I Love You Even Though I Know

August 4, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about the pain and ecstasy of unrequited love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I love you even though I know

You show no love for me.

Your eyes are icy springs that feed

My hidden ecstasy.

All night I hold you in my arms

And sleep in your embrace.

All day I turn away from life

To gaze upon your face.

Alone I find within my heart

A black and raging sea,

For only you, beloved one,

Can calm my Galilee.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Unrequited Love.

August 1: I Love You as a Valley Loves

August 2: I Love You, but I’m Not in Love with You

August 3: I Find My Happiness in Loving You

August 4: I Love You Even Though I Know

I Find My Happiness in Loving You

August 3, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about unequal love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I find my happiness in loving you.

Though my love is not returned, I don't mind waiting.

The woods are a cathedral where I pray

For the beauty and grace that lie within my heart.

You hold me and we kiss, and yet not yet

Is there the unity that love must crave.

You want me, but not as I want you:

This truth is like a wreckage on my sea.

There's no one else I hunger for, nor touch

That makes me feel I must take off my skin;

And so I'll wait as years pile up like leaves,

And long with the lonely patience of the moon.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Unrequited Love.

August 1: I Love You as a Valley Loves

August 2: I Love You, but I'm Not in Love with You

August 3: I Find My Happiness in Loving You

I Love You, but I'm Not in Love with You

August 2, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a poem letting a friend know that it’s just friendship, not love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I love you, but I'm not in love with you.

I want your friendship minus your desire.

I would not lead you falsely or betray you.

I feel the tenderness, but not the fire.

I have no reason for my lack of yearning,

No explanation for what I don't feel,

No other love to whom I might be turning,

No anguish to suggest this isn't real.

Passion is a horse that knows no master,

And I cannot with fences make it stay.

It must run free towards daylight or disaster,

Awake to glory in no other way.

So I must say what you don't want to hear,

Though I still hold you and our friendship dear.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Unrequited Love.

August 1: I Love You as a Valley Loves

August 2: I Love You, but I’m Not in Love withYou

I Love You as a Valley Loves

August 1, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a poem wondering whether love is returned.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I love you as a valley loves

The river through its fields,

Or as a note upon a page

The music that it yields.

I need you as the moon requires

The sun to make it shine,

Or as a soul in search of faith

Is rescued by some sign.

You are as much a part of me

As meadows are of Earth,

Or as a song is of a heart,

Replenishing its worth.

I love you as a hawk loves air,

Or a sailor loves the sea,

Or as a strong wave seeks the sand,

But ah! do you love me?

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Unrequited Love.

August 1: I Love You as a Valley Loves

Welcome to the Prime of Life

July 31, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about midlife comparing the middle of life to summer.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

WELCOME TO THE PRIME OF LIFE

1

Welcome to the prime of life!

The sun-drenched peak! The mountaintop!

You are the best you’ll ever be.

It’s all downhill from here.

Welcome to the prime of life!

In the maelstrom, on the clock!

Heavily invested

In family and career.

You wonder, whether man or wife,

If there could be more. The lock

Yields to your uncertain key.

What you feel is fear.

2

I’ve had affairs. Oh, yes, I’ve had affairs!

And I’ll have many more. My wife, I’m sure,

Has had some of her own. Who cares?

We are no longer starry-eyed and pure.

Midlife is a time to change,

A time to test and rearrange.

The prisoner rebels:

New partners for new selves!

For every stage of life,

A different man or wife.

I’ve had affairs. Oh, yes, I’ve had affairs!

I know my husband’s had some of his own.

We loved each other once, but now who cares?

Midlife is a time to be reborn.

Midlife crisis,

Youth entices.

While still active,

Still attractive,

One last chance

For romance.

We let our marriage drift until one day

One dalliance too many turned to love.

The wreckage of our lives around us lay.

We wept and raged, at long last deeply moved.

Midlife’s time to recognize

The inner damage done by lies.

It’s time to face the ugly truth

Long hidden by the dreams of youth,

And to change, for only so

Can one transplant oneself and grow.

3

How beautiful to make it through these years,

Shooting through the rapids of our rage,

The doubts, desires, disappointments, tears,

The turmoil that defines this restless age.

How beautiful to look back on our love

And know that it is stronger for these trials!

For passion long imagined puerile proved,

And light-filled lust no longer love beguiles.

Thank God we’re through it, sailing into fall,

The long, hot summer of our lives now over!

The wind is steady at our backs, and all

The widening waters calm, though growing colder.

4

The long, hot, fruitful days of life’s brief summer,

The prime of life passing all too quickly,

With thunderstorms that gather in the heat

And burst across the thirsty, dried-out plains,

Uprooting ancient trees, with swollen rivers

Raging, swirling, flooding, fast receding,

With fierce fires that open up the canopy,

Giving light to seedlings and to change,

With rippling, ripening fields, the winter’s store,

Exploding into heavy-headed grain,

With gardens lush and bountiful, with woods

Alive with life unleashed by lust and love,

Full, fat, feisty, feasting on the sun!

How long the labor lit by lengthened days!

How sweet the nights concealed in fleeting darkness!

The taste of life full, fruity, well-fermented.

The sunsets lingering, shot-through with yearning.

The dawns a bird’s full-throated cry of joy!

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/welco3.html. For more psychological poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/psychologicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Summer.

July 25: Summer

July 26: It’s Been So Good to Have You as a Friend

July 27: One Late Summer Afternoon

July 28: Elizabeth

July 29: Fruit Abounds Amid the Press of Labor

July 30: Thirty-Two

July 31: Welcome to the Prime of Life

Thirty-Two

July 30, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number poem comparing a thirty-two year old to a slowly ripening summer field.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thirty-two's a slowly ripening field,

Hot and happy in the summer sun.

Intense and long, the days are filled with light.

Reason knows that past the blue is night,

That all that ever is will be undone;

Yet for now that letter is still sealed.

Time moves slowly, certain of its yield,

While gentle breezes through the barley run.

Odd wisps of memories float high and white.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/32.html. For more number poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Summer.

July 25: Summer

July 26: It’s Been So Good to Have You as a Friend

July 27: One Late Summer Afternoon

July 28: Elizabeth

July 29: Fruit Abounds Amid the Press of Labor

July 30: Thirty-Two

Fruit Abounds Amid the Press of Labor

July 29, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number poem describing a mother in the summer of her life.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Fruit abounds amid the press of labor.

Old, abandoned plants produce sweet plums.

Rivers run unseen through ripening fields.

The heartscape sings, dreams unremembered answer.

Youthful still, the mother waits and listens.

 

There is much in summertime to savor,

Hard though the work until the harvest comes.

Revel, then, in what all seasons yield,

Even as each leaf becomes a dancer,

Even as the white world gleams and glistens.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Summer.

July 25: Summer

July 26: It’s Been So Good to Have You as a Friend

July 27: One Late Summer Afternoon

July 28: Elizabeth

July 29: Fruit Abounds Amid the Press of Labor