Endure Your Pain with Patience, Grit, and Grace

March 29, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is epitaphs, imagined final words in the form of name poems from real people who have died.

Today’s poem is an epitaph for a proper Englishwoman who died of lung cancer.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Endure your pain with patience, grit, and grace.
Do your work with pleasure and with care.
Nor should you let your troubles cloud your face
And veil the sunshine that you else might share.
Cheerfulness disarms adversity.
One muddles through on pluck and with a smile,
On courage and a proper cup of tea.
Nor should such sense be just a passing style.
Even though I suffered monstrous pain,
Yet with whole heart would I live again.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Epitaphs.
March 28: Shadows Haunted Me
March 29: Endure Your Pain with Patience, Grit, and Grace

Shadows Haunted Me

March 28, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is epitaphs, imagined final words in the form of name poems from real people who have died.

Today’s poem is an epitaph for someone who visited with dead loved ones before she died.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Shadows haunted me. I welcomed them,
Yearning for the dead who went before me,
Loved ones long lost, now delivered to me
Vividly, as though alive again.
I often did not know what I was seeing,
As past and present equally seemed real.
Reason can't compete with what we feel.
Ultimately, love transfigures being.
Beauty is a wanderer that goes
In and out of consciousness. One knows
Not what foregone confusions might be freeing.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/shado3.html. For more epitaphs, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/epitaphs.html.

This week’s theme: Epitaphs.
March 28: Shadows Haunted Me

Happiness Has Much to Recommend It

March 27, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is faith, in honor of Easter, which falls on March 27.

Today’s poem is about choosing happiness through a life of faith and love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happiness has much to recommend it,
A choice, though hard, that often satisfies.
Passing joys, pursued, bid fair to end it,
Perhaps because their truths turn into lies.
Yet one may choose a life of faith and love,
Even dogged by doubt and ripe with lust,
Ample as a river on the move
Singing down the balustrades of dust.
To love is to step forward into light,
Embracing what would else return to night,
Redeemed, redeeming by this act of trust.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/happ13.html. For more poems for Easter, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/easterpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Faith.
March 21: Even in the Depths of Longing
March 22: Each of Us Eventually Will Be
March 23: Even Though Passions Are Common as Rain
March 24: Each Year We Celebrate Christ’s Resurrection
March 25: Grant Us All the Peace of Understanding
March 26: Heaven Has No Exit to Despair
March 27: Happiness Has Much to Recommend It

Heaven Has No Exit to Despair

March 26, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is faith, in honor of Easter, which falls on March 27.

Today’s poem is about the twin errors of too absolute a faith and no faith at all.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Heaven has no exit to despair.
A faith too pure’s a prison in disguise.
Passion is the impetus for prayer,
Pleading for more hope than meets the eyes.
Yet lack of faith can, too, be too complete,
Emancipating one from all that matters,
A separate, though quite equal, self-deceit,
Sustained by reason, that one’s flailing flatters.
Truth demands fidelity to pain,
Ecstasy that comes and goes again,
Revealing nothing but a faith in tatters.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/heave2.html. For more poems for Easter, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/easterpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Faith.
March 21: Even in the Depths of Longing
March 22: Each of Us Eventually Will Be
March 23: Even Though Passions Are Common as Rain
March 24: Each Year We Celebrate Christ’s Resurrection
March 25: Grant Us All the Peace of Understanding
March 26: Heaven Has No Exit to Despair

Grant Us All the Peace of Understanding

March 25, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is faith, in honor of Easter, which falls on March 27.

Today’s poem questions God about the purpose of Creation.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Grant us all the peace of understanding
Why it is that anything is here.
Happiness or horror notwithstanding,
The point of the whole thing is far from clear.
If You are perfect, why this botched creation,
Replete with hunger, torture, lust, and greed?
Why suffer on the cross for our salvation?
I understand the end, but not the need.
A perfect being needs no son, no heaven,
No purposes, no places, priests, or prayers,
No stars or sepulchers, no souls, not even
One dead fool, about whom someone cares.
Could it be perfection could not be
Without my love for You, and Yours for me?

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Faith.
March 21: Even in the Depths of Longing
March 22: Each of Us Eventually Will Be
March 23: Even Though Passions Are Common as Rain
March 24: Each Year We Celebrate Christ’s Resurrection
March 25: Grant Us All the Peace of Understanding

Each Year We Celebrate Christ's Resurrection

March 24, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is faith, in honor of Easter, which falls on March 27.

Today’s poem is about how faith can be beautiful even for those who don’t share it.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Each year we celebrate Christ's resurrection,
Although some of us do not believe it.
So does faith become our common myth,
The beauty of which we must grapple with,
Even if the truth, as we conceive it,
Remains the moonlight of our own reflection.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/eachy2.html. For more poems for Easter, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/easterpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Faith.
March 21: Even in the Depths of Longing
March 22: Each of Us Eventually Will Be
March 23: Even Though Passions Are Common as Rain
March 24: Each Year We Celebrate Christ’s Resurrection

Even Though Passions Are Common as Rain

March 23, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is faith, in honor of Easter, which falls on March 27.

Today’s poem is about the difference between telling the tale of Christ and attempting to model one’s life on His.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Even though passions are common as rain,
And we must pass by as God’s children are slain,
Smiling while crossing their rivers of pain,
Telling the tale of Christ risen again:
Even as we do our best to stay sane,
Redemption comes only to those who remain.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Faith.
March 21: Even in the Depths of Longing
March 22: Each of Us Eventually Will Be
March 23: Even Though Passions Are Common as Rain