Because the Root of Poverty Is Injustice

July 10, 2014 #796

Dear Subscriber:

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

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Because the root of poverty is injustice,
And there is wealth enough for all to have
Sustenance and shelter, and the promise
That all will prosper if they work and save;
Indeed, because those then have fewer children,
Leaving each more room in which to grow,
Leveraging lives through education,
Elevating lives by what they know:
Do not succumb to comfortable despair,
And think the poor, like flies, are simply there,
Yielding what might be to what seems so.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/uSgMPWmNBGQ.

Indeed, This Should Be Interdependence Day

July 3, 2014 #796

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/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Indeed, this should be interdependence day.
No nation can lay claim to independence.
Despite the myth of sovereignty, we are
Entangled in a web of greed and need,
Poised upon the lip of life’s destruction.
Eventually, pain will have its way,
Nor will we fail forever our descendants.
Death comes singing anthems from afar,
Even as each victim is a seed
Now blowing in the wind of our redemption.
Come, then, for the Earth will have its say,
Eloquent on the subject of dependence.
Divided, we have not the strength to bar
A nation from its exercise of greed.
Yet as one world, we can avoid extinction.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/mylUe9xF6zk.

Right Action Is the Mother of Right Feeling

June 26, 2014 #795

Dear Subscriber:

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

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Right action is the mother of right feeling.
As one does, one ultimately becomes.
Mere words are insufficiently revealing.
An act of faith revives what living numbs.
Do, then, faithfully the month observe,
And by your abstinence your spirit serve.
Nor will that act be any less than healing.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/7iq0rtKHp2g.

This Is a Time of Extraordinary Hope

June 19, 2014 #794

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/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

This is a time of extraordinary hope.
What makes a couple think their love’s for life?
The passion comes and goes as couples cope
With what it means to be a man and wife.
Love that lasts is more than just a feeling,
More than ecstasy or tenderness,
More than empathy, however healing,
More than affection, joy, or happiness.
All these are love, and yet they will not last
Without a daily, conscious act of will.
The bridge between the future and the past
Is the choice to love through good and ill.
Love can be for life, but only when
The choice is made again, again, again.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/3fheWnV409I.

Find Your Children Everywhere You Look

June 12, 2014 #793

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Father’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/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Find your children everywhere you look
And nurture them with passion and with pleasure.
The road you're on and those that you forsook
Have joined in what you ultimately treasure.
Each life is filled with love one can pass on,
Returning, turning, burning till one's gone,
Such sweet inheritance as none might measure.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/enC4ECBCs7I.

Glad to Graduate and Sad to Leave

June 5, 2014 #792

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/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Glad to graduate and sad to leave.
Ready to go, reluctant to depart.
Anxious to learn what more we can achieve.
Divided down the center of the heart.
Underneath our premature nostalgia,
Avidly we dream of things to come.
The moment is a multilayered mixture
In which each part is greater than the sum.
Our longing is the source of memory.
Nor will we soon forget when we were we.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/2jv0IoYIRSU.

My Tiny Toes Are Not My Nose

May 29, 2014 #790

Dear Subscriber:

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

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

My tiny toes
Are not my nose.
My chubby thighs
Are not my eyes.

My slender hips
Are not my lips.
My salty tears
Are not my ears.

My soft, soft skin
Is not my chin.
My tummy-tum-tum
Is not my thumb.

My wrinkled palms
Are not my arms.
My tight-clenched fist
Is not my wrist.

And yet I know
I am made so
When they combine
They are all mine!


© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/Z56cZl1xbfI.

Maybe One Must End the War Within

May 22, 2014 #790

Dear Subscriber:

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

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Maybe one must end the war within.
Each must first find peace within the heart.
Maybe one ought neither lose nor win,
Ought not presume to tell the two apart.
Remember that this means that one’s own hate
Is something one no longer needs to fight.
A hatred of one’s hatred is a state
Like any other in the way of light.
Do, then, in yourself just leave the field,
Abandoning your saber and your shield,
Yielding the long struggle to be right.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Graduation Means that Now You Must

May 15, 2014 #789

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/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Graduation means that now you must
Repay the debt so innocently incurred,
Although the final tally seems absurd,
Demanding more than you consider just.
Unwillingly you had to make your bed
And now must lie in it, though we are all
The better for your choice. We like to call
Individual what is instead
Our common good. We feed on your success,
Nor can we be unscathed by your distress.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/RtMCYM_A7Vo.

Maybe No One Wholly Leaves the Womb

May 8, 2014 #788

Dear Subscriber:

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Maybe no one wholly leaves the womb,
Of which the memory remains as love --
The need for innocence, the unslaked longing,
Hunger for the beauty of belonging,
Each being for the other what might prove
Redemptive, as love makes the moment bloom,
Self losing self in song, in grace, in giving.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/6zNHckCP7yU.

Ten Years! Such a Round, Emphatic Number

May 1, 2014 #787

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/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Ten years! Such a round, emphatic number!
Each step's an invitation to a dance
Not unlike the foxtrot or the rumba,
Yielding to the rhythms of romance.
Each is one, yet dances as a couple,
A single body joined by love and art,
Rejoicing in the movement, sure and supple,
Singing to the music of the heart.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/eD81Ou3jDkI.

Time Speeds Up as One Grows Older

April 24, 2014 #786

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a philosophical number poem about the nature of time.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Time speeds up as one grows older.
Half one's life is one to two.
In a year, a year's a third.
Realize, though it seems absurd,
Time's proportional to you.
Years for dogs and cats run slower.

Free of time, beyond the knower,
One with all, eternal, true,
Unreachable by will or word,
Resides what will one's life renew.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/yfcM-ecRyaI.

Happy Easter to My Love

April 17, 2014 #785

Dear Subscriber:

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

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happy Easter to my love!
After leaving paradise,
Perhaps a little love is nice,
Proving what no priest could prove.
Years will not that grace remove,
Eternal goodness given twice,
Although the heart be dipped in ice,
Saving all who would so choose.
The love we feel is simply this
Enduring bit of Eden's bliss,
Revealed within each joyful kiss.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/-ljMBch_ptY.

Perhaps This Is No Time for Telling Tales

April 10, 2014 #784

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/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Perhaps this is no time for telling tales.
After all, the slaves are still not free.
So what if God once parted the Red Sea,
Saving us, when slavery still prevails?
Ought one turn to save those left behind?
Very few would face the Pharaoh's host,
Emerging from the sea with little lost,
Ravenous to kill who would be kind.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/TptsH-B4mgQ.

Cabrina

April 3, 2014 #783

Dear Subscriber:

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

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Cabrina is the lover of my life.
All I am is hers, as she is mine.
Blessed are those who have a loving wife,
Redeemed as grace and joy in one combine.
In love one finds what else could never be,
Nor could one see the meaning one can see –
A beauty at the heart of life's design.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/dxlDzp1YcAY.

Mothering Sunday Is a Time to Speak

March 27, 2014 #782

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/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Mothering Sunday is a time to speak
Of what most days there seems no need to say.
The bedrock love on which we build our homes
Has the salience of eternity,
Enduring underneath the shifting years.
Remembering the selfless love we seek,
Infinite love embodied here in clay,
Nurturing hearts and tendons, souls and bones,
Grace incarnate, frail sublimity,
So might we surround with love our fears.
Umbilical thoughts sustain us through the bleak
Nights that turn so slowly into day,
Dreaming in a desert heaped with stones
As we find sustenance in memory,
Yearning for you still with childlike tears.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/DGlyXsZbepA.

I Dreamed I Must Be Sleeping

March 20, 2014 #781

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a humorous poem about dreaming.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I thought I must be dreaming that
I thought I was awake,
For I was without question in
A most peculiar state.

Who was thinking I was dreaming
I was thinking in my sleep?
Was I awake while sleeping?
Oh, this was far too deep!

Or was I dreaming I was thinking
I was dreaming in the night?
And would I wake up tired or rested
Come the morning light?

The alarm beeped, and quickly I
Rolled off the rumpled bed,
Grateful for the clarity
That lit the day ahead.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/gSapt66Qty8.

Self Becomes Less Self the More Self-Served

March 13, 2014 #780

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/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Self becomes less self the more self-served,
As who one is arrives from parts unknown.
Identity is never one’s alone,
Nor can one learn unchanged a single word.
Thus the self by nature is a part,
Present in the body of the whole.
A healthy arm or leg is not a goal
That one pursues regardless of the heart.
Remember, then, that one is more or less
In common with the boundaries one draws,
Choosing or not the love that sings and soars,
Knowing or not what brings one happiness.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/xxFWE2uGTmU.

I Pound My Leather Hand and Wait

March 6, 2014 #779

Dear Subscriber:

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

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I pound my leather hand and wait
For it to gobble up the ball
Skipping towards me like a stone
About to break a knee or shin.

But I reach down my giant hand,
My shovel-shaped, web-fingered hand,
And scoop the skipping stone up in
The webbing like a ping-pong ball.

I sling it to my throwing hand,
Then barrel it across the field.
I pound again my leather hand,
My giant hand, invincible.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/yBixnz9Eqys.

Mugabe and Mandela

February 27, 2014 #778

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a political poem contrasting the ways in which Mandela and Mugabe founded their African states.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Mugabe and Mandela,
Two strategies for change:
One would whites include;
One would whites estrange.

Murder begets murder;
White murder begets black.
Once one goes for blood,
There’s no exit back.

Power unrestrained
By wisdom, love, or law
Leads to even greater
Horrors than before.

Yet letting whites retain
The property they stole
Leaves blacks still dispossessed,
Though equal at the poll.

For wealth is ever power,
Wont to have its way
With those of any color
Who happen to hold sway.

And so the pot still boils
With anger finely honed.
Was violence avoided?
Or was it just postponed?

Mugabe and Mandela,
Two ways to found a state:
One through storms still sailing;
The other drowned in hate.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/SieZYn0ArGw.

Love Comes Unexpectedly

February 20, 2014 #777

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/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Love comes unexpectedly,
As though a melody
Came flooding into everyday,
Turning thought to dance.

It isn’t sensuality,
Or plain good company,
Or beauty, or a fragrant spray
That brings one to romance;

But these and some sweet mystery,
A sensuous sanctity,
That makes a family out of play
And fate of wayward chance.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/SEwTvah0K4E.

Vast Differences Between Us Are like Oceans

February 13, 2014 #776

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/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Vast differences between us are like oceans
Across which we can fly with open arms.
Let us put aside our doubts and qualms,
Enduring through the joy of shared emotions.
Need is the sustainer of devotions,
The answerer of queries and alarms,
Issuer of ecstasies and charms,
Nemesis of unromantic notions.
Each of us needs love as we need food.
‘Ere we see, we longing look for love,
Surviving only by that gift of feeling.
Deeper than mere sentiment or mood,
A hunger we remember little of
Yet yearns in ways redemptive and revealing.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/DBKFvchMjaI.

Little Lucy Loves to Read

February 6, 2014 #775

Dear Subscriber:

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

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Little Lucy loves to read,
Reading hour after hour.
Each story plants a tiny seed
That will grow up into a flower.

She reads within her garden where
The flowers oh so slowly grow.
There's lots and lots of beauty there,
In all the lands where she might go.

Oh, Lucy! Read of queens and kings,
Of girls and boys and unicorns,
Of fairy elves with rainbow wings
And ships that vanish into dawns!

And when you grow up big and tall,
And leave the garden far behind,
Look back, and see within the wall
Your flowers sheltered from the wind.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/bsvpBiQorfU.

There's No Secret to Nobility

January 30, 2014 #774

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for the Chinese or Lunar New Year (The Year of the Horse), written by the horse.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

There’s no secret to nobility.
Having seen it, one knows what it is:
Easy elegance, restrained but free,
Yielding grace that’s more than hers or his;
Enduring loyalty to one’s liege lord,
As much for love as for a sense of right;
Reverence that looks for no reward,
Out of some sweet source of inner light;
Friendship that pursues its proper end,
That needs a whole of which one can be part;
Humility, on which pride can depend,
Ever the safe refuge of the heart.
Human animals are far less able,
On the whole, to give themselves to love,
Reason being far less sure and stable,
Sensing what is real at one remove.
Even so, some few might noble prove.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKMGw92ocuY.

Festivities Pull the Cork on the Champagne

January 23, 2014 #773

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a forty-fifth 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

Festivities pull the cork on the champagne,
Opening up the bubbles stored below.
Rising, laughing, dancing as they go,
They burst upon the palate like sweet rain.
Years pass like songs repeating a refrain,
Festivals that mark the tuneful flow
In verses that voice well what all well know,
Verities that life and love sustain.
Each anniversary is like a wave
Yielding to the uplift of the shore,
Ending in a rush of froth and foam.
Again, again, the sea gives what it gave,
Returning, turning yet again for more,
Singing 'cross the well-worn sands of home.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/AhMoEnTWrWY.

Make of Me a Hero

January 16, 2014 #772

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

Make of me a hero, but I was
A failure in what mattered most to me.
Remember well the ill that sainthood does,
Taking holiness for victory.
I think we are as far away as ever,
Not from equal laws but equal lives.
Little has been done to make life better,
Unless you like the shift to guns from knives.
The icon of my face is now a mask
Hiding the destruction of the poor.
Each day is worse for millions than the last.
Raging unregarded is a war.
Know, then, though our president is black,
I would march again, could I come back,
No icon, but a loving, peaceful scourge,
Gathering strength where race and class converge.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1VN22Sbs5M .

Friends Are Where One Offloads What

January 9, 2014 #771

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

Friends are where one offloads what
One cannot bear alone –
Spoiled goods that jam the gut,
Sorrows turned to stone.

Why does the act of telling friends
One's troubles ease one's pain?
Nothing changes, nothing ends,
Yet one can cope again.

It's not that one is looking for
Advice or sympathy.
One has pent-up words to pour
Into reality.

A friend is like a field on which
Such feelings can find air.
The point is not to say too much,
But simply to be there.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/yOS2f1ZM2dU.

Eager for a Miracle

January 2, 2014 #770

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

Eager for a miracle, one sees
Plainly and precisely as one wills,
Immersed in purposes, plans, goals, needs, desires,
Peering through the windows of a dream.
How might one see right through the way things seem,
Adjusting for the light of inner fires?
Numbers measure what the measure kills.
Yet some truths are best measured on one’s knees.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Happiness Is Wholly in One's Power

December 26, 2013 #769

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

Happiness is wholly in one's power
As one provides the chords to fit the tune,
Pleased to play sweet music by the hour,
Pleased to harmonize one's passing gloom.
Yet there are days demanding dissonance,
Needing harsh accompaniment to pain.
Embrace them, then, and give them resonance,
With brass enough to brighten a refrain.
Years are symphonies of varied mood,
Each sketched out by fate, filled in by you.
As the woodwinds dance, the basses brood,
Resolved in beauty – crafted, yes, but true.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLeU9VVDS4M.

Melodies of Christmas Wait All Year

December 19, 2013 #768

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a Christmas 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

Melodies of Christmas wait all year,
Eager to renew their joyous song,
Ready to transmit infectious cheer,
Restive after resting all year long.
Yet when they finally fill the crisp, cold air,
Caroling across the crowded streets,
Harmonies one cannot help but share,
Resonant with rhymes the heart repeats,
Instantly, it seems, the season ends,
So soon the sounds of celebration fade.
The family gatherings and time with friends
Make way as cold, dark everydays invade.
Alas, the melodies' brief hour has fled!
Sleep well, sweet carols, through the year ahead.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/TP-LdXS1lW8.

Seasons Sing in Four-Part Harmony

December 12, 2013 #767

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a Seasons Greetings 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

Seasons sing in four-part harmony,
Ending with a coda full of light,
A hymn to joy upon a long, cold night,
Shining like a candle annually.
Of course, they don't sing simultaneously,
Nor can one without love hear them aright,
Singing through the blessings and the blight,
Glad tidings joined imaginatively.
Rejoice, then, as the angels do, in music,
Even in your silence full of song.
Every season has its canticle
That fits into the glory of the whole.
Infinity is yours, if you would choose it,
Nestled into moments short and long,
Grace embedded in each miracle
Singing to the senses of the soul.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/oxm_VMRmaVc.

And These Are the Islands

December 5, 2013 #766

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan.

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

And these are the islands, tiny green drops
On the broad bright blue canvas of tropical seas.
And these are the great white wheels spinning like tops,

Swallowing mountains as the sea swallows rocks,
Swallowing churches and children and trees,
Swallowing islands like tiny green drops

With their warehouses, schoolhouses, dollhouses, shops,
With their dreams and intentions and sweet fantasies,
All smashed by the great white wheels spinning like tops

That gorge on the profits of energy stocks
And the fumes of our lust for convenience and ease,
Heedless of islands like tiny green drops

And the people who live on them tending their crops
Or working in offices, homes, factories,
Devoured by monsters spinning like tops

In a line of disasters no tragedy stops
Despite the raw poignance of powerless pleas …
And these are the islands, tiny green drops.
And these are the great white wheels spinning like tops.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/pskpL9Jv9pM.

Best Believe in Miracles

November 28, 2013 #765

Dear Subscriber:

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

Best believe in miracles!
One need not be a fuelless flame,
Nor come to Earth as Jesus came,
Nor be unnatural, for we
Indeed all miracles must be,
Each of us unfathomable.

Some think we are fathomable,
Eliminating miracles,
Though that quite clearly cannot be,
Hosting, as we do, the flame,
Each on fire as dancing we
Like God's first light from darkness came.
Into life we lilting came,
Zestful, frail, unfathomable,
Amazed at everything, as we
Believed all things were miracles
Except what was – that inner flame
That must unfueled forever be,
Having lit all things that be.

Glad to come when we first came
Alight with the eternal flame,
Blessed with gifts unfathomable,
Rich in daily miracles,
Innately loving, longing, we
Embraced what seemed as real as we,
Lending life to all that be,
And all around were miracles.
Nor were we skeptics when we came,
Determined to be fathomable,
Knowing fuel accounts for flame,
Even so-called fuelless flame,
No longer needing faith as we,
Now fathoming the unfathomable,
Adult, aware, alone would be.

Even so, in love we came,
Living proof of miracles.
Like the miracle whose flame
Endured eight days, we kindled came,
Nor could be less unfathomable.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/OsfbM9fFSTA.

The Point Is What You Have, Not What You Don't

November 21, 2013 #764

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

The point is what you have, not what you don't.
How can you be happy when you won't?
All of us at times are angry, sad,
Nervous, testy, thinking we've been had,
Knowing life for others turned out better,
Sure that in most dealings we're the debtor.
Granted, granted. But fortune is a choice
In which you find your music and your voice,
Vividly in tune with what you see
If you would live your life harmoniously.
None can choose acceptance without seeing
Gifts that come unsought from simply being.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/n-rvvcunRms.

How Lovely to Live as Marriage Intends

November 14, 2013 #763

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

How lovely to live
As marriage intends:
Partners in pleasure,
Passionate friends!
Years come and go;
The story goes on:
Work, will, and wonder,
Each day too soon gone.
None could know better
Truths that all know:
In well-tended joy
Each embraces the woe
That, shared, finds what solace
Hearts can bestow.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite this poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/lHmbgALLMh8.

Veterans Have Claims upon the Hearts

November 7, 2013 #762

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Veterans 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

Veterans have claims upon the hearts
Even of those who railed against their wars.
The years of sacrifice transcend the cause,
Endured through agonies no word imparts.
Reason cannot comprehend such hell,
As strangers murder strangers out of duty.
Nor does the bleak, obscene, nightmarish beauty
Stop haunting dreams that love and rage compel.
Decency demands we do them honor,
Albeit with a hatred of the horror
Yet rampaging through joy, alive and well.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/l0L82l91jf8.

Brooms Inspire Restless Witches

October 31, 2013 #761

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

Brooms inspire restless witches
Ready for their midnight rides,
Overcome by urgent itches
One indulges to survive.
Maybe you will see them soon
Shrieking as they cross the moon.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/kmdGahlM7ZU.

Retirement Is Not a Long Vacation

October 24, 2013 #760

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

Retirement is not a long vacation,
Even though at times it may so seem.
The point now is the long-deferred vocation,
In which the work is free to serve the dream.
Retire well, then, as you long well labored,
Embracing well the job you took of need,
Making it a servitude well savored,
Enduring work with joy your heart decreed.
Now, though, you unburdened may pursue
The calling that you always thought was you.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/hMdWlfouqcE.

Often the Absence of Angels Seems Eerie

October 17, 2013 #759

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem about angels, ethics, and religion.

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

Often the absence of angels seems eerie,
Offering glimpses of worlds without end,
Vistas of vistas so vast one gets weary,
A desert of light without phantom or friend.

How will we manage when angels are truly
A future forgotten, a past past recall?
How will we rule when the rules are unruly,
With nothing but null at the heart of it all?

It hasn't been long that the angels are gone,
That the world is a speck of a speck out in space,
That two spheres existed where now there is one --
Heaven the haven beyond time and place.

What will come after the choirs of angels
Are silent for centuries? What will we be?
There is in that silence a scream that estranges
The soul from what shadows the senses can see.

The thoughts of Copernicus were the beginning
Of something that still has just barely begun.
What souls will distinguish salvation from sinning
When humans at last say goodbye to the sun?

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/PJEA7eyTgss.

Even as You Sacrifice Yourself

October 10, 2013 #757

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Eid al-Adha, the Muslim Feast of the Sacrifice.

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

Even as you sacrifice yourself,
In love with love and gratified to give,
Dancing 'cross the ancient inner gulf
Athwart the plain on which each soul must live,
Long-borne burdens lighten into prayer,
Acts of worship meant as acts of care,
Done freely out of gratitude and grace,
Hard – yes, hard – and far more than your share,
And still a gift no pleasure can replace.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/qSDzdMWsiPw.

Instinct Is the Motion of Emotion

October 3, 2013 #757

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a psychological poem about instinct.

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

Instinct is the motion of emotion.
The agent of the action is the feeling.
On the land or in the air or ocean,
Creatures dance to what they find appealing.
Deep within the heart an ancient master
Guides us with intentions not our own,
Blind to individual disaster,
Seeking to preserve the eggs of stone.
O love, that lures us to the sacred ground
On which we dance the dances of desire,
And choose the fate the heart had long since found,
Doing what the ancient rites require:
Long may you rule where reason seeks to reign,
And move us to survive through joy and pain.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/Y036PsnylNA.

Social Workers Put a Human Face

September 26, 2013 #756

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem about social workers.

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

Social workers put a human face
On bureaucracy, a smile on the machine.
Client-centered, they navigate between
Interests in a very narrow space.
All that they can do will rarely do,
Life and budgets being what they are.
Will and knowledge only go so far.
One pushes hope, but must push paper, too.
Roles come with scripts that well-trained players read,
Knowing both the function and the need.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at  http://youtu.be/0qJid1qioZg.

What a Life the Artist Lives Within

September 19, 2013 #755

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/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

What a life the artist lives within!
Eden's innocence not left behind!
Ecstasy is everyday, and love
Is just one's ordinary state of mind.

Without, life still exacts its toll of pain.
Hunger is the engine of the will.
One commutes between despair and hope,
Even in the best times fearing ill.

Within, one dances to one's own sweet tune,
Elated with the beauty of one's art,
Walking in the gloom of midnight rain,
Singing in the sunshine of the heart.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/lOKEXTSAELc.

You Find but Little Solace in Success

September 12, 2013 #754

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.

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

You find but little solace in success,
On which you long have hung your self-esteem.
Maybe you expected happiness,
Knowing how the self-important seem.
Instead, you feel a gnawing at the heart,
Perhaps because you know where you've gone wrong,
Purporting to be whole when you are part,
Unable yet to simply sing along,
Restored to worship by the grace of song.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/rPpG2SmHvoQ.

Reason Says, of Course, that There's No Book

September 5, 2013 #753

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

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

Reason says, of course, that there's no Book
Of Life in which one is, or not, inscribed.
Still, repentance can affect one's fate.
How well one loves, or not, can still reshape
How well the year turns out. The soul revived
Attends to what the wayward soul forsook.
So does the myth remake the everyday,
Holding out the hope that fervent prayer
Actually might make someone's fortune better.
Nor ought one judge the legend by the letter,
As what is writ enriches what is there,
Having set forth well both will and way.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/qpFVTaF9aH4.

Labor Is Identity

August 29, 2013 #752

Dear Subscriber:

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

Labor is identity
As one is what one does.
Beware the work that will not sculpt
One into what one would.
Remember well the bunko bees,
Defined by work that is
Awash in ugliness and guilt,
Yielding little good.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/QhzcumHl0jI.

Sing of Who and Where and What You Are

August 22, 2013 #751

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a birthday 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/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Sing of who and where and what you are
In celebration of your day of birth!
X marks the moment you came into being,
The start of your identity on Earth.
Yet one still yearns to see beyond the bar.

The mystery is never more or less.
Here must be a miracle, and now;
Reality's a miracle, and seeing
Each moment come and go, as years allow,
Even as you sing, and being bless!

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/7qAFeLVMWOg.

Agatha

August 15, 2013 #750

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a name 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

Agatha is plain, old-fashioned good --
Giving, caring, loving, generous, kind.
A person doesn't get that way by chance,
Though much can be explained by circumstance.
Her will remains the servant of her mind
As she molds what character she would.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu be/Nkse9uVGx8I.