There's No Secret to Nobility

January 30, 2014 #774

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for the Chinese or Lunar New Year (The Year of the Horse), written by the horse.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

There’s no secret to nobility.
Having seen it, one knows what it is:
Easy elegance, restrained but free,
Yielding grace that’s more than hers or his;
Enduring loyalty to one’s liege lord,
As much for love as for a sense of right;
Reverence that looks for no reward,
Out of some sweet source of inner light;
Friendship that pursues its proper end,
That needs a whole of which one can be part;
Humility, on which pride can depend,
Ever the safe refuge of the heart.
Human animals are far less able,
On the whole, to give themselves to love,
Reason being far less sure and stable,
Sensing what is real at one remove.
Even so, some few might noble prove.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKMGw92ocuY.

Festivities Pull the Cork on the Champagne

January 23, 2014 #773

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a forty-fifth 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

Festivities pull the cork on the champagne,
Opening up the bubbles stored below.
Rising, laughing, dancing as they go,
They burst upon the palate like sweet rain.
Years pass like songs repeating a refrain,
Festivals that mark the tuneful flow
In verses that voice well what all well know,
Verities that life and love sustain.
Each anniversary is like a wave
Yielding to the uplift of the shore,
Ending in a rush of froth and foam.
Again, again, the sea gives what it gave,
Returning, turning yet again for more,
Singing 'cross the well-worn sands of home.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

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

Make of Me a Hero

January 16, 2014 #772

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

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

Make of me a hero, but I was
A failure in what mattered most to me.
Remember well the ill that sainthood does,
Taking holiness for victory.
I think we are as far away as ever,
Not from equal laws but equal lives.
Little has been done to make life better,
Unless you like the shift to guns from knives.
The icon of my face is now a mask
Hiding the destruction of the poor.
Each day is worse for millions than the last.
Raging unregarded is a war.
Know, then, though our president is black,
I would march again, could I come back,
No icon, but a loving, peaceful scourge,
Gathering strength where race and class converge.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1VN22Sbs5M .

Friends Are Where One Offloads What

January 9, 2014 #771

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

Friends are where one offloads what
One cannot bear alone –
Spoiled goods that jam the gut,
Sorrows turned to stone.

Why does the act of telling friends
One's troubles ease one's pain?
Nothing changes, nothing ends,
Yet one can cope again.

It's not that one is looking for
Advice or sympathy.
One has pent-up words to pour
Into reality.

A friend is like a field on which
Such feelings can find air.
The point is not to say too much,
But simply to be there.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/yOS2f1ZM2dU.

Eager for a Miracle

January 2, 2014 #770

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Epiphany.

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

Eager for a miracle, one sees
Plainly and precisely as one wills,
Immersed in purposes, plans, goals, needs, desires,
Peering through the windows of a dream.
How might one see right through the way things seem,
Adjusting for the light of inner fires?
Numbers measure what the measure kills.
Yet some truths are best measured on one’s knees.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Happiness Is Wholly in One's Power

December 26, 2013 #769

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for New Year’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

Happiness is wholly in one's power
As one provides the chords to fit the tune,
Pleased to play sweet music by the hour,
Pleased to harmonize one's passing gloom.
Yet there are days demanding dissonance,
Needing harsh accompaniment to pain.
Embrace them, then, and give them resonance,
With brass enough to brighten a refrain.
Years are symphonies of varied mood,
Each sketched out by fate, filled in by you.
As the woodwinds dance, the basses brood,
Resolved in beauty – crafted, yes, but true.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLeU9VVDS4M.

Melodies of Christmas Wait All Year

December 19, 2013 #768

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a Christmas 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

Melodies of Christmas wait all year,
Eager to renew their joyous song,
Ready to transmit infectious cheer,
Restive after resting all year long.
Yet when they finally fill the crisp, cold air,
Caroling across the crowded streets,
Harmonies one cannot help but share,
Resonant with rhymes the heart repeats,
Instantly, it seems, the season ends,
So soon the sounds of celebration fade.
The family gatherings and time with friends
Make way as cold, dark everydays invade.
Alas, the melodies' brief hour has fled!
Sleep well, sweet carols, through the year ahead.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/TP-LdXS1lW8.