Don't Return the Tennis Ball

April 4, 2013 #731

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.com/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Don't return the tennis ball –
Just let it skip away.
Remember, bickering's a game
That it takes two to play.

Let the anger dissipate
Like fog beneath the sun.
For at the end of lovers' wars,
One finds that no one's won.

Oh, yes, one cannot help sometimes
To let the fury flow
Like lava forced up from the earth
By pressure deep below.

But each should let the other rant
And rave till passions pall,
Then bend down politely to
Retrieve the tennis ball.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Even After Two Millennia

March 28, 2013 #730

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.com/week.html/.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Even after two millennia,
A restive world remembers your rebirth.
So must your tale so touch a grieving heart
That all the sins of those who take your part,
Each priest who preys and prays for all he's worth,
Render you no less a loving savior.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Palates Can Be Palettes of the Soul

March 21, 2013 #729

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.com/week.html/.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Palates can be palettes of the soul,
As tastes can paint a picture of the past.
So might ritual foods make memories last,
Summoning up fond fragments of the whole.
Of matzah, then, charoset, bitter herb,
Vivid harbingers of what has been,
Each Pesach sing, and with your tongue again
Recall the revelation that they serve.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Sing of Ireland, That Salad Bowl

March 14, 2013 #728

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.com/week.html/.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Sing of Ireland, that salad bowl!
The greens are tossed with bits of yellow and brown.
Perhaps the tossing might make some folks frown,
Although the taste be tangy to the soul.
There is no past for which the bells don't toll,
Regardless how its ways are handed down.
In time its heroes, once of great renown,
Come faded to the fun house of the whole.
Know, then, that the Ireland of old
'Ere long will be what none alive remember,
Save for remnants treasured by a few.
Deep within the heartache that takes hold,
An ancient ecstasy becomes an ember,
Yielding over years to Irelands new.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Mothers Must Make Mornings Seem Worthwhile

March 7, 2013 #727

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.com/week.html/.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Mothers must make mornings seem worthwhile,
Offering a life of love and beauty.
The music in their hearts becomes the song
Humming in their children all life long,
Enduring legacy, exacting duty,
Requiring an honest inner smile
Sustained by love – well-tended, willed, and strong.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

February 28, 2013 #726

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a play on words.

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

There has to be some tension in attention
And something supple in a supplication.
One finds little content in contention
And too few revels in a revelation.

An insight ought to mind and heart incite
And alter what one worships at one's altar.
At times one needs a rite to get things right,
But then could use a salter for one's psalter.

Sound advice can often come through sound,
And payment made in kind, when hearts are kind.
Found relations new relations found,
Would one not mind a playful turn of mind.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Borders Are Obscenities

February 21, 2013 #725

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Borders are obscenities,
Barbed wire through the heart,
Guardians of amenities
Tearing us apart;

Scars across the living Earth,
Remnants of old wounds;
Bastions of good luck at birth;
Death among the dunes;

Walls to stop a surging sea,
Keeping back the tide
Of those of us who are not we
Yet would join us inside;

Fortresses of fortunes good
And prison camps of bad;
Boundaries of brotherhood
In mines and sensors clad;

Soon, we hope, to be just lines
Unnoticed as we pass
Some unobtrusive welcome signs
Half hidden in tall grass.

© by Nicholas Gordon