I Had a Rough Time with Three Kids by Myself

March 6, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is child abuse. Since many of my poems are written on request, some of the stories you will see contained in these poems are unfortunately true.

In today’s poem an abusive mother, years after her children are grown, asks for understanding.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I had a rough time with three kids by myself,
And I know that I didn't do well.
Counseling, fights, children's services, courts:
What I put you through must have been hell.

But I loved you - all of you - all of that time,
When my heart seemed to break every day,
When crushed, and crushed, and crushed against stones,
I would that the wind were my way.

And I tried - how I tried - to be what you needed
And show you the love in my heart.
But often the fantasy crashed and exploded,
And all that I was came apart.

And now you are grown, I don't ask forgiveness,
Just some understanding will do,
Of the person, however imperfect, whose life
And whose love was devoted to you.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/ihadar.html. For more poems about child abuse, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/childabusepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Child Abuse.
Feb. 29: At Odds of the Night My Sister Irene and I
Mar 1: Adelaide
Mar 2: I Never Thought that I Would Do to You
Mar 3: Caitlynn
Mar 4: You Told Me in a Dream You Always Loved Me
Mar 5: The Pain Will Never Go Away
Mar 6: I Had a Rough Time with Three Kids by Myself

The Pain Will Never Go Away

March 5, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is child abuse. Since many of my poems are written on request, some of the stories you will see contained in these poems are unfortunately true.

Today’s poem is to an abused child.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The pain will never go away;
The wound will never heal.
The evil that was done to you
Is now your eyes, your heart.

The black will never turn to gray;
The blood will not congeal.
The violence is never through;
The past does not depart.

Time will merely make you whole,
Consuming what you are:
Part sufferer, part comforter,
Part victim, part new song;

Part mother of an angry soul,
Part child of despair,
Part witness and part conqueror
Of all that did you wrong.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/thepai.html. For more poems about child abuse, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/childabusepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Child Abuse.
Feb. 29: At Odds of the Night My Sister Irene and I
Mar 1: Adelaide
Mar 2: I Never Thought that I Would Do to You
Mar 3: Caitlynn
Mar 4: You Told Me in a Dream You Always Loved Me
Mar 5: The Pain Will Never Go Away

You Told Me in a Dream You Always Loved Me

March 4, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is child abuse. Since many of my poems are written on request, some of the stories you will see contained in these poems are unfortunately true.

In today’s poem an abandoned child, now old, dreams of his mother.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

You told me in a dream you always loved me.
I wept with joy at what with joy you said.
My sadness was not there. It was so lovely.
And with you was my darling, also dead.
The sky was with an early sunrise burning,
Yet still with ample darkness for the moon,
Which held the secret of its youthful yearning
Although it knew that it would vanish soon.
How wonderful, I thought, at last to hear you
Say what I had known but never heard!
Abandoned, I have long longed to be near you
And find my long-lost refuge in a word.
I saw the truth of it within your eyes
And blessed the dream that ends but never dies.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/youtol.html. For more poems about child abuse, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/childabusepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Child Abuse.
Feb. 29: At Odds of the Night My Sister Irene and I
Mar 1: Adelaide
Mar 2: I Never Thought that I Would Do to You
Mar 3: Caitlynn
Mar 4: You Told Me in a Dream You Always Loved Me

Caitlynn

March 3, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is child abuse. Since many of my poems are written on request, some of the stories you will see contained in these poems are unfortunately true.

Today’s poem is a name poem for a girl abandoned by her father.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Caitlynn, like us all, has just one father,
A person whom she loves but does not see.
In fact, he has decided not to bother
To be the person only he can be.
Losing him, for her, is like a head-on:
Years and years of unremitting pain.
Nor will she ever feel quite free to let on,
Numb with rage, the fear that she’s to blame.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/caitly.html. For more poems about child abuse, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/childabusepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Child Abuse.
Feb. 29: At Odds of the Night My Sister Irene and I
Mar 1: Adelaide
Mar 2: I Never Thought that I Would Do to You
Mar 3: Caitlynn

I Never Thought that I Would Do to You

March 2, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is child abuse. Since many of my poems are written on request, some of the stories you will see contained in these poems are unfortunately true.

Today’s poem is a poem about child abuse from the point of view of the abuser.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I never thought that I would do to you
The terrible things my father did to me.
But here I am consumed with bitter rage,
Beating you with fists I can't control.

It is as though my father were within me,
Smirking at my helplessness as I
Do the things I can't believe I'm doing,
Slapping, punching, growling like a dog.

"You see? You see?" he says. "I couldn't help it!
My father did it to me, and I to you.
And now you to your son. Come join the circle,
And when he has a son, he'll join us, too!"

"No! No!" I answer silently. But I
Go on beating, beating, beating who?
Myself? My father? But it is only you
Who lies there screaming, scrunched into a ball.

Why? Why do I do this? Why? I wonder
As I watch myself go on and on.
Then suddenly I'm done. The thing is over.
And you, as I once did, weep to the wall.

I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, so ashamed.
I touch your shoulder gently, and you shudder.
The remorse is so much worse than was the beating.
I remember. But I cannot help it.

I take you in my arms. You lie unmoving,
Surrendering your body, not your heart.
I know that I will never, never reach you.
And still I hope without hope for your love.

My fear and shame are like a dark cocoon.
They were when I was you, are with me still.
I'm safe within our shared disgust and horror.
I know like me you'll never say a word.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/ineve7.html. For more poems about child abuse, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/childabusepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Child Abuse.
Feb. 29: At Odds of the Night My Sister Irene and I
Mar 1: Adelaide
Mar 2: I Never Thought that I Would Do to You

Adelaide

March 1, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is child abuse. Since many of my poems are written on request, some of the stories you will see contained in these poems are unfortunately true.

Today’s poem is a name poem for a grown-up victim of child abuse.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Adelaide is gracious to a fault,
Desiring harmony more than she does desire.
Each disagreement threatens to turn dire.
Likes and dislikes never leave the vault.
A child of war becomes adept at peace.
Intuitively she skirts the hidden mines,
Determined not to cross long-vanished lines,
Eluding rage long after rage has ceased.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/adelai.html. For more poems about child abuse, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/childabusepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Child Abuse.
Feb. 29: At Odds of the Night My Sister Irene and I
Mar 1: Adelaide

At Odds of the Night My Sister Irene and I

February 29, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is child abuse. Since many of my poems are written on request, some of the stories you will see contained in these poems are unfortunately true.

Today’s poem is the story of an abused child in Alaska who, looking back, sees a providential purpose to her pain.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

At odds of the night my sister Irene and I
Would count our coins that we might run away,
Stepping off the fated path of pain
That led me to the man whom I would love.

So little do we know of these, our lives,
That lead through dark and bitter labyrinths,
Sometimes to wind through sorrows unrelieved,
Sometimes to turn and climb through sunlit fields.

My mother was shot when I was three years old.
They brought us up to Anchorage to see her.
I don’t remember hearing she was dying.
I cried for juice and then was led away.

They took us down to live in Lower Kalskag
With those who didn’t care how we might wander
Through the chaos of their junk-strewn days,
Two melodies oft sung but rarely heard.

Often then we thought to run away
To live under the frozen moon and stars
Like faeries in a world of glittering ice,
Tinkling with each breath of polar wind;

Or walking with the freedom of the dead
By daylight in the shadows of the living,
Playing tricks on those whose anger lashed us
With all the passing fury of a storm.

Ah, bitter cold those days in Lower Kalskag!
Love was like an eagle high above us,
Soaring high above our frozen valley
Strewn with pleasure’s gnawed and splintered bones.

And life for me exactly was my heart:
A stone grooved deeply by slow-moving ice,
Borne upon an unrelenting glacier
Sliding like a snake towards some vast hell.

Long were I then lost to angry lust
Like those around me, save for two bright angels,
Strangers moved to pity by my suffering,
Who sent me to the Wrangell Institute.

There was a serenity of order
Strict with the insistence of wise love,
And I could be a child once again,
Safe to dream within my castle walls.

And there I met my life’s sweet love and light,
The boy who would become my man, my husband,
Whom I’d not have found another way.
And even as two children we knew love.

After Wrangell Institute I headed
Back to Lower Kalskag, for I knew
No other place to wait upon adulthood
When I and my sweet boy could make a home.

I never knew I had an older brother,
Now grown, who met me at the Wrangell airport,
Tore up my ticket, vowed that I would never
Go back to live in such a hell again;

And sent me to my sister in Bethel,
A sister also whom I never knew,
And there I stayed until I finished high school
And joined again the partner of my life.

We walked through rich and lovely fields together,
Filled with children, some who didn’t live,
Nor would I choose now to have suffered less
Upon a different path from birth to death.

We cannot know where fate by chance may take us
Or where the road through suffering may lead,
Or whether when we’re most submerged in darkness,
Our steps are headed straight into the light.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/atodds.html. For more poems about child abuse, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/childabusepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Child Abuse.
Feb. 29: At Odds of the Night My Sister Irene and I

How Both of You Are Voices of One Song

February 28, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is how marriage both needs and creates a community of love.

Today’s poem is an anniversary poem about how a couple’s love affects everyone around them.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

How both of you are voices of one song!
As counterpoint makes one soul out of two,
Pleasing to the heart in all you do:
Praising love with music clear and strong.
Your harmonies our faith and hope renew
As beauty like a wave sweeps over wrong:
No act of love can fail to touch us long,
Nor cold, dark anger fail to undo.
In coming years your love will only grow.
Vistas shared will open up behind.
Each kiss will glisten in the early dawn,
Reminding you of stars long tucked away.
So may your years of happiness bestow
A gift of sunlight warm, serene, and kind,
Revealing love of pride and passion shorn,
Yet basking in the glow of golden day.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/howbot.html. For more anniversary poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html.

This week’s theme: How Marriage Both Needs and Creates a Community of Love.
Feb. 22: No Marriage Is an Island unto Itself
Feb. 23: Happy Seventh Anniversary
Feb. 24: Forty Years Together You Have Loved
Feb. 25: A Father’s Fiancée
Feb. 26: Angels Just Love Weddings, Don’t You Think
Feb. 27: I Feel as Though a Dam Within Me’s Burst
Feb. 28: How Both of You Are Voices of One Song

I Feel as Though a Dam Within Me's Burst

February 27, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is how marriage both needs and creates a community of love.

Today’s poem is about how a love betrayed can become a prison through the family it created.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I feel as though a dam within me’s burst
And yet the water’s solid and won’t flow.
I cannot bear to touch you, even though
I lie beside you praying for the worst.
Everything I’ve cherished now is cursed
By what I know and what I still don’t know.
I’m shut, and neither can nor cannot go.
I need to gather up my furies first.
My love for you lies murdered and unmoved,
Waiting for a wound that will not bleed.
We stay together for the children, yet
It seems a thousand years since we once loved,
And you were still a treasure and a need,
And I a fool whom fate would not forget.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/ifeela.html. For more poems about marriage, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/marriagepoems.html.

This week’s theme: How Marriage Both Needs and Creates a Community of Love.
Feb. 22: No Marriage Is an Island unto Itself
Feb. 23: Happy Seventh Anniversary
Feb. 24: Forty Years Together You Have Loved
Feb. 25: A Father’s Fiancée
Feb. 26: Angels Just Love Weddings, Don’t You Think
Feb. 27: I Feel as Though a Dam Within Me’s Burst

Angels Just Love Weddings, Don't You Think

February 26, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is how marriage both needs and creates a community of love.

Today’s poem is a wedding poem about a community of angels participating in the ceremony.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Angels just love weddings, don’t you think?
No one sees them, but we know they’re there,
Golden halos lassoing their hair,
Embodying a love beyond the brink.
Love draws them in like revelers to drink,
Alive in love, breathing love like air,
Amorous in ways we could not bear,
Needing us to be love’s earthly link.
Do, then, with an angel’s ecstasy,
Make your lives an amorous delight,
Intimate in ways both sure and sly,
Chaste but in the chamber of your love.
Heaven is not quite a fantasy;
Angels hover near, awaiting night.
Eden was a place where none was shy,
Loving as the naked lust might move.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/angel6.html. For more wedding poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/weddingpoems.html.

This week’s theme: How Marriage Both Needs and Creates a Community of Love.
Feb. 22: No Marriage Is an Island unto Itself
Feb. 23: Happy Seventh Anniversary
Feb. 24: Forty Years Together You Have Loved
Feb. 25: A Father’s Fiancée
Feb. 26: Angels Just Love Weddings, Don’t You Think

A Father's Fiancee

February 25, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is how marriage both needs and creates a community of love.

Today’s poem is a wedding poem about how a marriage affects the children of a former marriage.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

A father’s fiancee is
An intended mother.
More than two are joined
This day in joy.
Though two may blossom
By the winged boy’s fountain,
Other flowers are watered
By that love.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/fafian.html. For more wedding poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/weddingpoems.html.

This week’s theme: How Marriage Both Needs and Creates a Community of Love.
Feb. 22: No Marriage Is an Island unto Itself
Feb. 23: Happy Seventh Anniversary
Feb. 24: Forty Years Together You Have Loved
Feb. 25: A Father’s Fiancée

Forty Years Together You Have Loved

February 24, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is how marriage both needs and creates a community of love.

Today’s poem is a 40th anniversary poem about how marital love is passed on to subsequent generations.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Forty years together you have loved,
Opening a door to love for me.
Romantic hearts bequeath a harmony
That proves more rich than any life might prove.
Years pour like water rapidly downstream,
Yielding harvests gleaned in fields to come,
Each waiting for the heart to bring it home,
An unsought legacy so long foreseen.
Rejoice, then, in a beauty never gone,
Sustained by songs more sweet because passed on.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/40year.html. For more anniversary poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html.

This week’s theme: How Marriage Both Needs and Creates a Community of Love.
Feb. 22: No Marriage Is an Island unto Itself
Feb. 23: Happy Seventh Anniversary
Feb. 24: Forty Years Together You Have Loved

Happy Seventh Anniversary

February 23, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is how marriage both needs and creates a community of love.

Today’s poem is a seventh anniversary poem comparing a marriage to a tree within a grove.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happy seventh anniversary!
A tree now deeply rooted in the soil!
Praised be those whose love is long and loyal,
Pleased to join content with ecstasy.
Yet, as you know, your tree's within a grove,
So every limb and leaf you think is yours
Endures through common legacies and laws,
Vaster than the will of any Jove.
Even so, your love must play its part.
Never think that every casual kiss
That leaves your lips does not increase the bliss
Held for you in some communal heart.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/happ70.html. For more anniversary poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html.

This week’s theme: How Marriage Both Needs and Creates a Community of Love.
Feb. 22: No Marriage Is an Island unto Itself
Feb. 23: Happy Seventh Anniversary

No Marriage Is an Island unto Itself

February 22, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is how marriage both needs and creates a community of love.

Today’s poem is a poem about marriage that echoes John Donne’s Meditation 17, which begins, “No man is an island …”

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

No marriage is an island unto itself.
It is a piece of a mainland – of a family, of friends, of a community, of history.

Couples tend their gardens, but the water of life comes from elsewhere.
However great their efforts and their love, they cannot thrive alone.

Of each person, the boundaries are uncertain.
Lines are drawn on surfaces, but underneath roots tunnel where they will.
A marriage is but the most intimate intertwining.
So many others – even strangers – burrow into us for sustenance, or give us, unknowing, their nutrients underground.

A great love does not shine on only one small patch of ground,
Nor does love between husband and wife light only the space between the walls of their marriage.
Do not doubt that love felt in the privacy of one’s heart will someday lend a bit of beauty to someone else’s night.

Early in the history of Earth, the air was poisonous, and the land was sand and naked stone.
Later, living things sweetened the air and clothed the land and made it fertile.
Love also must be replenished daily, like soil, like air.
Each bit of love we feel helps all of us to breathe, enables all of us to grow.
No more than one tree can survive alone in a desert, can one marriage survive without a landscape of love.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/nomarr.html. For more poems about marriage, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/marriagepoems.html.

This week’s theme: How Marriage Both Needs and Creates a Community of Love.
Feb. 22: No Marriage Is an Island unto Itself

So May One Do Good That Does No Good

February 21, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of President’s Day, Lincoln’s Birthday, and Washington’s Birthday, is political activism and greatness.

Today’s poem is a number poem about political activity, even when it seems to be in vain.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

So may one do good that does no good
In ways that can be cataloged and measured.
X-rays of the heart show what one would,
Though a thousand protests be withstood.
Yet the act itself is to be treasured.

Each act becomes a word, a poem, a song
In which one writes one's message to one's time,
Giving one's reply to right and wrong,
Having peacefully not gone along,
The bearer of a promise and a sign.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/somayo.html. For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Political Activism and Greatness.
Feb. 15: Greatness Is the Child of Choice and Chance
Feb. 16: Seventy-Six2
Feb. 17: Great Ends Demand Great Sacrifice
Feb. 18: Some Would Have the Courage of Their Dreams
Feb. 19: Greatness Is Effect Far More than Cause
Feb. 20: The President Was Without Precedent
Feb. 21: So May One Do Good That Does No Good

The President Was Without Precedent

February 20, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of President’s Day, Lincoln’s Birthday, and Washington’s Birthday, is political activism and greatness.

Today’s poem is a Presidents Day poem about how Washington and then Lincoln kept the Union together.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The President was without precedent
At the time that he took on the post.
Equally homespun and elegant,
He struck the precisely right note.

Refusing the power of kings,
He yet understood that the State
Required what reverence brings:
A loyalty one can create.

And so he became The Great Leader,
The focus of wide adulation.
Yet only a one-time repeater,
He served not the man, but the nation.

He gave to the State what the states
Could only recopy writ small:
The sense of a Center the fates
Must bless for the good of us all.

He played well the hero who held
The Union together those years,
Until the still-thin mixture jelled,
And fact was more forceful than fears;

Till the other great president we
Now jam into one day for two
Kept the Union together and free,
His own blood the ultimate glue.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/thepre.html. For more Presidents Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/presidentsdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Political Activism and Greatness.
Feb. 15: Greatness Is the Child of Choice and Chance
Feb. 16: Seventy-Six2
Feb. 17: Great Ends Demand Great Sacrifice
Feb. 18: Some Would Have the Courage of Their Dreams
Feb. 19: Greatness Is Effect Far More than Cause
Feb. 20: The President Was Without Precedent

Greatness Is Effect Far More than Cause

February 19, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of President’s Day, Lincoln’s Birthday, and Washington’s Birthday, is political activism and greatness.

Today’s poem is an epitaph for George Washington about how the nation’s need shaped his life.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Greatness is effect far more than cause.
Each hero is the servant of his fate,
On whom is laid the sacrificial weight
Reserved for those who would heed higher laws.
Given peace, I would have shunned applause,
Electing to remain a farmer, great
With long-gestating plans for my estate,
A much-loved labor lost to much-loathed wars.
So was I the father of a nation,
Having given over life and love,
Instrument of some far greater hand,
Not by choice but of necessity.
Glory was the means by which to fashion
The myth that would a king's replacement prove:
Only I would do, and that demand
Narrowed, deepened, scoured, chastened me.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/greatn.html. For more Presidents Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/presidentsdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Political Activism and Greatness.
Feb. 15: Greatness Is the Child of Choice and Chance
Feb. 16: Seventy-Six2
Feb. 17: Great Ends Demand Great Sacrifice
Feb. 18: Some Would Have the Courage of Their Dreams
Feb. 19: Greatness Is Effect Far More than Cause

Some Would Have the Courage of Their Dreams

February 18, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of President’s Day, Lincoln’s Birthday, and Washington’s Birthday, is political activism and greatness.

Today’s poem is a number poem for someone who is dedicated to political change.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Some would have the courage of their dreams.
If one falls short, at least one's moved ahead.
Xeroxing the present only means
That one must read what one's already read.
Yet one small change a lifelong quest redeems.

Fate must reap what will has left for dead.
One need not accept a world that seems
Unchangeable, or shrug when blood is shed,
Resigned as once we were to kings and queens.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/somew5.html. For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Political Activism and Greatness.
Feb. 15: Greatness Is the Child of Choice and Chance
Feb. 16: Seventy-Six2
Feb. 17: Great Ends Demand Great Sacrifice
Feb. 18: Some Would Have the Courage of Their Dreams

Great Ends Demand Great Sacrifice

February 17, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of President’s Day, Lincoln’s Birthday, and Washington’s Birthday, is political activism and greatness.

Today’s poem is a name poem for George Washington about leaders who pursue great ends.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Great ends demand great sacrifice,
Else the dream becomes a debt.
Open hearts will pay the price,
Redeeming loss without regret.
Great leaders also make demands,
Else the mandate turns to dust.
Willing minds find willing hands,
As courage shared engenders trust.
So a nation moves ahead,
Having found its avatar,
In hard times hungry to be led,
Navigating by its star.
Great followers must take great care
To choose a leader who will be
Out of love and duty there,
Not shy, but still reluctantly.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/greate.html. For more Presidents Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/presidentsdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Political Activism and Greatness.
Feb. 15: Greatness Is the Child of Choice and Chance
Feb. 16: Seventy-Six2
Feb. 17: Great Ends Demand Great Sacrifice

Seventy-Six2

February 16, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of President’s Day, Lincoln’s Birthday, and Washington’s Birthday, is political activism and greatness.

Today’s poem is a number poem for a seventy-six year old who has passed political activism down to his children and grandchildren.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Seventy-six has sown the sacred seed,
Ensuring that another generation,
Vested in the cause of liberation,
Engages in the politics of justice.
Nor after centuries is there less need.
The archetypal rulers are relentless.
Yet one can pit one's love against their greed.

Sing, then, of an inherited vocation,
Identities along a chain that's endless,
Xeroxing the dream that marks the breed.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/76b.html. For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Political Activism and Greatness.
Feb. 15: Greatness Is the Child of Choice and Chance
Feb. 16: Seventy-Six2

Greatness Is the Child of Choice and Chance

February 15, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of President’s Day, Lincoln’s Birthday, and Washington’s Birthday, is political activism and greatness.

Today’s poem is a name poem for George Washington about what is necessary to achieve greatness.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Greatness is the child of choice and chance,
Even when one's character is right.
One must fit the urgent circumstance,
Requiring wrongs that one's gifts can requite.
Greatness needs a time that calls for greatness,
Embracing an entire generation,
When some grave danger, failure, or injustice
Awaits a leader to unite the nation.
So might the mantle fall upon a soul
Having just the qualities to be
In mien and temper suited to the role.
Nor ought one, chosen, turn down history.
Greatness waits upon one like a bride
That knows well one's humility and pride,
On which she plays to keep one by her side.
Nor, after, will one care how much she lied.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/great2.html. For more Presidents Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/presidentsdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Political Activism and Greatness.
Feb. 15: Greatness Is the Child of Choice and Chance

A Valentine Is Nothing Like

February 14, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day.

Today’s poem is a humorous definition of a Valentine.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

A Valentine is nothing like
A chocolate or a rose.
For in a week these shall be gone,
But Valentines remain.

If love were always sweet to tongue
Or fragrant to the nose,
Each day would be like Valentine's,
And we would go insane.

A Valentine just hangs around
Waiting to be kissed
Long after special days have passed
And every days are here.

So one is wise to choose one well
And chocolates to resist.
For in the midst of mania
It's nice to have one near.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/avalen.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day.
Feb. 8: I’m Far Too Shy to Tell You that I Love You
Feb. 9: You Are the Landscape of My Life
Feb. 10: Although Our Love Is Over, It Remains
Feb. 11: The Day of Love Requires a Companion
Feb. 12: Will You Be My Valentine
Feb. 13: Very Little Love Is Lost in Living
Feb. 14: A Valentine Is Nothing Like

Very Little Love Is Lost in Living

February 13, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day.

Today’s poem is a Valentine’s Day poem about the nature of love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Very little love is lost in living.
A star can fill a universe with light,
Lasting not one second less for giving
Each of us the gift of its delight.
Nor do we love ourselves the less for loving,
Taking others' pleasures for our own.
In love there is an ecstasy unmoving,
Neither more engaged nor less alone,
Eternal in its house of flesh and bone.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/veryli.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day.
Feb. 8: I’m Far Too Shy to Tell You that I Love You
Feb. 9: You Are the Landscape of My Life
Feb. 10: Although Our Love Is Over, It Remains
Feb. 11: The Day of Love Requires a Companion
Feb. 12: Will You Be My Valentine
Feb. 13: Very Little Love Is Lost in Living

Will You Be My Valentine

February 12, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day.

Today’s poem is a will-you-be-my-valentine poem.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Will you be my Valentine?
I know that I am yours.
You are like a tossing sea
And I am like your shores.

You are like an endless wave
And I your waiting sand.
And I will wait forever as
You come and smooth my hand.

I will wait forever, yet
You are a part of me.
I hold you in my arms, while you
Come to me endlessly.

Will you be my Valentine?
I know that I am yours.
I love you with a love that yearns
To be your golden shores.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/willyou.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day.
Feb. 8: I’m Far Too Shy to Tell You that I Love You
Feb. 9: You Are the Landscape of My Life
Feb. 10: Although Our Love Is Over, It Remains
Feb. 11: The Day of Love Requires a Companion
Feb. 12: Will You Be My Valentine

The Day of Love Requires a Companion

February 11, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day.

Today’s poem is about being alone on Valentine’s Day.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The day of love requires a companion,
But I find myself at this time all alone.
Words of sweet affection fill the morning
Like bells outside the windows of my room.

I don't know why I don't have someone with me.
I've loved and been loved through the restless years.
The mysteries of love I hold within me
Are a darkness unrelieved by moon and stars.

And yet I feel more love than I have ever
Felt within the circle of a kiss.
Love need not be a passion or a fever,
Nor does it need a hand for its caress.

Love does not require a companion.
It doesn't need an object or a home.
It flies above the ecstasy of morning
And fills the universe inside my room.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/theday.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day.
Feb. 8: I’m Far Too Shy to Tell You that I Love You
Feb. 9: You Are the Landscape of My Life
Feb. 10: Although Our Love Is Over, It Remains
Feb. 11: The Day of Love Requires a Companion

Although Our Love Is Over, It Remains

February 10, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day.

Today’s poem is a Valentine’s Day poem to a former lover.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Although our love is over, it remains
An unfrequented garden in my heart,
Its beauty quite inseparable from pain,
A wilderness where once was willful art.

I hope a little piece of you is still
Reserved for me, a place you may not go,
But where my room, untenanted, can fill
A moment with my music, sweet and slow.

There are no wishes like a former lover's
That from the dark, repentant night must shine.
And so though we have both moved on to others,
I send you from afar this Valentine.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/altho3.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day.
Feb. 8: I’m Far Too Shy to Tell You that I Love You
Feb. 9: You Are the Landscape of My Life
Feb. 10: Although Our Love Is Over, It Remains

You Are the Landscape of My Life

February 9, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day.

Today’s poem is a Valentine’s Day love poem to a spouse.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

You are the landscape of my life,
The only place I feel at home,
The view familiar to my heart,
The woods and fields I call my own.

You are the music of my life,
The melody I silent sing,
The harmony beneath my words,
The rhythm of my wandering.

You are the space in which I live,
The boundary of my ecstasy,
The pleasure palace of my dreams,
The flesh that fills my fantasy.

All this you are to me and more,
A soul so much a part of mine
That when I look within, you are
In me, my love, my valentine.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/youa10.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day.
Feb. 8: I’m Far Too Shy to Tell You that I Love You
Feb. 9: You Are the Landscape of My Life

I'm Far Too Shy to Tell You that I Love You2

February 8, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day.

Today’s poem is about a teenager asking someone for the first time to be her valentine.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I’m far too shy to tell you that I love you
And far too young to know if it is true.
I only know I’m always thinking of you
And hoping that you’re thinking of me, too.

My feelings are a wave that has no shore,
Reaching, reaching for what’s never there.
All I am is yearning, yet what for
Is far too frightening for me to dare.

But this day of love might be a chance
To see what kind of fortune might be mine.
And so I take a plunge into romance
And ask you: Will you be my valentine?

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/imfar2.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day.
Feb. 8: I’m Far Too Shy to Tell You that I Love You

You're like Music Playing in My Head

February 7, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about the complete absorption of early love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

You’re like music playing in my head
Everywhere I go from day to day.
I try a door and think of you instead,
Not knowing where I am or what I’ll say.
I live in a perpetual embrace,
Hugging the sweet thought that you are mine.
Walking through a park I touch your face,
Not caring if there’s rain or bright sunshine.
The cause must be, of course, our love is new;
It can’t go on like this for years and years.
I must take note of other things than you
And clear my head of smiles and grateful tears.
Yet such talk seems fantasy to me:
The world’s the dream, and you reality.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/youre.html. For more love poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Romantic Love.
Feb. 1: I Want to Make Your Heart Beat Just for Me
Feb. 2: For You the Earth Must Be a Greener Green
Feb. 3: Supplication
Feb. 4: What Makes Stars Romantic
Feb. 5: You Cannot Feel the Twisting of My Heart
Feb. 6: Early Love Is like a Mountain Stream
Feb. 7: You’re like Music Playing in My Head

Early Love Is like a Mountain Stream

February 6, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a love poem about the full course of a love, from beginning to end.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Early love is like a mountain stream --
Clear and pure and laughing down the hills,
A flash of sunlight dimpling as it spills
Down into the valley of our dreams.

But then, for most of life, love is a river
Carrying downstream its muddy load --
A thriving habitat, a winding road,
A moment moving slowly through forever.

The current pushes hard against the tide,
Swirling with deep countercurrents, so
Complex one can’t untangle yes from no.
The wind whips wavelets ‘cross the water wide.

How beautiful! The broad breast of our love
Meets the even broader breast of the sea!
Our golden dreams a golden memory,
And in between a life - rich, full, enough.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/earlyl.html. For more love poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Romantic Love.
Feb. 1: I Want to Make Your Heart Beat Just for Me
Feb. 2: For You the Earth Must Be a Greener Green
Feb. 3: Supplication
Feb. 4: What Makes Stars Romantic
Feb. 5: You Cannot Feel the Twisting of My Heart
Feb. 6: Early Love Is like a Mountain Stream

You Cannot Feel the Twisting of My Heart

February 5, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a love poem about the pangs of jealousy.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

You cannot feel the twisting of my heart
Or see the sea that surges through my brain
Every time you play your fickle part

With practiced nonchalance and well-honed art
To lure some new recruit to your domain.
You cannot feel the twisting of my heart.

I know that I'd be happier apart
From you, but I must crave the pain
Every time you play your fickle part

And Cupid flips another poisoned dart
Into my desire with perfect aim.
You cannot feel the twisting of my heart.

Just when I think you're mine, again you start
To flutter in my hands, which grasp in vain
Every time you play your fickle part

And smile like some hot, adulterous tart
Out to drive all men in sight insane.
You cannot feel the twisting of my heart
Every time you play your fickle part.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/youca4.html. For more love poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Romantic Love.
Feb. 1: I Want to Make Your Heart Beat Just for Me
Feb. 2: For You the Earth Must Be a Greener Green
Feb. 3: Supplication
Feb. 4: What Makes Stars Romantic
Feb. 5: You Cannot Feel the Twisting of My Heart

What Makes Stars Romantic

February 4, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a love poem that wonders what makes stars romantic.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

What makes stars romantic? Is it the beauty
Of a night sky dark lit with diamonds?
Or the wilderness of blue-white witnesses
Staring wordless back across the abyss?
Or the fascination of forever? (For love
Is a fragment of forever lodged in the heart.)

Is it the need for two when one seems so small?
The desire to touch in the temple? The vast, lonely
Field of life in which love, too, is a light
Amidst darkness? (So many lovers scattered across
The black canopy like burning dust.)

Or is it the passion at a star’s heart?
The heat of love lighting the emptiness,
Hurling its ardor across light years of sorrow
To tell us something about what yearns within?

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/whatma.html. For more love poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Romantic Love.
Feb. 1: I Want to Make Your Heart Beat Just for Me
Feb. 2: For You the Earth Must Be a Greener Green
Feb. 3: Supplication
Feb. 4: What Makes Stars Romantic

Supplication

February 3, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a love poem to a lover who must soon leave.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

SUPPLICATION

Let me hold you
In arms like strong winds,
Enfold you with mountains,
Be the warm meadow on which you lie.

In the darklight
Let me hold you
In sleepless flesh,
In wordless flesh
Let me be your silence.

And when you leave me
Let me hold you
With the love of those who love you,
And be the air and sunlight
And the sea in which you dream.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/suppli.html/. For more love poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html/.

This week’s theme: Romantic Love.
Feb. 1: I Want to Make Your Heart Beat Just for Me
Feb. 2: For You the Earth Must Be a Greener Green
Feb. 3: Supplication

For You the Earth Must Be a Greener Green

February 2, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number poem wishing all good things for one’s love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

For you the Earth must be a greener green;
Orange buds must burst with greater glory;
Rivers must be pure, light full of grace,
Time unfold a more enchanting story;
Years must shape a spirit more serene.

To you the birds must sing with more delight;
Hyacinths must pour forth sweeter scent;
Rain must wear more gently, storms retrace
Each devastated path, and harm repent,
Each turbulence turn calm, and sorrow right.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/greene.html/. For more love poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html/.

This week’s theme: Romantic Love.
Feb. 1: I Want to Make Your Heart Beat Just for Me
Feb. 2: For You the Earth Must Be a Greener Green

I Want to Make Your Heart Beat Just for Me

February 1, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about taking the plunge and declaring one’s love for a friend.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I want to make your heart beat just for me.
I want a true love in my lonely life.
I’ve looked a long time, dated many men,
But none I walked with walked in step with me.

We walk together well, the best of friends.
Somehow we just fit, as if clean cut
To go together, zigzags complementary.
But now I would be something more than friends.

I know I take a chance to mention love.
I’ve no idea what feeling’s in your heart.
But if you’d catch a burning, plunging star,
I know I’d make you happy for your love.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/iwant2.html/. For more love poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html/.

This week’s theme: Romantic Love.
Feb. 1: I Want to Make Your Heart Beat Just for Me

Next Time You Find Your Wife Unappealing

January 31, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is married love: the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.

Today’s poem is a bit of advice to a husband who finds his aging wife unappealing.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Next time you find your wife unappealing,
Breasts hanging like sandbags from her chest,
A little bald spot in the center of her head,
Back just beginning to hump between her shoulder blades,
Wrinkled flesh like a half-deflated balloon around her thighs,
Look at yourself in the mirror.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/nextti.html . For more poems about marriage, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/marriagepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Married Love.
Jan. 25: Marriage Proverbs2
Jan. 26: Marriage Proverbs
Jan. 27: There Is a Point to Living Vertically
Jan. 28: Sometimes When You’re Married
Jan. 29: We Drive a Tractor/Trailer Unit
Jan. 30: The Time for Love Is Now Fast Disappearing
Jan. 31: Next Time You Find Your Wife Unappealing

The Time for Love Is Now Fast Disappearing

January 30, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is married love: the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.

Today’s poem is a poem about the marriage of a couple nearing death.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The time for love is now fast disappearing
As years tick on and flesh descends towards dust.
Death, so long a question, now is nearing,
And one makes peace with pain because one must.
Yet love still grips the heart with unspent yearning,
A hunger unappeased from birth to death,
A need for need, an unrequited burning
That casts its doomed delight past all regret.
O star that lights the else unlit creation,
Desiring ever what can never be,
Longing for some sense beyond sensation,
Candle to a light we cannot see:
Be for us now in these last years of life
The beacon that guides home a man and wife.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/thetim.html . For more poems about marriage, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/marriagepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Married Love.
Jan. 25: Marriage Proverbs2
Jan. 26: Marriage Proverbs
Jan. 27: There Is a Point to Living Vertically
Jan. 28: Sometimes When You’re Married
Jan. 29: We Drive a Tractor/Trailer Unit
Jan. 30: The Time for Love Is Now Fast Disappearing

We Drive a Tractor/Trailer Unit

January 29, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is married love: the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.

Today’s poem is a poem about a married couple who live in the truck they drive across the country.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

We drive a tractor/trailer unit
Spinning down the pike.
That way we can find the time
To make love when we like.

You sleep, I drive, I sleep, you drive,
But then we stop awhile.
And when we get back on the road,
We share the same soft smile.

Some say that such togetherness
Is living behind bars,
Never free to let yourself
Expand out to the stars.

But being on the road with you
Is what I want from life.
There is a universe inside
A husband and a wife.

There is a universe so rich
That should all heaven move
Across the way on eighteen wheels,
I'd much prefer our love.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/wedriv.html . For more poems about marriage, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/marriagepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Married Love.
Jan. 25: Marriage Proverbs2
Jan. 26: Marriage Proverbs
Jan. 27: There Is a Point to Living Vertically
Jan. 28: Sometimes When You’re Married
Jan. 29: We Drive a Tractor/Trailer Unit

Sometimes When You're Married

January 28, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is married love: the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.

Today’s poem is a poem about turning away from marriage to indulge in the pleasures of an imaginary life.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Sometimes when you're married
You drift away within.
Outside you stroll together;
Inside you live in sin.

A rich imagination
Provides your ecstasy,
A cordless, mobile heaven
Where everything is free.

The garden that you tend
Is not the one you roam;
The part of you that sings
Is not the one at home.

A strange and burning life:
What's real is not what's true.
And no one knows the passion
That you believe is you.

And so you are distracted,
Two people in a jar,
Bound by love and fate,
Yet never what you are

Until by chance life rips
A hole right through your wall,
And nothing you've imagined
Looks like you at all.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/somet3.html . For more poems about marriage, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/marriagepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Married Love.
Jan. 25: Marriage Proverbs2
Jan. 26: Marriage Proverbs
Jan. 27: There Is a Point to Living Vertically
Jan. 28: Sometimes When You’re Married

There Is a Point to Living Vertically

January 27, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is married love: the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.

Today’s poem is a poem about the beauty of living with one person for life.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

There is a point to living vertically,
To being with one person all one's life,
To diving 'neath the hapless, hopeless sea
Where one might meet the wonder of one's wife.
There is a mythic journey to be taken
That has much more to do with time than place,
That finds a fortune not to be forsaken,
Measured less in pleasure than in grace.
There is between us something more than passion,
A longing for belonging, and a sense
That here is love with neither writ nor ration,
Tendered with the joy of innocence.
The years pass quickly, though the time is long;
To spend them loving well cannot be wrong.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/vertic.html . For more poems about marriage, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/marriagepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Married Love.
Jan. 25: Marriage Proverbs2
Jan. 26: Marriage Proverbs
Jan. 27: There Is a Point to Living Vertically

Marriage Proverbs

January 26, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is married love: the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.

Today’s poem is another set of proverbs on marriage.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

1. Romantic love is a lightning bolt. Married love is an electric current.
2. Marriage is a mirror in which one sees a reflection of oneself.
3. The source of joy, in marriage as in lovemaking, is union with another. That is why, while there may be pleasure in purchased sex, there is little joy.
4. Similarly in marriage: when love is mutual, joy bubbles over onto all of life; when it is not, nothing is untouched by sadness.
5. In a good marriage one is continuously in love, regardless of anger, hurt, or the longing to be free. The trick is to be aware of it.
6. In time, one may resent the permanence of one's spouse almost as much as one relies on it.
7. That is why married couples bicker over trivia. For what is annoying at the moment is insufferable over a lifetime.
8. The hatred in a divorce is directly proportional to the love in the marriage, since only a strong hatred can sever a strong love and set the wounded free.
9. Marriage is a bulwark against time. For time is the measure of change, and in marriage two vow never to change.
10. In the end, of course, like the sea to a sandcastle, time sweeps over marriage, whether through death or betrayal. The bit of respite marriage affords is, however, all the Eden one needs for happiness. Or is likely to get.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/marripr.html . For more poems about marriage, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/marriagepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Married Love.
Jan. 25: Marriage Proverbs2
Jan. 26: Marriage Proverbs

Marriage Proverbs2

January 25, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is married love: the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.

Today’s poem is a set of proverbs on marriage.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

1. What excitement can match the intimate unfolding of another life?
2. The beauty of love is that giving and receiving become indistinguishable.
3. Each of us is born, lives, and dies alone, certain of nothing more than that we exist. Marriage is like a bamboo house built on stilts in the midst of that mad, rushing stream.
4. You are truly married when reflexively, without so much as a flicker of awareness, you begin to think of yourself as “we.”

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/marrip2.html . For more poems about marriage, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/marriagepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Married Love.
Jan. 25: Marriage Proverbs2

Sixty-Six2

January 24, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is racism and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

Today’s poem is a number poem about a sixty-six year old who fights racial hatred through song.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Sixty-six is now in full career,
Invested in an activist esthetic.
Xenophobes, take heed and you will hear
The songs that undermine your greed and fear,
Your need to make relations hierarchic.

So might the world in time turn empathetic
If oft-sung songs can make delight more dear,
X-ing out the hatreds that hearts sear.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/66b.html . For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Racism and Race.
Jan. 18: Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways
Jan. 19: Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They
Jan. 20: Melba
Jan. 21: Love Has Obstacles Enough, They Say
Jan. 22: I’m Married to This Muslim Arab
Jan. 23: Indians Are, of Course, Not Indians
Jan. 24: Sixty-Six2

January 23, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is racism and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

Today’s poem is a poem about the misnaming of Native Americans.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Indians are, of course, not Indians.
Nor were they ever Indians.
Denying their identities,
Inventing labels as we please,
Allows, of course, their genocide.
No word is ever innocent.
So names enable fratricide.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/india2.html . For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Racism and Race.
Jan. 18: Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways
Jan. 19: Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They
Jan. 20: Melba
Jan. 21: Love Has Obstacles Enough, They Say
Jan. 22: I’m Married to This Muslim Arab
Jan. 23: Indians Are, of Course, Not Indians

I'm Married to This Muslim Arab

January 22, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is racism and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

Today’s poem is a poem about how love bridges religious as well as racial differences.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I'm married to this Muslim Arab,
A lovely woman who wears the hijab.
Our differences dissolve in love
Of God, of life, of one another.

A lovely woman who wears the hijab
Comes naked to my marriage bed.
Of God, of life, of one another,
We then say not a single word.

Comes naked to my marriage bed,
As naked as we are to God.
We then say not a single word,
But silently I thank the Lord.

As naked as we are to God,
Our differences dissolve in love,
But silently I thank the Lord
I'm married to this Muslim Arab.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/immari.html . For more poems about race, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/racepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Racism and Race.
Jan. 18: Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways
Jan. 19: Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They
Jan. 20: Melba
Jan. 21: Love Has Obstacles Enough, They Say
Jan. 22: I’m Married to This Muslim Arab

Love Has Obstacles Enough, They Say

January 21, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is racism and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

Today’s poem is a love poem about the beauty and difficulty of interracial love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Love has obstacles enough, they say:
Why add to them the obstacle of race?
Two backgrounds so diverse can't share one space.
Love can't keep the world's harsh truths at bay.
Ah, love! Let such trite wisdom go its way!
All life is difficult yet full of grace.
All men and women share the same small place.
Nor should we out of fear our love betray.
Love is to daily life a vein of gold
Running through the rock like liquid fire,
Making ordinary moments glow.
May we treasure it as we grow old:
The breath that does our dreary clay inspire,
The touch that transforms everything we know.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/loveha.html . For more poems about race, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/racepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Racism and Race.
Jan. 18: Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways
Jan. 19: Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They
Jan. 20: Melba
Jan. 21: Love Has Obstacles Enough, They Say

Melba

January 20, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is racism and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

Today’s poem is a name poem about someone who enjoys the richness of a diverse racial and cultural milieu.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Melba mixes cultures like bright colors,
Each of which the dappled whole enhances.
Lavish in her love of life, she dances,
Blessed in years, to the tunes of many others,
A wealth of music as the world advances.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/melba.html . For more name poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Racism and Race.
Jan. 18: Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways
Jan. 19: Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They
Jan. 20: Melba

Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They

January 19, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is racism and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

Today’s poem is a name poem for Martin Luther King, Jr. about pursuing the dream of justice.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Maybe dreams cannot come true, but they
Are mountains that give shape to the horizon,
Reference points to guide us on the way
Towards lands long promised us in distant Zion.
If we never get that far, we'll be
Nearer for the journey we have taken,
Letting the next generation see
Up close the dreams they else might have forsaken.
The dreamer lives a bit beyond what is,
Having had the courage to say no,
Existing in a future wholly his,
Revealing through his grace where we must go.
Knowing well this world of lust and greed
In which the dream but rarely marks the deed,
None could bear to dream but for the soul
Great enough to bear it for the whole.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/maybed.html . For more poems for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/martinlutherkingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Racism and Race.
Jan. 18: Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways
Jan. 19: Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They