Poem of the Week

November 22, 2012 #712

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

Thank You for the gift of being thankful.
Here is one gift we can both enjoy.
A gift that can at will my spirits buoy,
Needing only will to yield a heartful.
Knowledge won't engender gratitude;
Some may know a lot and yet feel little.
Grace comes hot and hearty off the griddle;
In some, though, there's no hunger for such food.
Voices sing of paradise at will.
I hear them when I start to sing alone.
Nor do I cease to hear them when they're gone,
Glad to be alive and thankful still.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

Poem of the Week

November 15, 2012 #711

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

Let your love lie easy on your heart,
Like sunlight on a field of wildflowers.
Enjoyment is a much-neglected art,
Since people would take profit from their hours.
Do not set your timer to a goal,
But find your wealth within the time you waste.
Years contain more riches than your role,
And food is not for health alone, but taste.
The love you feel for life is just like music,
Filling every moment with its beauty.
You can have contentment if you choose it,
And dance through every gesture of your duty.
Love easy, then, and let life come to you.
You welcome more, the less that you pursue.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

Poem of the Week

November 8, 2012 #710

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 of wars unjust or just
Equally deserve consideration,
Their anger, hatred, fear, and livid lust
Equally in service to their nation.
Remember that the battlefield remains
A place where murder is one's daily duty.
Nor can one be so brutal without stains
Seeping into one's one well of beauty.
Do, then, pay them homage due, for they
Are heroes, though their bitter battles may
Yield nothing but their bitterness for booty.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

November 1, 2012 #709

Dear Subscriber:

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

Elections bring regime change, even though
Little seems to change but the regimes.
Energetic leaders come and go.
Change is far more daunting than it seems.
This is due to what elections do:
In counting votes, they sum not some but all,
Of which no cook could make a tasty stew,
Nor architect an arch that would not fall.
Demands of opposite intent demand
A compromise constrained, complex, and bland.
Yet such will ever violence forestall.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

October 25, 2012 #708

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

Horror is less horrible than life.
At least for most of us, it's an escape.
Let the nightmares out! Let squealers quake!
Let them safely fear the fictive knife!
Open up the Hell of undreamt dreams!
Wake the monsters lurking in the heart!
Exercise our frenzy with your art,
Else dormant in a world of in-betweens,
Not fit for those whose longings haunt their means.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

October 18, 2012 #707

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem to a grown-up child.

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

Face the fact that you are still a child --
Older, yes, of course, but a child still,
Remembered, valued, loved unceasingly
Though far away and wholly on your own.
Years pass, yet that identity remains.

So you may recall how once we smiled
Each time you tested out your fledgling will,
Voicing an assumed authority
Eventually becoming yours alone.
Nor can one tell the losses from the gains.

© by Nicholas Gordon

October 11, 2012 #706

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

Alejandro finds his pleasure in parades,
Liking most the tumult and the noise,
Excited by the close-packed crowds he craves,
Jostled to and fro by burly joys.
A quiet moment is too much to take --
Not too empty, but too full of being.
Depressed by so much existential weight,
Restless in the presence of his state,
Out he runs, in search of what he's fleeing.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Note: For those of you in or near Vermont, a musical setting by Michael Isaacson of one of my poems, “The Seven Deadly Sins,” will be performed by Robert De Cormier and his chorus, “Counterpoint,” with pianist Diane Huling, on October 11 at 7:30 PM at the Bethany Church, 115 Main St, in Montpelier, Vermont.