What I Want to Ask of You Is This

July 18, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is proposing marriage and getting engaged.

Today’s poem is an acrostic poem proposing marriage by reading the poem vertically down the left side.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

What I want to ask of you is this,

If I can find the nerve to make the leap:

Life scatters dreams across the hills of sleep,

Lest it be too easy to find bliss.

Yet I am aware what I might miss.

Only what we treasure can we keep,

Ultimately sowing what we reap,

Moving us to dare that first brief kiss.

And so I must reveal to you my heart,

Recalling all my courage from its rest,

Ready for whatever word might be.

You are all the object of my quest,

My cynosure, my life, my other part.

Each line of this begins my urgent plea.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Proposing Marriage and Getting Engaged

July 17: There Is a Time When Freedom Must Be Bound

July 18: What I Want to Ask of You Is This

There Is a Time When Freedom Must Be Bound

July 17, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is proposing marriage and getting engaged.

Today’s poem is a marriage proposal poem about the need to choose to limit one’s freedom.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

There is a time when freedom must be bound

By what we freely choose to call our own.

For if not, someday we will have found

That we have made the choice to be alone.

I cannot call my love for you a choice:

I simply made a turn and you were there;

And all I was came singing with one voice

To lift my soul ten feet into the air.

But lightning bolts do not outlast the storm:

The years demand not ecstasy but will.

My love for you must take a different form,

One that lasts a lifetime, deep and still.

And so I make my choice, if you'll agree,

And seek your answer: Will you marry me?

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/there6.html. For more engagement poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/engagementpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Proposing Marriage and Getting Engaged

July 17: There Is a Time When Freedom Must Be Bound

To Imagine What a Better World Might Be

July 16, 2017

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 was celebrated on July 14th.

Today’s poem is a number poem about someone who changes the world through role playing games.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

To imagine what a better world might be,

Having thought it out in great detail,

Inventing settings, cultures, ways of seeing,

Reconstituting ancient ways of being,

Time traveling beyond the painted veil,

Yet all to change one’s own society;

Then turning one’s ideas into a tale,

Having sketched a future history,

Roles distributed to players, freeing

Each to live one’s vision fictively,

Experiencing the grace without agreeing …

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Revolution

July 10: Base Your Life on Reason, Only Reason

July 11: Andrew

July 12: The World Is Brought to Beauty Heart by Heart

July 13: Utopians Are Unrepentant Monsters

July 14: Before the Terror Comes the Tyranny

July 15: Frailty, Thy Name’s No Longer Woman

July 16: To Imagine What a Better World Might Be

Frailty, Thy Name's No Longer Woman

July 15, 2017

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 was celebrated on July 14th.

Today’s poem is a number poem about the peaceful feminist revolution.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Frailty, thy name’s no longer woman!

One’s destiny no longer is one’s gender.

Rebellion has turned into revolution,

The kind that frees, that casts old selves asunder,

Yielding souls that find their selves in no one.

This is a time to try the souls of women,

When time is broken, and one becomes a sculptor,

Old enough to shape one’s generation.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/frailt.html. For more poems about feminism, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/feminismpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Revolution

July 10: Base Your Life on Reason, Only Reason

July 11: Andrew

July 12: The World Is Brought to Beauty Heart by Hearthttps://www.poemsforfree.com/befor4.html

July 13: Utopians Are Unrepentant Monsters

July 14: Before the Terror Comes the Tyranny

July 15: Frailty, Thy Name’s No Longer Woman

Before the Terror Comes the Tyranny

July 14, 2017

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 is celebrated today, July 14th.

Today’s poem is a Bastille Day poem warning of the dangers of revolutionary chaos.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Before the terror comes the tyranny.

A bloodstained flower has roots in bloodstained soil.

Some would steal the fruit of others' toil,

Then claim it as a right of property.

In revolutions, though, if chaos reigns,

Legitimacy is lost, and many will

Look back with less distaste at former ill,

Eager more for order than for gains.

Days of terror yield dictators new,

As the many yield power to the few,

Yearning for the clarity of chains.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/befor4.html. For more Bastille Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/bastilledaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Revolution

July 10: Base Your Life on Reason, Only Reason

July 11: Andrew

July 12: The World Is Brought to Beauty Heart by Heart

July 13: Utopians Are Unrepentant Monsters

July 14: Before the Terror Comes the Tyranny

Utopians Are Unrepentant Monsters

July 13, 2017

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 14th.

Today’s poem is a about how a desire for utopia, or perfect good, can lead to evil.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Utopians are unrepentant monsters.

The perfect is the perfect rationale.

O send us serial killers, rapists, gangsters,

Preferably to "should" becoming "shall"!

In those who seek to make their visions real,

A rage becomes the furnace of their zeal;

Nor can they love, who would impose their will,

Sure enough of paradise to kill.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Revolution

July 10: Base Your Life on Reason, Only Reason

July 11: Andrew

July 12: The World Is Brought to Beauty Heart by Heart

July 13: Utopians Are Unrepentant Monsters

The World Is Brought to Beauty Heart by Heart

July 12, 2017

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 14th.

Today’s poem is a number poem about peaceful revolution through artistic and cultural change.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The world is brought to beauty heart by heart.

How else might change take root but one by one?

Imagination is the proper tool,

Revealing what no doubt can overrule:

The wonder and the longing shaped by art.

Year by glacial year change will come.

For every game or story plays its part.

Over time, tiny shifts accrue

Until the old accommodates the new,

Returning, turning, till its day is done.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/thewo7.html. For more poems about politics, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Revolution

July 10: Base Your Life on Reason, Only Reason

July 11: Andrew

July 12: The World Is Brought to Beauty Heart by Heart