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

Poem of the Week

January 31, 2013 #722

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

Horses have friends, and cows, pigs, elephants.
Dogs have best buddies, and parrots, possums, ducks.

Eating alone in a public place can be embarrassing,
As though one's personal failure to connect was on view.

Perhaps we need listeners to make our thoughts real.
Perhaps we need another's warm space as a refuge.

A word of affection is like sunlight to a flower,
Opening it up to the scent-laden sky.

A friend is a mirror, without which we could not see ourselves.
A friend is a window, without which we could not see beyond ourselves.
A friend is a necessity, like food, or sleep, or home.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

January 24, 2013 #721

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

I do not wish to undermine your sorrow
Or blunt the healing power of your pain,
But there will be another day tomorrow,
And you will, yes, be happy once again.
Grief is music, sad but full of beauty,
Song of love that ought not last too long.
If it lasts, it turns into self-pity,
Which does both mourned and mourner grievous wrong.
Grief is just a shaft of mourning sunlight.
It is not all-consuming like the night.
Soon the clouds will burn away, and one light
Of love will shine, ubiquitous and bright.
Love is one, beyond all joy and grief.
Love is the tree, and each beloved the leaf.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

January 17, 2013 #720

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/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Meaning is a morning song,
A dawn, a dance of light.
Reason merely sings along
To get the lyrics right.
In what you know is what you are,
Not what you'll become.
Let not sight your vision bar,
Undone by what is done.
To love must be to hope, for love
Has far too much to lose.
Embrace the good you're wary of,
Refusing to refuse.
Knowledge is as knowledge does.
It so quickly turns to was.
Now is ever when
Grace will come again.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

January 10, 2013 #719

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/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Heaven is an ordinary day.
All the love there is, is in your hearts.
Perhaps the chatter jostles with the music
Pouring forth from angels on all sides.
Yet every moment sings with jubilation.

For you today's a day of celebration
In which you mark the joining of your lives.
Fortune comes to those who don't refuse it,
The self-served gift, despite one's fits and starts,
Heaven that succumbs, and serves, and stays.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

January 3, 2013 #718

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

Every moment is a revelation
Placed behind the scrim of what one sees.
In every unremarkable sensation,
Poised to dance, some truth awaits a breeze.
How might one then step behind the veil,
Alive in ways one was not meant to live?
None can bear such beauty long, nor fail,
Yet yearning, to revere what grace might give.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

December 27, 2012 #717

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for New Year'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

Here again we have a new beginning,
An old refrain to start a brand-new verse.
Perhaps the belly droops, the hair is thinning;
Perhaps each year the memory gets worse.
Yet new beginnings always start with hope,
Needing hope to nurture innocence,
Endeavoring to find a way to cope
When nothing deeply thought about makes sense.
Years come and go; Eden doesn't change.
Each new year we toddle forth again,
Afoot into a world that's ever strange,
Restored by some great turning tide within.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Note: A poem of mine, The Seven Deadly Sins, has been set to music by Michael Isaacson, a noted composer and conductor. If you would like to hear his choral setting of my poem and other choral pieces by him, performed by Counterpoint, a chorus conducted by Robert DeCormier, you can purchase a CD at http://www.michaelisaacson.com/recordings/anamericanhallel.html .

Poem of the Week

December 20, 2012 #716

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a children’s poem for Christmas.

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

Angel horses flap their wings
High above the winter night.
Far below an angel sings
Of peace and joy, of love and light.

Down, down, down the horses fly,
Down through stars, across the moon,
Down through clouds and cold, dark sky
To where the angel sings her tune.

And there the angel horses wait,
Listening to her song of love,
Far from home and Heaven's gate,
Far from sweet green fields above,

Listening to the angel's song,
So beautiful it makes them weep,
Hovering over us all night long
While we are fast asleep.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Note: A poem of mine, The Seven Deadly Sins, has been set to music by Michael Isaacson, a noted composer and conductor. If you would like to hear his choral setting of my poem and other choral pieces by him, performed by Counterpoint, a chorus conducted by Robert DeCormier, you can purchase a CD at http://www.michaelisaacson.com/recordings/anamericanhallel.html .

December 13, 2012 #715

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for the holiday season.

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

Should one see darkness or the turn to light?
Each sees with the heart more than the eye.
As winter looms, the sun starts towards its height,
Slightly higher in each noontide sky.
One finds in this a useful metaphor,
Neatly rendered in the holiday.
Since ancient times, perhaps since long before,
Glad tidings came as Earth in darkness lay.
Remember always how the seasons turn:
Each solstice of one's sorrow is a sign,
Even if not easy to discern,
That in that hour the sun begins to climb.
In joy and laughter, fellowship and praise,
Now sing of sanguine winter holidays --
Grace amid the darkness, dawn at night,
Songs of birth and bounty, love and light!

© by Nicholas Gordon

Note: A poem of mine, The Seven Deadly Sins, has been set to music by Michael Isaacson, a noted composer and conductor. If you would like to hear his choral setting of my poem and other choral pieces by him, performed by Counterpoint, a chorus conducted by Robert DeCormier, you can purchase a CD at http://www.michaelisaacson.com/recordings/anamericanhallel.html .