Forever Is like Getting Off a Train

August 14, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about how through the imagination one might step out of time into forever.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Forever is like getting off a train:

Outside the landscape listens, holds its breath;

Racing hedges stop, the mountains pause,

Trees wait on the wind, as still as death.

Yet far off, a whistle sounds again.

So may we, though trapped within our motion,

Imaginatively step beyond its laws:

X's on the surface of an ocean.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Time.

August 8: Forty-Eight

August 9: Bless These Family Gatherings

August 10: The Universe Is One of Many

August 11: The Los Angeles of 1958

August 12: The Past Is Never Over

August 13: Eventually, Memories Settle Down

August 14: Forever Is like Getting Off a Train

Eventually, Memories Settle Down

August 13, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about the ubiquity yet elusiveness of the moment.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Eventually, memories settle down;

Later still, perhaps, go back to sleep.

Life cannot hold so much of life for long,

Yet now I hold it dancing in my hands.

Though everything is now, now is not;

Each moment dances in a sea of light.

People were and will be, never are;

Present is a glass through which we wonder.

Everywhere are ghosts that dance in dreams

Rounded by the curvature of time.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Time.

August 8: Forty-Eight

August 9: Bless These Family Gatherings

August 10: The Universe Is One of Many

August 11: The Los Angeles of 1958

August 12: The Past Is Never Over

August 13: Eventually, Memories Settle Down

The Past Is Never Over

August 12, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about the continuity of time over generations, over millennia, and the importance of the study of history and pre-history.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The past is never over, nor

The future ever here.

Shards beneath the sand contain

Old verses of our hymns.

In Time there are no endings, nor

Can lines be very clear.

The bones of ancient hominids

Linger in our limbs.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Time.

August 8: Forty-Eight

August 9: Bless These Family Gatherings

August 10: The Universe Is One of Many

August 11: The Los Angeles of 1958

August 12: The Past Is Never Over

The Los Angeles of 1958

August 11, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about how time devours the holy presence of each moment.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The Los Angeles of 1958

Was obliterated in 1959.

Every house, movie star, palm tree, and freeway

No more. Gone. Nada. Nihil. We say

There are photos, memories--I have mine.

Yet holy presence we cannot recreate.

From desire and dream we make our memories,

Images of images, the stage

Vacant, the quartet long gone, our rage,

Ever, for lies, distortions, uncertainties.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/la1958.html. For more philosophical poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Time.

August 8: Forty-Eight

August 9: Bless These Family Gatherings

August 10: The Universe Is One of Many

August 11: The Los Angeles of 1958

The Universe Is One of Many

August 10, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about time, eternity, and the power of the imagination in the multiverse.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The universe is one of many

In the multiverse,

As unremarkable as any,

No better and no worse.

The Big Bang was just one big bang

Lighting up the Void.

One by one the rockets sang,

Burst, and were destroyed.

Existence ends, begins, and ends

In moments that can last

Beyond a time one comprehends,

Though over just as fast.

Fantastic fireworks! And who

Might see such spawn and death,

Such multiversal ballyhoo

Encompassed in one breath?

Eternity’s a gift of grace

Awarded every soul

Who, living in one time and place,

Can summon up the whole.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Time.

August 8: Forty-Eight

August 9: Bless These Family Gatherings

August 10: The Universe Is One of Many

Bless These Family Gatherings

August 9, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about how regular family gatherings are a way to conquer time.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Bless these family gatherings!

In keeping up relations,

Given love, they conquer time,

Enduring generations.

Long may we gather so, that we

Outlive ourselves, for memory's

Well served by celebrations.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/bless7.html. For more psychological poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/psychologicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Time.

August 8: Forty-Eight

August 9: Bless These Family Gatherings

Forty-Eight3

August 8, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a birthday number poem for a 48 year old born on Leap Year Day.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Forty-eight is twelve, having been born

On Leap Year Day, twelve genuine birthdays ago,

Reminding us of what we think we know:

That time and space are by the numbers drawn.

Yet time’s a moment when it's ever dawn.

Each moment is infinity writ small.

In time, of course, nothing stays the same.

Given such mysteries, grace waits for all,

Having never come yet ever came,

There, just simply there, for all to claim.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/48c.html. For more philosophical poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Time.

August 8: Forty-Eight