Veterans Have Claims upon the Hearts

November 7, 2013 #762

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 have claims upon the hearts
Even of those who railed against their wars.
The years of sacrifice transcend the cause,
Endured through agonies no word imparts.
Reason cannot comprehend such hell,
As strangers murder strangers out of duty.
Nor does the bleak, obscene, nightmarish beauty
Stop haunting dreams that love and rage compel.
Decency demands we do them honor,
Albeit with a hatred of the horror
Yet rampaging through joy, alive and well.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/l0L82l91jf8.

Brooms Inspire Restless Witches

October 31, 2013 #761

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

Brooms inspire restless witches
Ready for their midnight rides,
Overcome by urgent itches
One indulges to survive.
Maybe you will see them soon
Shrieking as they cross the moon.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/kmdGahlM7ZU.

Retirement Is Not a Long Vacation

October 24, 2013 #760

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

Retirement is not a long vacation,
Even though at times it may so seem.
The point now is the long-deferred vocation,
In which the work is free to serve the dream.
Retire well, then, as you long well labored,
Embracing well the job you took of need,
Making it a servitude well savored,
Enduring work with joy your heart decreed.
Now, though, you unburdened may pursue
The calling that you always thought was you.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

Often the Absence of Angels Seems Eerie

October 17, 2013 #759

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem about angels, ethics, and religion.

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

Often the absence of angels seems eerie,
Offering glimpses of worlds without end,
Vistas of vistas so vast one gets weary,
A desert of light without phantom or friend.

How will we manage when angels are truly
A future forgotten, a past past recall?
How will we rule when the rules are unruly,
With nothing but null at the heart of it all?

It hasn't been long that the angels are gone,
That the world is a speck of a speck out in space,
That two spheres existed where now there is one --
Heaven the haven beyond time and place.

What will come after the choirs of angels
Are silent for centuries? What will we be?
There is in that silence a scream that estranges
The soul from what shadows the senses can see.

The thoughts of Copernicus were the beginning
Of something that still has just barely begun.
What souls will distinguish salvation from sinning
When humans at last say goodbye to the sun?

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/PJEA7eyTgss.

Even as You Sacrifice Yourself

October 10, 2013 #757

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Eid al-Adha, the Muslim Feast of the Sacrifice.

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 as you sacrifice yourself,
In love with love and gratified to give,
Dancing 'cross the ancient inner gulf
Athwart the plain on which each soul must live,
Long-borne burdens lighten into prayer,
Acts of worship meant as acts of care,
Done freely out of gratitude and grace,
Hard – yes, hard – and far more than your share,
And still a gift no pleasure can replace.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

Instinct Is the Motion of Emotion

October 3, 2013 #757

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a psychological poem about instinct.

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

Instinct is the motion of emotion.
The agent of the action is the feeling.
On the land or in the air or ocean,
Creatures dance to what they find appealing.
Deep within the heart an ancient master
Guides us with intentions not our own,
Blind to individual disaster,
Seeking to preserve the eggs of stone.
O love, that lures us to the sacred ground
On which we dance the dances of desire,
And choose the fate the heart had long since found,
Doing what the ancient rites require:
Long may you rule where reason seeks to reign,
And move us to survive through joy and pain.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/Y036PsnylNA.

Social Workers Put a Human Face

September 26, 2013 #756

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem about social workers.

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

Social workers put a human face
On bureaucracy, a smile on the machine.
Client-centered, they navigate between
Interests in a very narrow space.
All that they can do will rarely do,
Life and budgets being what they are.
Will and knowledge only go so far.
One pushes hope, but must push paper, too.
Roles come with scripts that well-trained players read,
Knowing both the function and the need.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at  http://youtu.be/0qJid1qioZg.