New Years Are a Chance for a Beginning

December 31, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a New Year’s poem about the need to dream.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

New years are a chance for a beginning

Even when there hasn't been an end.

Wheels turn in an interminable bend,

Yet, marked in one spot, seem to wobble spinning.

Each year we hope to do a little better

Although we know that really nothing's changed.

Reason often is from hope estranged,

So we must dream if we would fate unfetter.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/newye2.html. For more New Year’s poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/newyearsdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: New Year’s Day

December 26: Here’s a Happy Harbinger

December 27: Happiness Depends on More than Years

December 28: Hope Is Often Rented by the Year

December 29: Hours Mean No More or Less than Years

December 30: Millennia Are Fairly Common Things

December 31: New Years Are a Chance for a Beginning

Millennia Are Fairly Common Things

December 30, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem was written for the turn of the millennium.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Millennia are fairly common things:

In a billion years are quite a few.

Long or short, their roundness pleasure brings:

Life needs some pretext to start anew.

Each millennium's a fresh, blank page:

No future ever stretched so fair and far.

Now we wait upon the empty stage

In hopes we'll catch a glimpse of who we are.

Underneath is something vast and free:

Millennia are chains across a sea.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/millen.html. For more New Year’s poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/newyearsdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: New Year’s Day

December 26: Here’s a Happy Harbinger

December 27: Happiness Depends on More than Years

December 28: Hope Is Often Rented by the Year

December 29: Hours Mean No More or Less than Years

December 30: Millennia Are Fairly Common Things

Hours Mean No More or Less than Years

December 29, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a Happy New Year poem about the purpose of artificially designating one moment as the beginning of the New Year.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Hours mean no more or less than years.

A moment is a point with no dimension.

People count to undermine their fears,

Persuaded numbers lead to comprehension.

Yet time is an illusion of our motion,

No realer than the rising of the sun.

Each line we draw rests on a restless ocean,

Way, way beyond the scalable scope of one.

Years do not begin and never end

Except for purposes of calibration.

A need to share our yearnings, friend to friend,

Requires just one point of celebration.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/hours.html. For more New Year’s poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/newyearsdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: New Year’s Day

December 26: Here’s a Happy Harbinger

December 27: Happiness Depends on More than Years

December 28: Hope Is Often Rented by the Year

December 29: Hours Mean No More or Less thanYears

Hope Is Often Rented by the Year

December 28, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a Happy New Year poem about one’s lease on hope being renewed each year.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Hope is often rented by the year.

A ceremony helps ensure the signing.

People like transitions to be clear,

Preferably at moments when they're dining.

Yet as a rental flat can be a home,

No one wants to terminate this lease.

Each thinks hope too poor a risk to own

While needing its bright arc for inner peace.

Years therefore start with hope again renewed

Even as the old year's wishes die.

After all the books have been reviewed,

Ring in the New Year!--with a gentle sigh.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/hopeis.html. For more New Year’s poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/newyearsdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: New Year’s Day

December 26: Here’s a Happy Harbinger

December 27: Happiness Depends on More than Years

December 28: Hope Is Often Rented by the Year

Happiness Depends on More than Years

December 27, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a Happy New Year poem about the experience of permanence and change.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happiness depends on more than years.

All one's moments gather to a wave

Passing in a rolling swell of tears,

Passions too immense to name or save.

Yet New Year's is a crest on which to sing,

Now poised between the future and the past.

Each awaits what course the fates may bring,

Winds that never touch the things that last.

Years turn and turn with an hypnotic grace

Even as the depths of life lie still.

Although above one might not silence face,

Remember that below the divers will.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/happi4.html. For more New Year’s poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/newyearsdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: New Year’s Day

December 26: Here's a Happy Harbinger

December 27: Happiness Depends on More thanYears

Here's a Happy Harbinger

December 26, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a Happy New Year poem about hope being reborn with the New Year.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Here’s a happy harbinger,

A sign of good to come,

Placed where darkness dooms the day,

Placed where hope is gone.

Years, like people, age, and therefore

Need to be reborn,

Ending with a tired sigh,

Weary, weak, and worn.

Yet like a child, each new year is

Embraced with joy regained,

A harbinger of happiness

Returning 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/heres3.html. For more New Year’s poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/newyearsdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: New Year’s Day

December 26: Here’s a Happy Harbinger

How Lovely 'Tis to Take This Time

December 25, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. Since Christmas and Chanukah fall so near each other this year (Christmas Eve and the first night of Chanukah are both on December 24), this week’s theme is the spirit common to both holidays.

Today’s poem is a Christmas poem about keeping the flame of love alive through friendship.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

How lovely 'tis to take this time

To greet our dearest friends,

To wish them health and happiness

Before the old year ends.

Darkness comes late afternoon

And winter lies ahead,

But friendship is a glowing fire

When all seems cold and dead.

Just as in some vacant barn,

Unnoticed in the night,

The whole of human history turns,

So we, too, make things right.

We must keep alive the flame

Though darkness grip the Earth;

For in the love we find in friends

Is our chance for rebirth.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Chanukah and Christmas

December 19: Hanukkah and Christmas Go Together

December 20: Can Anyone Love Christmas Who’s Not Christian

December 21: Three Holidays! Hooray! Hooray!

December 22: Santa Lights the Hanukkah Lights

December 23: So Who Said It Was Easy

December 24: Hanumas Is Something Strange Indeed

December 25: How Lovely ‘Tis to Take This Time