Lest You Leave Your Longings in the Sunshine

July 19, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is faith.

Today’s poem is a poem for the Lunar New Year about how the beauty of traditional worship can help guide faith.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Lest you leave your longings in the sunshine

Unprotected from night's bitter shade,

Now you may take them on the lunar wind,

Alive to phantoms vivid as your face

Reveling in front of Reason's door.

Nor could your own inventions offer more,

Even those transfigured from your race,

Which, privatized, seem downsized, somehow thinned.

Yet here is all the wealth the past has made,

Each relic well preserved in ancient brine,

A treasure-trove of comedy and grace

Resting where your faith would else be blind.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Faith.

July 18: I’ll See You When the Sun Goes Down

July 19: Lest You Leave Your Longings in theSunshine

I'll See You When the Sun Goes Down

July 18, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is faith.

Today’s poem is a Christian poem to a dead loved one about how faith helps one bear grief.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I'll see you when the sun goes down

And all the stars go crazy,

And Christ returns to claim His throne

Upon this erring earth.

And you and I will be amazed

At all that now seems hazy;

For now is faith, but then will be

The glory of rebirth.

Death will die, and we will sing

With angels at our ears,

And all my love for you will pour

Like rivers from my song.

And joy will never end, for we

Will be beyond the years,

And time before the end of time

Will not seem very long.

How beautiful Creation will

Then be! Much more than now,

When visible to faith alone

As we endure our pain.

How wonderful the gift of grace

From Christ that will allow

Me well to bear my grief until

I see you once again.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Faith.

July 18: I’ll See You When the Sun Goes Down

In Heaven I Met Karl Marx

July 17, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is revolution, in honor of Bastille Day, which falls on July 14.

Today’s poem is about meeting five revolutionary figures in Heaven.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

In Heaven I met Karl Marx.

Lenin was there, too, Stalin,

And Hitler along with Jesus Christ.

There was no Hell.

I asked Karl to explain the justice in this arrangement.

He said there was no way of measuring

The good in a person's life.

He admitted he had been wrong

About history and some other things

And expressed regret about all

Who'd been slaughtered in his name.

Hitler, Lenin, and Stalin did, too,

Along with Jesus Christ,

Who was sad that more than any

Had been broken and burned for him.

All said it was a consequence

Of being so sure they were right.

None of them made excuses.

Ilyich did not blame Josef,

Adolph did not plead madness,

Neither Karl nor Jesus balanced

The bad with the good they had done.

Instead they seemed at peace

Completely with what had been,

In a clarity of repose

Which seemed quite perfect for Heaven.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Revolution.

July 11: Beware of the Future: We Are the Ancien Régime

July 12: Everything We Thought Was True Was Not True

July 13: Those Who Have Power and No Pity

July 14: Beware of Inequalities Too Wide

July 15: The World Might Well Be Remedied

July 16: Proverbs on Ideology

July 17: In Heaven I Met Karl Marx

Proverbs on Ideology

July 16, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is revolution, in honor of Bastille Day, which falls on July 14.

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

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

PROVERBS ON IDEOLOGY

1.     Ideology is like blinders that allow a horse to go in a single direction without distraction.
2.     It is more satisfying, logical, and effective to see life as a coherent whole. It is also reductive.
3.     Religion is more or less ideological depending on the degree of fundamentalism.
4.     A cult is an extreme instance of ideology.
5.     What makes ideology so attractive is that it simplifies life, allowing the current of feeling to flow unimpeded by eddies and counter-currents. Which is precisely what makes it so dangerous.
6.     People who adopt an ideology sometimes feel as though they have been reborn into a world in which their lives have purpose and meaning. Naturally, they then come to deny or ignore any part of truth that threatens that precious sense.
7.     A cult of personality is a common feature of ideology, which is often personified by a charismatic authority figure who takes advantage of the fact that his or her followers have abandoned skepticism.
8.     Far more evil is done by people who believe they are doing good than by people who believe they are doing evil.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Revolution.
July 11: Beware of the Future: We Are the Ancien Régime
July 12: Everything We Thought Was True Was Not True
July 13: Those Who Have Power and No Pity
July 14: Beware of Inequalities Too Wide
July 15: The World Might Well Be Remedied
July 16: Proverbs on Ideology

The World Might Well Be Remedied

July 15, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is revolution, in honor of Bastille Day, which falls on July 14.

Today’s poem is about how revolutions so often lead to dictatorships.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The world might well be remedied,

The revolution won,

Eyes turned back towards paradise

And memories to stone.

Power might indeed devolve

To those who now have none,

Saints upon the barricades

Whose time has come and gone.

For in the act of overthrow

There sits a golden throne,

Empty till the tide returns

To those who rule alone.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/thewo3.html. For more political poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Revolution.

July 11: Beware of the Future: We Are the Ancien Régime

July 12: Everything We Thought Was True Was Not True

July 13: Those Who Have Power and No Pity

July 14: Beware of Inequalities Too Wide

July 15: The World Might Well Be Remedied

Beware of Inequalities Too Wide

July 14, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is revolution, in honor of Bastille Day, which falls on July 14.

Today’s poem is a Bastille Day warning about the dangers of too-wide social inequalities.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Beware of inequalities too wide

And chasms that cannot be bridged by dreams.

Societies fray first along the seams,

Then rip apart, exposing rot inside.

In chaos hopes for liberty abide;

Life in its Edenic newness gleams;

Longing is more brutal than it seems;

Ecstatic demons 'cross the wastelands glide.

Do, then, recall the day of the Bastille

As one whose burst of glory would reveal

Yearnings that would stain the turning tide.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/bewar2.html. For more poems for Bastille Day, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/bastilledaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Revolution.

July 11: Beware of the Future: We Are the Ancien Régime

July 12: Everything We Thought Was True Was Not True

July 13: Those Who Have Power and No Pity

July 14: Beware of Inequalities Too Wide

Those Who Have Power and No Pity

July 13, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is revolution, in honor of Bastille Day, which falls on July 14.

Today’s poem is about those who, seizing power in the name of democracy and freedom, use it for personal profit.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Those who have power and no pity,

Who would avenge the right by sword,

And profit from justice,

And do well by doing good;

Those who would gain by others' grief

In the name of freedom,

And allocate the Earth's abundance to themselves,

And allow the marketplace to starve children;

And those who would see such things happen and do nothing:

The mark of Cain is on them,

And on their followers,

And on their generations.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Revolution.

July 11: Beware of the Future: We Are the Ancien Régime

July 12: Everything We Thought Was True Was Not True

July 13: Those Who Have Power and No Pity