Remember, Please, the Reason for Your Fasting

July 11, 2013 #745

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.com/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Remember, please, the reason for your fasting.
A body ought to live beyond the body,
More focused on a life that's everlasting
As all that must be clothed and shod turns shoddy,
Disintegrating slowly into dust,
Amazed, despite well knowing that it must.
Nor is salvation simply for the asking.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

Then, There Was No Right to Eat

July 4, 2013 #744

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.com/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Then, there was no right to eat, nor was health
A right, nor freedom for a slave. Native
Peoples were simply dispossessed, and wealth
Accrued to men only. The fierce and furtive
Cries for love, gay or straight, were smothered.
Non-human animals had no rights, nor children
Left to drunken fathers or brutal mothers.
Oh, yes, that government governed least, but no one
Could foresee the brood of rights sprung
From words that rang out across the western world
That summer day, rights now nearly won,
That long lay fearful in predawn silence curled.
The founders were wise, but to be true to them,
We must apply their words to now, not then.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/Mw-xZdCd7C8.

Happiness Is Half Real and Half Haunting

June 27, 2013 #743

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

Happiness is half real and half haunting.
A moment is half passion and half dream.
Perhaps there is no richness without wanting.
Perhaps the things we yearn for only seem.
Yet there are things that over time accrue,
Enduring through integrity and will,
Implicit every day in what we do,
Grace that blooms in soil we turn and till.
How beautiful to celebrate in passing
The things that last, the loves that years prove true,
Happiness long lived yet longing still.

© by Nicholas Gordon

 Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/G3tgN_gRFnM.

Give a Little Thought to Years Gone By

June 20, 2013 #742

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.com/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Give a little thought to years gone by,
Remembering the time we spent together.
A moment, though long vanished, lasts forever,
Determining the tilt of every why.
Understand that nothing will be lost.
As we go, we also will remain,
Taking with us what we leave behind.
In each of us today a border's crossed,
Offering a past we will retain
Now that we'll be scattered to the wind.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

Fathers Are Forever

June 13, 2013 #741

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.com/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Fathers are forever. Even death,
Although a distancing, does not divide
The child from the parent, nor does time,
However long, nor space, however wide.
Enduring beyond silence, beyond breath,
Resonant where hours cease to chime,
Some yearnings inconsolable abide.

© by Nicholas Gordon

You can watch me recite the poem at http://youtu.be/yj2DsL4CXZM.

Love Is the Spring from Which All Longing Flows

June 6, 2013 #740

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.com/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Love is the spring from which all longing flows.
Long may we long for what we have, for this
Is happiness, the bliss in wedded bliss,
Where married longing deepens as it slows.
How beautiful! The passion comes and goes
While love draws from the well of the abyss,
Watering well the seed of every kiss
As loves well tended soon take root and grow.
To love must be an everyday decision
Taken out of unrepented need,
The recognition of one's ceaseless longing.
The view depends on values more than vision,
The choice to let the choosing self recede,
Behind which lies revealed the grace of loving.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem at http://youtu.be/j24lZ6cOkJo .

The Roots of Hatred

May 30, 2013 #739

Dear Subscriber:

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

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 roots of hatred run so deep
We drink their poison in our sleep.
Deep within or deep below,
The roots run deeper than we know.

Day and night, and night and day
We while the precious time away
Hating, writhing, seething, ranting,
All the while new hate seeds planting.

In the mind and in the heart,
In the whole and in each part,
The anger clenches flesh and soul,
Taking a titanic toll.

O love, the wind that winnows well
The hate that holds the heart in hell,
Come and kiss the urge to kill,
And storms abate, and tempests still.

Love comes alone to those who call,
And love themselves along with all,
Love the roots and love the tree,
And know that you are part of me;

And know that I am part of you,
And you become the things I do,
And what I hate is what I am,
Both hungry wolf and slaughtered lamb.

So do not hate the hate within,
But love the love, and love the sin,
Love the beast and love the prey,
For both one word of wonder say.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem at http://youtu.be/fEmoKh-sr2g.