For Most of Us Life Passes like a Dream

April 6, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is friendship.

Today’s poem is a poem about how one needs friends to break out of the prison of the self.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

For most of us life passes like a dream,

Revealing only what is on our minds.

Inside the prison of the self we see

Each object as a shadow on our wall.

Nothingness awaits, as sure as night.

Did I not have you, dear friend, I might,

Shadow on a shade, not be at all.

How much we need a word beyond our sea:

In love and laughter, thoughts of different kinds,

Perhaps, with luck, unraveling a seam.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Friendship.

April 4: I Don’t Want You to Think that You Must Do

April 5: Sixty-Five

April 6: For Most of Us Life Passes like a Dream

Sixty-Five

April 5, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is friendship.

Today’s poem is a number poem for a woman who cultivates both plants and friendships.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Sixty-five surrounds herself with beauty –

In her home, her garden, and her duty.

Xerophytes might flourish without rain;

This woman likes more temperate terrain

Yielding fruits and friendships, grace and grain.

For her there is a unity of toil

In caring for community and soil,

Vineyards of the heart and of the hand,

Ecologies of love and of the land.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/65b.html. For more number poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Friendship.

April 4: I Don’t Want You to Think that You Must Do

April 5: Sixty-Five

I Don;t Want You to Think that You Must Do

April 4, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is friendship.

Today’s poem is about friendship as a joy rather than an obligation.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I don’t want you to think that you must do

Anything for me you don’t want to.

Friendship should not ever be a burden,

But should instead through sharing one’s load lighten.

Please don’t think you know my expectations

And then interpret them as obligations,

But do whatever brings you joy and grace,

And I will join you in that sunny space.

And when I share my sadness and my pain,

Feel blessed to know that you can do the same.

For friendship is a gift that in the giving

Gives beauty to one’s daily acts of living;

Gives music to the moment, and gives dance

To all who would through love find choice in chance,

And in a friend the good that friendship grants.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/idont4.html . For more poems about friendship, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/friendshippoems.html .

This week’s theme: Friendship.

April 4: I Don’t Want You to Think that You MustDo

For Us There Is No Death

April 3, 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 on a cemetery headstone for a couple buried together.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

For us there is no death.
Rest here merely bones.
Around you love's in flower,
Zero though our breath,
Etched into these stones.
Read and feel its power.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/forus.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
March 30: All I Wanted Was to Find the Truth
March 31: Death Came to Me While I Was at a Meeting”
April 1: My God Was the Future
April 2: So Few Realize What Life Is About
April 3: For Us There Is No Death

So Few Realize What Life Is About

April 2, 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 man who treasured ordinary life.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

So few realize what life is about.
If I knew nothing else, I knew warmth, pleasure,
Despite everything, I knew love.

People look for what they can measure:
A degree, money, children they can brag about,
Reasons others might wish them mazel tov.
On days like other days were moments I treasured,
Life like other lives, humdrum, passing without
Yammering, with you, with the children, full, enough ...

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/paroly.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
March 30: All I Wanted Was to Find the Truth
March 31: Death Came to Me While I Was at a Meeting”
April 1: My God Was the Future
April 2: So Few Realize What Life Is About

My God Was the Future

April 1, 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 former Communist.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

My God was the future. I’m with Him now,
As inchoate as we must always be,
Xeroxing my position on eternity.

Go find me in the future of your dreams,
Or in the box wherein you hide your zeal;
Remember me when fear says what is real,
Dictating truths to which your hopes must bow.
Only fierce passion a misplaced heart redeems:
Nothing less shall be my legacy.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/maxgor.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
March 30: All I Wanted Was to Find the Truth
March 31: Death Came to Me While I Was at a Meeting
April 1: My God Was the Future

Death Came to Me While I Was at a Meeting

March 31, 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 former union president.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Death came to me while I was at a meeting,
Opened up my chest and wandered in.
Nor did it leave until a few days later,
Satisfied it need not come again.
It was a death both unforeseen and fitting,
Living as I did for what I did,
Being one averse to merely being,
Engaged in service to the world I would.
Remember me, then, as I was when death
Made its sudden entrance to my heart:
Attentive in my seat, my wife beside me,
Night come, the meeting just about to start.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/death2.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
> March 30: All I Wanted Was to Find the Truth
March 31: Death Came to Me While I Was at a Meeting