How Strange, the Way Life Comes upon the Moment

December 18, 2014

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem about happiness for the holidays.

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

How strange, the way life comes upon the moment!
Accident seems no more blind than choice.
Perhaps there is no clarity in comment.
Perhaps one needs to hear one's wordless voice.
Yet there one is, with life no less a gift.
Happiness heeds neither time nor place.
One sails on course; one does not mean to drift.
Life, however, sets all winds to grace.
In this time of yearly celebration,
Do, then, sing the melodies of joy,
Alive to beauty, ripe for revelation,
Yet perfectly in tune with each sensation,
Sense of life no living can destroy.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Blessed Are Those Who Can Embrace the Darkness

December 11, 2014

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Hanukkah about life and death, light and darkness.

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

Blessed are those who can embrace the darkness,
Opening the way to loving light.
No DNA can fail to fear its death,
Nor asthmatic fail to fight for breath,
Instinctively in terror of the night.
Even so, we know life can't be endless.

Some would like their being to be endless,
Each day, each hour, each moment free of darkness,
The fear of it, the thought of coming night
Hidden 'neath the holiness of light,
Ever wishing for eternal breath,
Less alive since less alive to death.
In faith one finds an antidote to death,
Zealously believing in an endless
Afterlife, a being beyond breath
Breaking like a dawn upon the darkness,
Each soul reborn into eternal light,
Timeless in a garden shorn of night,
Happiness forever free of night.

Each moment is a moment because death
Lets one limn the ecstasy of light,
Lets one grasp one's joy because not endless,
Every moment bearing one towards darkness,
Now each more dear for one's short lease on breath.

Grace can be granted in a single breath
As one finds Eden on the edge of night,
Blessed by both the light and coming darkness,
Rejoicing in the gift of life and death.
Infinity is instant and yet endless.
Each consciousness is blind yet full of light.
Let each moment be eternal light
As all that is, is compassed in each breath.
Nor can one be but one is all and endless,
Despite the doleful destiny of night.
Knowing this, one need not turn from death,
Embracing it, for life is lit by darkness.
No God need turn that darkness into light,
Nor miracle decree the death of night,
As every breath sustains a grace that's endless.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Some Would Sing Unmercifully of Joy

December 4, 2014

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a humorous Season’s Greetings poem about bearing the holidays.

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

Some would sing unmercifully of joy,
Even as the darkness fast descends,
A soporific meant to spirits buoy,
So blissful that it gives one's heart the bends.
Often holidays can be a pain --
Needy, noisy, full of aggravation.
Still, it might seem churlish to complain,
Given Uncle Scrooge's reputation.
Remember, then, to cherish every day,
Even holidays, with heartfelt cheer,
Embracing what you cannot shoo away,
Though with a little snort that says you're here.
In everyone a bit of humbug lurks,
Nor should you judge a cover by its quirks,
Granting fools a bit of charity,
So long as you come by it honestly.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Time Is a Gift, like Food or Love or Death

November 27, 2014

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Thanksgiving about the gifts of time and death.

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

Time is a gift, like food or love or death,
However much one wants to live forever.
All that is, is in a single breath.
Now is ample time for each endeavor.
Knowing one will die makes time more precious
Since even music needs a proper end,
Giving each note density and purpose
In a compass one can comprehend.
Vistas have horizons, even though
Infinity still lurks beyond the stars,
Nothing that a grateful soul can know,
Given that one’s gift such knowledge bars.

© by Nicholas Gordon

The Years May Sing of Darkness

November 20, 2014

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

The years may sing of darkness.
The heart still sings of light.
On the edge of evening,
The will holds off the night.

Ah, yes, the winter's coming.
We will not make it through.
Spring will burst with beauty,
But not for me and you.

This is not cause for sadness.
This is not cause for tears.
Our brief time here is timeless.
The song outlasts the years.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Deep Sea Divers Dove One Day

November 13, 2014

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a nonsense 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

Deep sea divers dove one day,
All decked out in green and gray.
Underneath the sea they saw
A million muskrats, maybe more.

“What kind of creatures could you be
Underneath the salty sea?”
The deep sea divers asked. “Don't you
Need air to breathe and burrows, too?”

“Oh, my! Oh, my!” the muskrats said.
“It's time for treats, then off to bed!”
And in a flash, like fin-tailed fish,
The muskrats turned in one bright swish,
And vanished like a whispered wish.

Deep down they went where whales trade
Their favorite shellfish in the shade,
While walruses wear woolen coats
And stingrays feed seahorses oats;

Where turtles dance with manatees,
And snoring snails try not to sneeze,
And seals in tux and tails sing
While serving scallions in the spring,
Too deep dark down to see a thing.

There the muskrats went to sleep,
Deep down below the deepest deep,
Too deep for deep sea divers to
Descend to, as deep divers do,
And far too deep for me and you.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Voices of the Dead Are All Around Me

November 6, 2014

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Veterans Day about coming home from war.

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

Voices of the dead are all around me.
Everyone alive seems much less real.
The smoke and screams and bombs and blood surround me,
Enduring through the love I still can’t feel.
Reality is rarely in the present
As truth and falsehood are defined by pain.
Nor can I stand one moment that is pleasant.
Sanity to me just seems insane.
Death is more attractive than a wife,
And loneliness a far less lonely life.
Yet I must turn and somehow live again.

© by Nicholas Gordon