Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Dinosaurs Will Dance All Day

January 24, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is dance, used metaphorically.

Today’s poem is a birthday poem for children in which dinosaurs dance.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Dinosaurs will dance all day
If you let the music play.
“Happy Birthday!” they will sing,
Crashing into everything,

Crushing cars and trucks and trains,
Bicycles, bridges, buses, planes,
Houses seven stories tall,
A factory, a shopping mall,

Having lots and lots of fun!
And before your birthday’s done,
You should dance and sing like them.
Well, maybe not just like them!

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Dance, Used Metaphorically
January 22: Kaylee
January 24: Dinosaurs Will Dance All Day

Monday, January 22, 2018

Death Can Also Be a Dance

January 23, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is dance, used metaphorically.

Today’s poem compares death to a dance.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Death can also be a dance.
Each must grace its final steps.
A life immersed in pain, perhaps,
Too much controlled by circumstance,
Has one more leap to come to rest.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Dance, Used Metaphorically
January 22: Kaylee
January 23: Death Can Also Be a Dance

Sunday, January 21, 2018

Kaylee

January 22, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is dance, used metaphorically.

Today’s poem is a name poem about a woman who, unknowing, dances the dance choreographed by her lineage.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Kaylee cannot her antecedents trace.
Awake within her day, she feels quite free.
Yet she is but a dancer in a dance
Long practiced and perfected in advance,
Emerging from her will spontaneously,
Exquisite in its unsuspected 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/kaylee.html. For more name poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Dance, Used Metaphorically
January 22: Kaylee

Saturday, January 20, 2018

Love Engenders Love

January 21, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, which was celebrated on January 15th.

Today’s poem reflects Martin Luther King, Jr.’s philosophy of non-violence.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Love engenders love,
Hate engenders hate.
When words descend to blows,
Both lose the debate.

The means become the end,
Regardless of the goal.
The foe you hate becomes
The mirror of your soul.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday
January 20: My Face Is an Icon
January 21: Love Engenders Love

My Face Is an Icon, My Life a Scrim

January 20, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, which was celebrated on January 15th.

In today’s poem, Martin Luther King, Jr., reflects on the way his fame has distorted the truth of his life.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

My face is an icon, my life a scrim
Alight with meaning, my words inscribed
Reductively in stone, a hymn
To dreams annually revived.
In me you found a founding father
New, like Lincoln a colossus
Late arrived: righteous Other,
Unavenging nemesis,
The token nigger of American
Heroes, aggrieved but restrained,
Engaged but non-partisan,
Radical but house-trained.
Know that I still believe in you,
In spite of what you've done to me.
Nor can a holiday a truth
Give flesh long flayed by memory.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/myface.html. For more poems for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/martinlutherkingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday
January 20: My Face Is an Icon

Thursday, January 18, 2018

Meaning Is a Morning Song

January 19, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, which was celebrated on January 15th.

In today’s poem, Martin Luther King, Jr., urges the reader to go beyond knowledge and reason.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Meaning is a morning song,
A dawn, a dance of light.
Reason merely sings along
To get the lyrics right.
In what you know is what you are,
Not what you'll become.
Let not sight your vision bar,
Undone by what is done.
To love must be to hope, for love
Has far too much to lose.
Embrace the good you're wary of,
Refusing to refuse.
Knowledge is as knowledge does.
It so quickly turns to was.
Now is ever when
Grace will come 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/meani3.html. For more poems for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/martinlutherkingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday
January 19: Meaning Is a Morning Song

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Maybe There Is More to Life than Living

January 18, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, which was celebrated on January 15th.

In today’s poem, Martin Luther King, Jr., reflects on what in life might mean more than life itself.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Maybe there is more to life than living.
A person is a ripple in a stream,
Roiling the waters with a dream,
The revelation that makes life worth giving.
In love one finds a reason for believing,
Needing love to make life more than seem,
Love that makes the mundane moment gleam,
Undoing fate with faith, and death with grieving.
There is no love but at the risk of death,
Having valued something more than self,
Embracing what gives life to life, and grace,
Replacing fear of death or loss with joy.
Know then that the dreaded end of breath
Is not the end one ought to aim for, else
None would speak to fortune face to face,
Granted life no bullet can destroy.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/maybe6.html. For more poems for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/martinlutherkingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday
January 18: Maybe There Is More to Life than Living