In Every Heart There Is, of Course, Corruption

July 6, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Independence Day (USA), which falls on July 4th.

Today’s poem is a July 4^th poem about the ubiquity of corruption.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

In every heart there is, of course, corruption.

No one is immune from lust and greed.

Democracy accommodates this need,

Embracing what might else lead to destruction.

People cannot people an ideal.

Equality's a myth, has always been

No more than something to put favors in,

Dependent on the lie that it is real.

Each decision is a battlefield,

Not of ideas but interests, yours and mine,

Calculated shrewdly to define

Exactly what advantage each might yield.

Do not be discouraged: Evil is

As much a part of us as love or bliss.

Yet what is not a wound cannot be healed.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/ineve6.html. For more poems for Independence Day, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/july4thpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Independence Day (USA)

July 3: Fantasies Endure the Test of Time

July 4: Just Think of How It Was That Hot July

July 5: I Wish There Were a Washington

July 6: In Every Heart There Is, of Course, Corruption

I Wish There Were a Washington

July 5, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Independence Day (USA), which falls on July 4th.

Today’s poem is a July 4^th poem wishing every nation could be as lucky in leadership as ours was.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I wish there were a Washington

For every failed state,

A Jefferson or Madison

To guide them through the gate.

I wish there were a Lincoln

For those now ripped apart,

A Roosevelt or Kennedy

For those that have no heart.

I wish each had the fortune

With which we have been blessed,

And found in their own founders

Fit heroes for the quest.

I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish,

But such things none can will.

One can only plant the seeds

And shape the soil well.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/iwisht.html. For more poems for Independence Day, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/july4thpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Independence Day (USA)

July 3: Fantasies Endure the Test of Time

July 4: Just Think of How It Was That Hot July

July 5: I Wish There Were a Washington

Just Think of How It Was That Hot July

July 4, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Independence Day (USA), which is celebrated today, July 4th.

Today’s poem is a July 4^th poem imagining what it was like to rebel in 1776.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Just think of how it was that hot July

Under threat of being hanged for treason.

Let yourself have faith enough to die,

Yet let that faith be in the power of reason.

Feel the heady fear of rash rebellion,

Of chaos, blood, death, vengeance, mayhem, blight.

Unleash with noble words that ancient hellion

Reigning cruelly over years of night.

They turned out to be right, those bold, brave men.

However, think what terrors faced them then.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/justth.html. For more poems for Independence Day, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/july4thpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Independence Day (USA)

July 3: Fantasies Endure the Test of Time

July 4: Just Think of How It Was That Hot July

Fantasies Endure the Test of Time

July 3, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Independence Day (USA), which falls on July 4th.

Today’s poem is a July 4^th poem about the holiday as myth and fantasy.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Fantasies endure the test of time.

Out of myths emerge identities.

Underneath the prose there is the rhyme,

Revealing what was not and could not be.

There is a well-worn scrim across the past,

Hard to see through, absent light behind:

Old, self-serving stories made to last,

Fictive landscapes painted on the mind.

Just listen to the songs of who you are:

Underneath your words are melodies

Long rehearsed, the bedroom door ajar,

Years ago, when truth was meant to please.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/fanta2.html. For more poems for Independence Day, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/july4thpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Independence Day (USA)

July 3: Fantasies Endure the Test of Time

Fifty5

July 2, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is the contrast between the holy and the mundane, in honor of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which began on June 26, at the end of the month of Ramadan.

Today’s poem is a number poem about the beauty of the infinite and beauty within time.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Fifty is a mark upon the waters.

Infinity’s the sea on which we sail.

Forever is a moment. Nothing alters

The being of the One behind the veil.

Yet there is beauty, too, in shades and borders.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/50c.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: The Holy and the Mundane

June 26: Every Moment Equally Is Holy

June 27: Each Moment Is like Sunlight on the Heart

June 28: Evening, and at Last the Fast Is Over

June 29: Alessandra

June 30: Forty-Four

July 1: Sixty-Three

July 2: Fifty

Sixty-Three2

July 1, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is the contrast between the holy and the mundane, in honor of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which began on June 26, at the end of the month of Ramadan.

Today’s poem is a number poem about someone who pauses on the brink of holiness.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Sixty-three suspends her animation,
Intending to replenish her reserves.
X marks the sacred center of her being,
The place beyond her appetites and nerves.
Yet still she hears the sirens of sensation.

To be oneself is to be all creation,
Here in ways no instrument observes,
Replenished by the simple act of seeing
Each windrow with the wonder it deserves,
Each remnant in the robes of revelation.

 © by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/63b.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: The Holy and the Mundane

June 26: Every Moment Equally Is Holy

June 27: Each Moment Is like Sunlight on the Heart

June 28: Evening, and at Last the Fast Is Over

June 29: Alessandra

June 30: Forty-Four

July 1: Sixty-Three

Forty-Four4

June 30, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is the contrast between the holy and the mundane, in honor of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which began on June 26, at the end of the month of Ramadan.

Today’s poem is a number poem about someone who, living in the mundane world, longs for holiness.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Forty-four looks within and listens,

Open to the whispers of the soul,

Remembering retreats, now long ago,

That gave him intimations of the whole.

Years may pass; the longing never lessens.

For such encounters, there can be no goal.

One stops one’s inner time within time’s flow

Until, now free of purposes and passions,

Returned to bliss, one can resume one’s role.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/44d.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: The Holy and the Mundane

June 26: Every Moment Equally Is Holy

June 27: Each Moment Is like Sunlight on the Heart

June 28: Evening, and at Last the Fast Is Over

June 29: Alessandra

June 30: Forty-Four