In front of us, a ritual commotion.
Of what we are, but little will remain,
Nor will we ever come this way again.

Copyright: Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

June 12, 2008 #490

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a Father's Day 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

How might a sacrifice seem like a gift?
Altruistic pleasure comes from love,
Plumbing depths within which monsters move,
Piercing hearts within which demons drift.
Yet love comes naturally, as one might shift
From darkened fields one’s gaze to lights above,
Astounded by a wonder that will prove
The bridge across one’s first, most wrenching rift.
How might one live insatiably with joy,
Each moment filled with grace one knows is true,
Reasoning from premises that were,
‘Ere life on Earth, deep-rooted in the soul?
So like the sea will love one’s spirits buoy,
Doing what no self alone can do,
As monsters still the ancient waters stir,
Yearning, yearning ever to be whole.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

June 5, 2008 #489

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a philosophical 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 things we least imagine are what happen.
The memory is so unlike the dream!
Love, pleasure, pain, the sadness of life’s passing
Are strangers that we met along the way.

And we ourselves are nothing like the selves
We were and thought, perhaps, we’d always be.
Somehow we got turned into our parents,
Failing neither more nor less than they.

Still we dream and hope for something better,
And pray that no catastrophe comes near,
Knowing that it will, and we will suffer,
And be ourselves far less than we would wish.

This, at least, we know: that disillusion
Is not the quiet ending of the dream.
For dream we must, but, with an inner smile,
Embracing both the nature and the need.

© by Nicholas Gordon