December 13, 2012 #715

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

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

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

December 6, 2012 #714

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is an acrostic sestina for Hanukkah.

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

Break upon the cold, white sands of darkness!
O oceans, come and break, and break again!
Need, desire, hope, and anger break!
None but God can light from darkness make.
Immensities, come break, come break within!
Each heart must at its heart find emptiness.

Sing, then, as you rise towards emptiness.
Each wave must break, must break upon the darkness,
Then gather itself back to swell within,
Heave up against the sand, and break again.
All rise and fall from nothing, nothing make,
Nor render aught but beauty as they break.
Do not dread the shore on which you break.
Eight days the light burned, fueled by emptiness,
Light that only miracles can make
In you, as God has fashioned it from darkness,
Zero – not just once, again, again,
As consciousness comes forth to reign within.
Break, then, with no sorrow! Break within!
Elevate your longing and then break!
Take in the undertow and break again,
Having filled your heart with emptiness.

Granted that we all are bound for darkness --
All we are and do, and all we make.
Be humble, then, in all you do and make,
Rising like a wave to break within,
Immensity that breaks upon the darkness,
Easing back again to rise and break,
Life so full of life, then emptiness,
Knowing that the wave will break again.
Embrace the light, embrace the dark, again
Needing, knowing, wanting, longing. Make
No protest as you rise towards emptiness,
A wave that sings to harmonies within.

Even as we know that we must break
Like waves upon the cold, white sands of darkness,
Longing fills the emptiness within,
Each, each time again prepared to make
No imprint as we break upon the darkness.

© 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 29, 2012 #713

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for AIDS Awareness 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

AIDS is a preventable disease.
It enters through delight and stays to kill,
Dependent on a lack of word or will,
Sustained by cultural pathologies.

© 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 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