I Had a Rough Time with Three Kids by Myself

March 6, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is child abuse. Since many of my poems are written on request, some of the stories you will see contained in these poems are unfortunately true.

In today’s poem an abusive mother, years after her children are grown, asks for understanding.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I had a rough time with three kids by myself,
And I know that I didn't do well.
Counseling, fights, children's services, courts:
What I put you through must have been hell.

But I loved you - all of you - all of that time,
When my heart seemed to break every day,
When crushed, and crushed, and crushed against stones,
I would that the wind were my way.

And I tried - how I tried - to be what you needed
And show you the love in my heart.
But often the fantasy crashed and exploded,
And all that I was came apart.

And now you are grown, I don't ask forgiveness,
Just some understanding will do,
Of the person, however imperfect, whose life
And whose love was devoted to you.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Child Abuse.
Feb. 29: At Odds of the Night My Sister Irene and I
Mar 1: Adelaide
Mar 2: I Never Thought that I Would Do to You
Mar 3: Caitlynn
Mar 4: You Told Me in a Dream You Always Loved Me
Mar 5: The Pain Will Never Go Away
Mar 6: I Had a Rough Time with Three Kids by Myself

The Pain Will Never Go Away

March 5, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is child abuse. Since many of my poems are written on request, some of the stories you will see contained in these poems are unfortunately true.

Today’s poem is to an abused child.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The pain will never go away;
The wound will never heal.
The evil that was done to you
Is now your eyes, your heart.

The black will never turn to gray;
The blood will not congeal.
The violence is never through;
The past does not depart.

Time will merely make you whole,
Consuming what you are:
Part sufferer, part comforter,
Part victim, part new song;

Part mother of an angry soul,
Part child of despair,
Part witness and part conqueror
Of all that did you 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/thepai.html. For more poems about child abuse, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/childabusepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Child Abuse.
Feb. 29: At Odds of the Night My Sister Irene and I
Mar 1: Adelaide
Mar 2: I Never Thought that I Would Do to You
Mar 3: Caitlynn
Mar 4: You Told Me in a Dream You Always Loved Me
Mar 5: The Pain Will Never Go Away

You Told Me in a Dream You Always Loved Me

March 4, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is child abuse. Since many of my poems are written on request, some of the stories you will see contained in these poems are unfortunately true.

In today’s poem an abandoned child, now old, dreams of his mother.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

You told me in a dream you always loved me.
I wept with joy at what with joy you said.
My sadness was not there. It was so lovely.
And with you was my darling, also dead.
The sky was with an early sunrise burning,
Yet still with ample darkness for the moon,
Which held the secret of its youthful yearning
Although it knew that it would vanish soon.
How wonderful, I thought, at last to hear you
Say what I had known but never heard!
Abandoned, I have long longed to be near you
And find my long-lost refuge in a word.
I saw the truth of it within your eyes
And blessed the dream that ends but never dies.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Child Abuse.
Feb. 29: At Odds of the Night My Sister Irene and I
Mar 1: Adelaide
Mar 2: I Never Thought that I Would Do to You
Mar 3: Caitlynn
Mar 4: You Told Me in a Dream You Always Loved Me

Caitlynn

March 3, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is child abuse. Since many of my poems are written on request, some of the stories you will see contained in these poems are unfortunately true.

Today’s poem is a name poem for a girl abandoned by her father.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Caitlynn, like us all, has just one father,
A person whom she loves but does not see.
In fact, he has decided not to bother
To be the person only he can be.
Losing him, for her, is like a head-on:
Years and years of unremitting pain.
Nor will she ever feel quite free to let on,
Numb with rage, the fear that she’s to blame.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Child Abuse.
Feb. 29: At Odds of the Night My Sister Irene and I
Mar 1: Adelaide
Mar 2: I Never Thought that I Would Do to You
Mar 3: Caitlynn

I Never Thought that I Would Do to You

March 2, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is child abuse. Since many of my poems are written on request, some of the stories you will see contained in these poems are unfortunately true.

Today’s poem is a poem about child abuse from the point of view of the abuser.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I never thought that I would do to you
The terrible things my father did to me.
But here I am consumed with bitter rage,
Beating you with fists I can't control.

It is as though my father were within me,
Smirking at my helplessness as I
Do the things I can't believe I'm doing,
Slapping, punching, growling like a dog.

"You see? You see?" he says. "I couldn't help it!
My father did it to me, and I to you.
And now you to your son. Come join the circle,
And when he has a son, he'll join us, too!"

"No! No!" I answer silently. But I
Go on beating, beating, beating who?
Myself? My father? But it is only you
Who lies there screaming, scrunched into a ball.

Why? Why do I do this? Why? I wonder
As I watch myself go on and on.
Then suddenly I'm done. The thing is over.
And you, as I once did, weep to the wall.

I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, so ashamed.
I touch your shoulder gently, and you shudder.
The remorse is so much worse than was the beating.
I remember. But I cannot help it.

I take you in my arms. You lie unmoving,
Surrendering your body, not your heart.
I know that I will never, never reach you.
And still I hope without hope for your love.

My fear and shame are like a dark cocoon.
They were when I was you, are with me still.
I'm safe within our shared disgust and horror.
I know like me you'll never say a word.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/ineve7.html. For more poems about child abuse, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/childabusepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Child Abuse.
Feb. 29: At Odds of the Night My Sister Irene and I
Mar 1: Adelaide
Mar 2: I Never Thought that I Would Do to You

Adelaide

March 1, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is child abuse. Since many of my poems are written on request, some of the stories you will see contained in these poems are unfortunately true.

Today’s poem is a name poem for a grown-up victim of child abuse.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Adelaide is gracious to a fault,
Desiring harmony more than she does desire.
Each disagreement threatens to turn dire.
Likes and dislikes never leave the vault.
A child of war becomes adept at peace.
Intuitively she skirts the hidden mines,
Determined not to cross long-vanished lines,
Eluding rage long after rage has ceased.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Child Abuse.
Feb. 29: At Odds of the Night My Sister Irene and I
Mar 1: Adelaide

At Odds of the Night My Sister Irene and I

February 29, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is child abuse. Since many of my poems are written on request, some of the stories you will see contained in these poems are unfortunately true.

Today’s poem is the story of an abused child in Alaska who, looking back, sees a providential purpose to her pain.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

At odds of the night my sister Irene and I
Would count our coins that we might run away,
Stepping off the fated path of pain
That led me to the man whom I would love.

So little do we know of these, our lives,
That lead through dark and bitter labyrinths,
Sometimes to wind through sorrows unrelieved,
Sometimes to turn and climb through sunlit fields.

My mother was shot when I was three years old.
They brought us up to Anchorage to see her.
I don’t remember hearing she was dying.
I cried for juice and then was led away.

They took us down to live in Lower Kalskag
With those who didn’t care how we might wander
Through the chaos of their junk-strewn days,
Two melodies oft sung but rarely heard.

Often then we thought to run away
To live under the frozen moon and stars
Like faeries in a world of glittering ice,
Tinkling with each breath of polar wind;

Or walking with the freedom of the dead
By daylight in the shadows of the living,
Playing tricks on those whose anger lashed us
With all the passing fury of a storm.

Ah, bitter cold those days in Lower Kalskag!
Love was like an eagle high above us,
Soaring high above our frozen valley
Strewn with pleasure’s gnawed and splintered bones.

And life for me exactly was my heart:
A stone grooved deeply by slow-moving ice,
Borne upon an unrelenting glacier
Sliding like a snake towards some vast hell.

Long were I then lost to angry lust
Like those around me, save for two bright angels,
Strangers moved to pity by my suffering,
Who sent me to the Wrangell Institute.

There was a serenity of order
Strict with the insistence of wise love,
And I could be a child once again,
Safe to dream within my castle walls.

And there I met my life’s sweet love and light,
The boy who would become my man, my husband,
Whom I’d not have found another way.
And even as two children we knew love.

After Wrangell Institute I headed
Back to Lower Kalskag, for I knew
No other place to wait upon adulthood
When I and my sweet boy could make a home.

I never knew I had an older brother,
Now grown, who met me at the Wrangell airport,
Tore up my ticket, vowed that I would never
Go back to live in such a hell again;

And sent me to my sister in Bethel,
A sister also whom I never knew,
And there I stayed until I finished high school
And joined again the partner of my life.

We walked through rich and lovely fields together,
Filled with children, some who didn’t live,
Nor would I choose now to have suffered less
Upon a different path from birth to death.

We cannot know where fate by chance may take us
Or where the road through suffering may lead,
Or whether when we’re most submerged in darkness,
Our steps are headed straight into the light.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Child Abuse.
Feb. 29: At Odds of the Night My Sister Irene and I