Sunday, August 20, 2017

Meredith

August 21, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a name and psychological poem about an unfortunately common modern type.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Meredith has never been marooned,
Even though it sometimes feels like that.
Relationships have dwindled to one cat,
Even as her inbox has ballooned.
Deep into the night she crunches numbers,
Intelligent, industrious, alone,
Talking only business on the phone,
Hard at rest but briefly when she slumbers.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Psychology
August 21: Meredith

Saturday, August 19, 2017

Twenty-Two Years Later They Were Dead

August 20, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about two former spouses who never managed to get over their divorce.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Twenty-two years later they were dead
And nothing was resolved, nor would it be.
Life, as is its wont, had gone ahead,
But both of them, though freed, were never free.
Both remarried, loved, fell ill, and died,
Buried separately, with space reserved
For those who mourned them most, the two outside
What once was home but could not be preserved.
What bitterness and blame, forgiveness, rage,
Guilt, shame, fury, impotence, and sorrow
Sloshed against the walls of each's cage,
A storm that never yielded to tomorrow.
How beautiful and sad, the love of youth
That, though it could not last, outlasts the truth.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/22year.html. For more divorce poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/divorcepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Divorce
August 20: Twenty-Two Years Later They Were Dead

Friday, August 18, 2017

There Is No Mountain Higher than the Wall

August 19, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a divorce poem reaching out to a former spouse for friendship.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

There is no mountain higher than the wall
That comes between two people once in love.
But time can tear a mountain down with tears
As former lovers slowly move towards touch.

There is no happiness in hard, cold anger
Twisted like a girder in one's way.
The sun and rain can manage to grow flowers
Across the bleakest crust of lava plain.

So we, too, I hope, can manage friendship
Upon the battlefield of past defeat.
I would not want to lose our years of loving
To moments caught for good in bitter light.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/ther15.html. For more divorce poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/divorcepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Divorce
August 19: There Is No Mountain Higher than the Wall

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Love Undoes Its Heritage Quite Slowly

August 18, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a divorce poem about how long it takes to leave past love behind.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Love undoes its heritage quite slowly,
Spinning like a planet through its dust.
Sometimes it feels like hatred, sometimes mourning,
Sometimes pain long paralyzed by rust.

Sometimes shame of past humiliation
Wrings the heart with hands inured to toil,
And once again some drops of unspent fury
Spill upon the dry and barren soil.

Ay, me! When will it end? The seasoned sorrow
Of unforgiven trespasses of old?
No matter new love blossoming! There's somewhere
A place within untenanted and cold.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Divorce
August 18: Love Undoes Its Heritage Quite Slowly

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Jim Has Blue Eyes Flecked with Gold

August 17, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about two divorced people who fall in love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Jim has blue eyes flecked with gold;
Dark-haired handsome, rock-like good.
Marriage hid him, as it should,
Until his love ran cold.

He lived only down the street.
I was married, so was he.
But when divorces left us free,
We found the chance to meet.

Now we're both far happier
Than either ever was before.
Through suffering we found the door
That opened to each other.

We'll always feel, of course, the pain.
Divorce cannot but make one bleed.
But in that pain there lay a seed
That soon would bloom again.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Divorce
August 17: Jim Has Blue Eyes Flecked with Gold

Hardly a Day Goes By that I Don't Think of You

August 16, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem expresses the anger and hatred that often comes with divorce.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Hardly a day goes by that I don't think of you,
Mostly in anger, sometimes with hatred.
I loved you nearly half my life, and now
The bad has swallowed up the good, has eaten my heart.

How sad that I must bury so much of me!
I wish I could bury you.
The real, living you I don't want to hear about.
You were once what I lived for, and now
I don't even want to know when you are dead.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Divorce
August 16: Hardly a Day Goes By that I Don’t Think of You

Monday, August 14, 2017

Friends Go In and Out of People's Lives

August 15, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number and divorce poem about the difficulty of removing a former spouse from one’s heart.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Friends go in and out of people’s lives,
Old and new, near and far, and yet
Removing former husbands, former wives,
Takes years of anger, sorrow, and regret,
Years of rage not easy to forget.

Still, one must remove them from one’s heart
Even while sharing what’s most dear,
Vanquishing one’s pain with all one’s art,
Embracing what one else could never bear.
Nor will one ever be completely clear.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/frien4.html. For more divorce poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/divorcepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Divorce
August 15: Friends Go In and Out of People’s Lives