Self Becomes Less Self the More Self-Served

March 13, 2014 #780

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/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Self becomes less self the more self-served,
As who one is arrives from parts unknown.
Identity is never one’s alone,
Nor can one learn unchanged a single word.
Thus the self by nature is a part,
Present in the body of the whole.
A healthy arm or leg is not a goal
That one pursues regardless of the heart.
Remember, then, that one is more or less
In common with the boundaries one draws,
Choosing or not the love that sings and soars,
Knowing or not what brings one happiness.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/xxFWE2uGTmU.

I Pound My Leather Hand and Wait

March 6, 2014 #779

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

I pound my leather hand and wait
For it to gobble up the ball
Skipping towards me like a stone
About to break a knee or shin.

But I reach down my giant hand,
My shovel-shaped, web-fingered hand,
And scoop the skipping stone up in
The webbing like a ping-pong ball.

I sling it to my throwing hand,
Then barrel it across the field.
I pound again my leather hand,
My giant hand, invincible.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/yBixnz9Eqys.

Mugabe and Mandela

February 27, 2014 #778

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a political poem contrasting the ways in which Mandela and Mugabe founded their African states.

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

Mugabe and Mandela,
Two strategies for change:
One would whites include;
One would whites estrange.

Murder begets murder;
White murder begets black.
Once one goes for blood,
There’s no exit back.

Power unrestrained
By wisdom, love, or law
Leads to even greater
Horrors than before.

Yet letting whites retain
The property they stole
Leaves blacks still dispossessed,
Though equal at the poll.

For wealth is ever power,
Wont to have its way
With those of any color
Who happen to hold sway.

And so the pot still boils
With anger finely honed.
Was violence avoided?
Or was it just postponed?

Mugabe and Mandela,
Two ways to found a state:
One through storms still sailing;
The other drowned in hate.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/SieZYn0ArGw.

Love Comes Unexpectedly

February 20, 2014 #777

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/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Love comes unexpectedly,
As though a melody
Came flooding into everyday,
Turning thought to dance.

It isn’t sensuality,
Or plain good company,
Or beauty, or a fragrant spray
That brings one to romance;

But these and some sweet mystery,
A sensuous sanctity,
That makes a family out of play
And fate of wayward chance.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/SEwTvah0K4E.

Vast Differences Between Us Are like Oceans

February 13, 2014 #776

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Valentine’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/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Vast differences between us are like oceans
Across which we can fly with open arms.
Let us put aside our doubts and qualms,
Enduring through the joy of shared emotions.
Need is the sustainer of devotions,
The answerer of queries and alarms,
Issuer of ecstasies and charms,
Nemesis of unromantic notions.
Each of us needs love as we need food.
‘Ere we see, we longing look for love,
Surviving only by that gift of feeling.
Deeper than mere sentiment or mood,
A hunger we remember little of
Yet yearns in ways redemptive and revealing.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

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

Little Lucy Loves to Read

February 6, 2014 #775

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

Little Lucy loves to read,
Reading hour after hour.
Each story plants a tiny seed
That will grow up into a flower.

She reads within her garden where
The flowers oh so slowly grow.
There's lots and lots of beauty there,
In all the lands where she might go.

Oh, Lucy! Read of queens and kings,
Of girls and boys and unicorns,
Of fairy elves with rainbow wings
And ships that vanish into dawns!

And when you grow up big and tall,
And leave the garden far behind,
Look back, and see within the wall
Your flowers sheltered from the wind.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

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

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.