There Is a Point to Living Vertically

January 27, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is married love: the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.

Today’s poem is a poem about the beauty of living with one person for life.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

There is a point to living vertically,
To being with one person all one's life,
To diving 'neath the hapless, hopeless sea
Where one might meet the wonder of one's wife.
There is a mythic journey to be taken
That has much more to do with time than place,
That finds a fortune not to be forsaken,
Measured less in pleasure than in grace.
There is between us something more than passion,
A longing for belonging, and a sense
That here is love with neither writ nor ration,
Tendered with the joy of innocence.
The years pass quickly, though the time is long;
To spend them loving well cannot be wrong.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/vertic.html . For more poems about marriage, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/marriagepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Married Love.
Jan. 25: Marriage Proverbs2
Jan. 26: Marriage Proverbs
Jan. 27: There Is a Point to Living Vertically

Marriage Proverbs

January 26, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is married love: the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.

Today’s poem is another set of proverbs on marriage.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

1. Romantic love is a lightning bolt. Married love is an electric current.
2. Marriage is a mirror in which one sees a reflection of oneself.
3. The source of joy, in marriage as in lovemaking, is union with another. That is why, while there may be pleasure in purchased sex, there is little joy.
4. Similarly in marriage: when love is mutual, joy bubbles over onto all of life; when it is not, nothing is untouched by sadness.
5. In a good marriage one is continuously in love, regardless of anger, hurt, or the longing to be free. The trick is to be aware of it.
6. In time, one may resent the permanence of one's spouse almost as much as one relies on it.
7. That is why married couples bicker over trivia. For what is annoying at the moment is insufferable over a lifetime.
8. The hatred in a divorce is directly proportional to the love in the marriage, since only a strong hatred can sever a strong love and set the wounded free.
9. Marriage is a bulwark against time. For time is the measure of change, and in marriage two vow never to change.
10. In the end, of course, like the sea to a sandcastle, time sweeps over marriage, whether through death or betrayal. The bit of respite marriage affords is, however, all the Eden one needs for happiness. Or is likely to get.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/marripr.html . For more poems about marriage, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/marriagepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Married Love.
Jan. 25: Marriage Proverbs2
Jan. 26: Marriage Proverbs

Marriage Proverbs2

January 25, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is married love: the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.

Today’s poem is a set of proverbs on marriage.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

1. What excitement can match the intimate unfolding of another life?
2. The beauty of love is that giving and receiving become indistinguishable.
3. Each of us is born, lives, and dies alone, certain of nothing more than that we exist. Marriage is like a bamboo house built on stilts in the midst of that mad, rushing stream.
4. You are truly married when reflexively, without so much as a flicker of awareness, you begin to think of yourself as “we.”

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/marrip2.html . For more poems about marriage, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/marriagepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Married Love.
Jan. 25: Marriage Proverbs2

Sixty-Six2

January 24, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is racism and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

Today’s poem is a number poem about a sixty-six year old who fights racial hatred through song.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Sixty-six is now in full career,
Invested in an activist esthetic.
Xenophobes, take heed and you will hear
The songs that undermine your greed and fear,
Your need to make relations hierarchic.

So might the world in time turn empathetic
If oft-sung songs can make delight more dear,
X-ing out the hatreds that hearts sear.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/66b.html . For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Racism and Race.
Jan. 18: Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways
Jan. 19: Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They
Jan. 20: Melba
Jan. 21: Love Has Obstacles Enough, They Say
Jan. 22: I’m Married to This Muslim Arab
Jan. 23: Indians Are, of Course, Not Indians
Jan. 24: Sixty-Six2

January 23, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is racism and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

Today’s poem is a poem about the misnaming of Native Americans.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Indians are, of course, not Indians.
Nor were they ever Indians.
Denying their identities,
Inventing labels as we please,
Allows, of course, their genocide.
No word is ever innocent.
So names enable fratricide.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/india2.html . For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Racism and Race.
Jan. 18: Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways
Jan. 19: Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They
Jan. 20: Melba
Jan. 21: Love Has Obstacles Enough, They Say
Jan. 22: I’m Married to This Muslim Arab
Jan. 23: Indians Are, of Course, Not Indians

I'm Married to This Muslim Arab

January 22, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is racism and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

Today’s poem is a poem about how love bridges religious as well as racial differences.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I'm married to this Muslim Arab,
A lovely woman who wears the hijab.
Our differences dissolve in love
Of God, of life, of one another.

A lovely woman who wears the hijab
Comes naked to my marriage bed.
Of God, of life, of one another,
We then say not a single word.

Comes naked to my marriage bed,
As naked as we are to God.
We then say not a single word,
But silently I thank the Lord.

As naked as we are to God,
Our differences dissolve in love,
But silently I thank the Lord
I'm married to this Muslim Arab.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/immari.html . For more poems about race, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/racepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Racism and Race.
Jan. 18: Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways
Jan. 19: Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They
Jan. 20: Melba
Jan. 21: Love Has Obstacles Enough, They Say
Jan. 22: I’m Married to This Muslim Arab

Love Has Obstacles Enough, They Say

January 21, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is racism and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

Today’s poem is a love poem about the beauty and difficulty of interracial love.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Love has obstacles enough, they say:
Why add to them the obstacle of race?
Two backgrounds so diverse can't share one space.
Love can't keep the world's harsh truths at bay.
Ah, love! Let such trite wisdom go its way!
All life is difficult yet full of grace.
All men and women share the same small place.
Nor should we out of fear our love betray.
Love is to daily life a vein of gold
Running through the rock like liquid fire,
Making ordinary moments glow.
May we treasure it as we grow old:
The breath that does our dreary clay inspire,
The touch that transforms everything we know.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/loveha.html . For more poems about race, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/racepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Racism and Race.
Jan. 18: Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways
Jan. 19: Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They
Jan. 20: Melba
Jan. 21: Love Has Obstacles Enough, They Say