Perhaps This Is No Time for Telling Tales

April 10, 2014 #784

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/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Perhaps this is no time for telling tales.
After all, the slaves are still not free.
So what if God once parted the Red Sea,
Saving us, when slavery still prevails?
Ought one turn to save those left behind?
Very few would face the Pharaoh's host,
Emerging from the sea with little lost,
Ravenous to kill who would be kind.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/TptsH-B4mgQ.

Cabrina

April 3, 2014 #783

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a love and name poem.

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

Cabrina is the lover of my life.
All I am is hers, as she is mine.
Blessed are those who have a loving wife,
Redeemed as grace and joy in one combine.
In love one finds what else could never be,
Nor could one see the meaning one can see –
A beauty at the heart of life's design.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/dxlDzp1YcAY.

Mothering Sunday Is a Time to Speak

March 27, 2014 #782

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/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Mothering Sunday is a time to speak
Of what most days there seems no need to say.
The bedrock love on which we build our homes
Has the salience of eternity,
Enduring underneath the shifting years.
Remembering the selfless love we seek,
Infinite love embodied here in clay,
Nurturing hearts and tendons, souls and bones,
Grace incarnate, frail sublimity,
So might we surround with love our fears.
Umbilical thoughts sustain us through the bleak
Nights that turn so slowly into day,
Dreaming in a desert heaped with stones
As we find sustenance in memory,
Yearning for you still with childlike tears.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

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

I Dreamed I Must Be Sleeping

March 20, 2014 #781

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a humorous poem about dreaming.

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 thought I must be dreaming that
I thought I was awake,
For I was without question in
A most peculiar state.

Who was thinking I was dreaming
I was thinking in my sleep?
Was I awake while sleeping?
Oh, this was far too deep!

Or was I dreaming I was thinking
I was dreaming in the night?
And would I wake up tired or rested
Come the morning light?

The alarm beeped, and quickly I
Rolled off the rumpled bed,
Grateful for the clarity
That lit the day ahead.

© by Nicholas Gordon.

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/gSapt66Qty8.

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.