So You Want to Make Your Living in the Theater

January 10, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is the performing arts.

Today’s poem is a Hanukkah and name poem about making one’s living in the theater.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

So you want to make your living in the theater!

Easier to burn without oil for eight days!

The point of Hanukkah is that God has his ways.

However ...

And what kind of miracle are you looking for, anyway?

No miracle is going to give you back your life:

Days of dreams, days and nights of despair, years and years

and years of hope...

Living at the heart of creation;

Of all the dry movement, flakes of dead talk,

Retakes, rituals, favors for the files,

Rendering one perfect, sparkling scream ...

A miracle takes a lot of rehearsal.

In between, one works and wonders, wonders and counts the days.

Nodding from exhaustion, one says yes, yes, yes,

Even this, yes, even this ...

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Performing Arts

January 8: Feelings Are Not Easily Counterfeited

January 9: Actors Wear a Special Mask

January 10: So You Want to Make Your Living in the Theater

Actors Wear a Special Mask

January 9, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is the performing arts.

Today’s poem is about how actors reveal themselves while pretending to be someone else.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Actors wear a special mask:

One that's most revealing.

When they pretend they're someone else

They hang themselves to dry.

The tears and screams they've made their task

Leave nothing for concealing.

Each wound must bleed again, or else

The audience won't cry.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Performing Arts

January 8: Feelings Are Not Easily Counterfeited

January 9: Actors Wear a Special Mask

Feelings Are Not Easily Counterfeited

January 8, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is the performing arts.

Today’s poem is a number poem about how actors might convincingly capture a character’s feelings.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Feelings are not easily counterfeited.

In each there is a telltale watermark.

Faces may emote, the tense brows knitted,

The eyes and anguish may be finely fitted,

Yet audiences sense the missing spark.

The trick is not to be, but to become,

Here within a moment yet to be.

Remember that the whole is not the sum.

Each soul has depths no character can plumb;

Each word's a window onto mystery.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Performing Arts

January 8: Feelings Are Not Easily Counterfeited

Fly upon Imaginary Wings

January 7, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is epiphany, both for the holiday that was celebrated yesterday, January 6^th, and in the sense of any sudden insight or perception of meaning.

Today’s poem is a number poem about epiphanies that seem to come from an alien voice within.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Fly upon imaginary wings

Over every dark and windswept storm.

Rise above all turbulence and harm

To where the white-robed angels praises sing,

Yearning for eternal peace and joy.

Even as the winds your worlds destroy,

In you there is an alien voice, and calm,

Giving forth the word that rapture brings:

Holy, holy is all life and death!

There is a paradise within each breath.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: New Year’s/Epiphany

January 1: Happiness Is Something that One Settles for

January 2: Joy Leaves a Bit of Wonder in Its Wake

January 3: There Is Much Pleasure in the Love of Learning

January 4: Cyberspace, Silent Space

January 5: You Think You Can Just Dive into the Sky

January 6: Each Year Again the Gifts Are Given Gladly

January 7: Fly upon Imaginary Wings

Each Year Again the Gifts Are Given Gladly

January 6, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is epiphany, both for the holiday that is celebrated today, January 6^th, and in the sense of any sudden insight or perception of meaning.

Today’s poem is a poem for Epiphany about the meaning of gifts.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Each year again the gifts are given gladly,

Perhaps because one wants to be a gift.

In goods there can be good, yet sometimes, sadly,

People get the thing but not the drift.

How could the wise men come without a token,

A gift to give the child, new born a king?

Nor could their words speak as their gifts had spoken,

Yielding love incarnate in a thing.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: New Year’s/Epiphany

January 1: Happiness Is Something that One Settles for

January 2: Joy Leaves a Bit of Wonder in Its Wake

January 3: There Is Much Pleasure in the Love of Learning

January 4: Cyberspace, Silent Space

January 5: You Think You Can Just Dive into the Sky

January 6: Each Year Again the Gifts Are Given Gladly

You Think You Can Just Dive into the Sky

January 5, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is epiphany, both for the holiday that falls on January 6^th and in the sense of any sudden insight or perception of meaning.

Today’s poem is about the wonderful arrogance of thinking you can have epiphanies.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

You think you can just dive into the sky,

Wake up bluebells with a sunny smile,

Explode like a nebula, devour light like a black hole.

You think, just because you are motionless,

Time falls through you,

And your imagination has the reach of God.

You think, whirling like a meteorite towards death,

Incandescent with the loveliness of an April morning,

You can, even for a moment, be eternal.

You think that just because you can think these things,

You can be these things, that poetry is truth,

And that you, tiny insignificant you, can just dive into the sky.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/youth2.html. For more philosophical poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: New Year’s/Epiphany

January 1: Happiness Is Something that One Settles for

January 2: Joy Leaves a Bit of Wonder in Its Wake

January 3: There Is Much Pleasure in the Love of Learning

January 4: Cyberspace, Silent Space

January 5: You Think You Can Just Dive into the Sky

Cyberspace, Silent Space

January 4, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is epiphany, both for the holiday that falls on January 6^th and in the sense of any sudden insight or perception of meaning.

Today’s poem is a philosophical poem about the epiphanies that surround us.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Cyberspace, silent space;

Outer, inner sense of place.

Current with the human race;

The Infinite’s imagined face.

All the world in one’s embrace;

All existence in each trace.

Time goes on; one keeps apace;

Time stops, and one is filled with grace.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: New Year’s/Epiphany

January 1: Happiness Is Something that One Settles for

January 2: Joy Leaves a Bit of Wonder in Its Wake

January 3: There Is Much Pleasure in the Love of Learning

January 4: Cyberspace, Silent Space