Veterans Have Served Their Time in Hell

November 8, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is war, in honor of Veterans Day, which is celebrated on November 11.

Today’s poem is a Veterans Day poem about how vets’ anguish never wholly leaves them.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Veterans have served their time in hell,

Emerging on the sunny side of pain,

Taking with them always shards of night.

Even in the midst of their delight,

Rich in all that love and luck can gain,

Armed memories rise that know their weakness well.

Now death joins the damned ones in their cell

'Ere we can remove them from the slain,

Snuffing out their suffering with our light.

Days and years diminish not the blight,

As only those who've been there can explain,

Yet walking by the side of those who fell.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Veterans Day

November 6: Veiled in Glory, One Looks Back and Grieves

November 7: Victories Require Validation

November 8: Veterans Have Served Their Time in Hell

Victories Require Validation

November 7, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is war, in honor of Veterans Day, which is celebrated on November 11.

Today’s poem is a Veterans Day poem about the need to justify wars.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Victories require validation.

Each act of violence must file its brief.

The loss of loved ones must find consolation,

Ennobled by some passionate belief.

Regard, then, all the murdered of the ages,

Aghast at all the words that justified,

Not without cause, the ever-righteous rages,

So small against the sum of those who died.

Due consideration waits on sages,

Aloof from the concerns of either side,

Years hence, when all are drained of hate and grief.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/vetda3.html. For more Veterans Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/veteransdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Veterans Day

November 6: Veiled in Glory, One Looks Back and Grieves

November 7: Victories Require Validation

Veiled in Glory, One Looks Back and Grieves

November 6, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is war, in honor of Veterans Day, which is celebrated on November 11.

Today’s poem is a Veterans Day poem about the difficulty of putting war behind one.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Veiled in glory, one looks back and grieves.

Each day of war is like a year of peace.

The nightmare, long since over, never leaves,

Endures because one won’t give up its lease.

Remembering’s an act of loyalty,

As though one could so keep the dead alive.

Nor does what’s real seem like reality,

Since that is not what will at length survive.

Dreams of death and terror do, in time,

Adjust to one’s routine as duties chime.

Yet nothing will one’s lust for life revive.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Veterans Day

November 6: Veiled in Glory, One Looks Back and Grieves

Horror Is Less Horrible than Life

November 5, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Halloween, which was celebrated on October 31.

Today’s poem is a Halloween poem about horror as a useful emotional exercise.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Horror is less horrible than life.

At least for most of us, it's an escape.

Let the nightmares out! Let squealers quake!

Let them safely fear the fictive knife!

Open up the Hell of undreamt dreams!

Wake the monsters lurking in the heart!

Exercise our fantasies through art,

Else dormant in a world of in-betweens,

Necessary nostrum of extremes.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/horro2.html. For more Halloween poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/halloweenpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Halloween

October 30: Witches, Werewolves, Ghosts, and Ghouls

October 31: Hobnob with the Hobgoblins

November 1: Hell Has Little Hope of Happiness

November 2: Have Witches Gone the Way of Wonders

November 3: Harbingers of Unimagined Horrors

November 4: Happiness, All Snug, Lies Fast Asleep

November 5: Horror Is Less Horrible than Life

Happiness, All Snug, Lies Fast Asleep

November 4, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Halloween, which was celebrated on October 31.

Today’s poem is a Halloween poem addressed to the spirits who wander the night.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happiness, all snug, lies fast asleep

As spirits roam the neighborhoods at night,

Let loose upon the Earth till it be light,

Laughing revelers, whom death doth keep.

O spirits lost, who wail but cannot weep,

Wanton worshippers of rage and spite,

Each the unknown author of its plight,

Equal in the pain you sow and reap,

Now come to us from out your vasty deep!

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/happi9.html. For more Halloween poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/halloweenpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Halloween

October 30: Witches, Werewolves, Ghosts, and Ghouls

October 31: Hobnob with the Hobgoblins

November 1: Hell Has Little Hope of Happiness

November 2: Have Witches Gone the Way of Wonders

November 3: Harbingers of Unimagined Horrors

November 4: Happiness, All Snug, Lies Fast Asleep

Harbingers of Unimagined Horrors

November 3, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Halloween, which was celebrated on October 31.

Today’s poem summons the spirits for Halloween.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Harbingers of unimagined horrors,

Avatars of those who rule the night,

Lurking in the shallows of our shadows

Like fish that lack the lungs to breathe the light;

Omens from an almanac of sorrows

Written on a midnight long ago,

Etched into the mirrors of our marrows,

Ever masks for what we dare not know:

Now revel with us till the cocks thrice crow!

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/harbi2.html. For more Halloween poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/halloweenpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Halloween

October 30: Witches, Werewolves, Ghosts, and Ghouls

October 31: Hobnob with the Hobgoblins

November 1: Hell Has Little Hope of Happiness

November 2: Have Witches Gone the Way of Wonders

November 3: Harbingers of Unimagined Horrors

Have Witches Gone the Way of Wonders

November 2, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Halloween, which was celebrated on October 31.

Today’s poem is a Halloween poem about the role of superstition now and in the past.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Have witches gone the way of wonders,

Asterisks of yesterday?

Life restores what reason sunders,

Lest we lose our mind for play.

Once we knew that what we knew

Was like a ship upon a sea.

Evil spirits wandered through

Eternity, and what was true

Never tainted what might be.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Halloween

October 30: Witches, Werewolves, Ghosts, and Ghouls

October 31: Hobnob with the Hobgoblins

November 1: Hell Has Little Hope of Happiness

November 2: Have Witches Gone the Way of Wonders