Poem of the Week

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Mental Illness Doesn't Touch the Soul

October 21, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is for someone who is mentally ill.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Mental illness doesn't touch the soul

Even as it punishes the mind.

None can will the wanderings of the wind,

Though winter come, and tempests take their toll.

All who suffer innocent shall find

Love waiting by the window, well and whole,

Inside the heart, where it has full control,

Longing ever, ever unresigned.

Let go your fear, and follow, then, your path,

Neither more nor less constrained than those

Embraced by gods less ruthless in their wrath.

Sing bravely down the windrows of your woes,

Savoring a grace that comes and goes.

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

This week’s theme: Illnesses and Disabilities

October 16: I Want to Live

October 17: I’m Sorry I Can’t Tell You What

October 18: Linda

October 19: Breanna

October 20: Eighty-Eight

October 21: Mental Illness Doesn’t Touch the Soul

Thursday, October 19, 2017

Eighty-Eight

October 20, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number poem for a woman who is being kept alive by drugs.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Eighty-eight spends much of life in bed,

Interred beyond her time in drugs and pain.

Grateful only for the gift of sleep,

Having lost the will to laugh or weep,

The shrunken doll repeats just one refrain,

Yearning for the comforts of the dead.

Even so, the trail of pills has led

Into a world she grapples with in vain,

Grasping for a grace she cannot keep,

Harsh and vivid hauntings of the brain

That make of life a stew of joy and dread.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/88.html. For more poems about health and illness, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/healthpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Illnesses and Disabilities

October 16: I Want to Live

October 17: I’m Sorry I Can’t Tell You What

October 18: Linda

October 19: Breanna

October 20: Eighty-Eight

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Breanna

October 19, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a name poem for someone with RETT Syndrome.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Breanna is a cookie tough and tender.

RETT Syndrome is the gift that makes her, her.

Even though we wish all were born well,

As she is, we do not think her ill,

Nor would we life bereft of her prefer.

None could teach us more of love and will,

As sweet Breanna sings of pain and wonder.

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

This week’s theme: Illnesses and Disabilities

October 16: I Want to Live

October 17: I’m Sorry I Can’t Tell You What

October 18: Linda

October 19: Breanna

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Linda2

October 18, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a name poem for a woman confined to her room.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Linda is content within her room.

In outer order she sees inner space.

None knows so well the well-known love of place,

Dependent as she is upon its grace,

As she must here alone find ways to bloom.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/linda2.html. For more poems about disabilities, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/disabilitiespoems.html .

This week’s theme: Illnesses and Disabilities

October 16: I Want to Live

October 17: I’m Sorry I Can’t Tell You What

October 18: Linda

I'm Sorry I Can;t Tell You What

October 17, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is from a deaf child to her mother about acceptance and love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I'm sorry I can't tell you what

I'm sure you'd rather hear,

But there's a burden in my heart

I can no longer bear.

There's an anger I must cross

Before I come to you

And make my peace with who you are,

And try your soul anew.

I know I wasn't what you wanted

When you wanted me,

A healthy, happy baby girl

You could raise easily.

I was born impaired, and you

Have never understood

That what I am is whole and fair

And beautiful and good.

You were sorry, first for me

And then for you, and wept,

But I would not be me without

The fact that I am deaf.

I am a gift to celebrate

And not a cause to grieve.

As a child this was what

I needed to believe.

I needed but a different road

To reach the common goal,

But you decided there were things

I couldn't do at all.

And rather than accept what life

Had given in its grace,

You looked at what life had withheld

And turned from its embrace.

Ah, Mother! How you injured me

By what you would not own!

To love myself I had to leave

And make my way alone,

And have my children in the course

Of what I would become,

But always, always looking back

To where I had no home.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/imsor4.html. For more poems about disabilities, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/disabilitiespoems.html .

This week’s theme: Illnesses and Disabilities

October 16: I Want to Live

October 17: I’m Sorry I Can’t Tell You What

Sunday, October 15, 2017

I Want to Live

October 16, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about someone who suffers from multiple sclerosis.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I want to live

Till the sunset of my time.

And I want to give

All the beauty that is mine.

The days that assault me

And the years of pain awaiting me

Fill me with anger and with tears.

But I know just where I must go.

For I want to wander

Through the landscapes of my life,

And I want to love

As a mother and a wife.

The illness that torments me

And the love of those around me

Join to make hope my refrain

And courage my song.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/iwan11.html. For more poems about health and illness, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/healthpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Illnesses and Disabilities

October 16: I Want to Live

Could We Have the Clarity of Fate

October 15, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is discovery in honor of Columbus Day, which was celebrated on October 9.

Today’s poem is about the mystery of what lies just over the horizon.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Could we but have the clarity of fate

Or see the future as we do the past,

Little would we crave the mystery

Unknown to those who know what lies ahead.

Mountains make horizons definite,

Blocking off infinity, the last

Unbroken wave upon this solid sea,

Singing songs that we have long since heard.