To Be Consumed by Something More than Beauty

March 2, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number poem about the experience of artistic creation.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

To be consumed by something more than beauty,

Holding in one's hand the sense of all,

Innocent of self, of interest pure,

Reaching for a grace that will endure,

The fragments of a light beyond the wall

Yielding truth with neither rage nor pity;

Seized by inner craftsmen, skilled and sure,

In reverent abandon, ruthless awe,

X-ing out the fruits of one's own fancy . . .

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: The Artist

February 26: There Is No Better Painting than a Sunrise

February 27: Fifty-Five3

February 28: Forty-Five6

March 1: Fifty-Four3

March 2: To Be Consumed by Something More than Beauty

Fifty-Four3

March 1, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number poem about how a person might make her life a work of art.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Fifty-four redecorates her day

In passionate pursuit of near perfection.

For her each detail elevates the whole,

The vivid essence culled from the collection,

Yielding grace no fragment can convey.

Facing entropy, she has her way,

Overcoming dullness through selection,

Undoing the conventions of her role,

Revealing unseen radiance through rejection.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/54c.html. For more philosophical poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: The Artist

February 26: There Is No Better Painting than a Sunrise

February 27: Fifty-Five3

February 28: Forty-Five6

March 1: Fifty-Four3

Forty-Five6

February 28, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number poem for a composer whose musical phrases are begging him to use them.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Forty-five is full of unheard music,

Organist in the chapel of his soul,

Reverent beneath a reverberant dome

That like stone lace lets in the noontide light.

Yearning for the organist to use them,

Fleeting phrases hope that he will choose them,

Integrating them into a whole

Vast enough to compass day and night,

Eternal in its well-wrought womb of stone.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/45f.html. For more philosophical poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: The Artist

February 26: There Is No Better Painting than a Sunrise

February 27: Fifty-Five3

February 28: Forty-Five6

Fifty-Five3

February 27, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number poem for an artist whose expertise can become a limitation.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Fifty-five is grounded in her game,

Intuitively expert in her aim.

For years of focused, patient practice yield

The instinct that will one's technique sustain.

Yet expertise will suffocate if sealed.

For her, the truth is ever to be revealed.

In become, one must let go became.

Verities must never be too tame,

Enduring only in an unfenced field.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/55c.html. For more philosophical poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: The Artist

February 26: There Is No Better Painting than a Sunrise

February 27: Fifty-Five3

There Is No Better Painting than a Sunrise

February 26, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about the artist’s motivation.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

There is no better painting than a sunrise,

Nor colors more majestic than its glow,

Nor canvas so immense that it might outsize

The spectacle that every day we know.

There is no love as moving as our own love,

Nor character as complex as our own,

Nor ecstasy as sweet as we have known of

Since puberty, though chaste till we were grown.

Why should we turn from windows to a wall

On which there hangs a mere interpretation,

When just outside the colors of the fall

Surpass the most inspired imagination?

Like God writ small, the artist would say, “Light!”

And eternity comes forth from night.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/ther42.html. For more philosophical poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: The Artist

February 26: There Is No Better Painting than a Sunrise

To a Friend on His Election to an Inner-City Board of Education

February 25, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is politics in honor of Presidents Day, which this year was celebrated on February 19^th.

Today’s poem is a political congratulations poem for someone just elected to an inner-city board of education.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Congratulations on your victory

Over those who'd labor in your stead.

Now that you have won, the road ahead

Gives pause: for what good soul-elect can be

Respondent to such need? Or happily

Attendant on such pain? It's often said

That power corrupts, but your audacious tread

Unheard might leave its footprints on the sea.

Little can one do, yet much is asked

As life responds to policy unfazed,

Taking, just perhaps, a hopeful turn.

Intending good, one is widely tasked,

Open to rebuke, and rarely praised,

Needing faith to change, as one must learn,

Scenes on which all helpless long have gazed.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Politics

February 19: President’s Day? Presidents’ Day? Or Presidents Day?

February 20: The Market Is a Merciless Beast

February 21: Fifty-Nine2

February 22: Need Is Not the Mother of Invention

February 23: Sixty-Seven

February 24: Thank God for Pendulums

February 25: To a Friend on His Election to an Inner-City Board of Education

Thank God for Pendulums

February 24, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is politics in honor of Presidents Day, which this year was celebrated on February 19^th.

Today’s poem is about the constant sweep of the political and social pendulum from right to left.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thank God for pendulums!

Compassion will swing back

Like a corpse on a noose,

And we'll grab it by the knees,

Revive it mouth to mouth.

Faith in people will come back,

And social dreams,

Self-sacrifice and sharing,

While the market crumbles,

Caught in contradictions,

And discos of running dogs and lackeys

Boogie down into the dustbin of history!

Yes, pendulums! Marriage

Till death will come back,

And loving children,

And life once again a fire,

And we its worshippers,

While those who struggle to "succeed"

Cut each other's throats.

Thank God even

That it will swing away again,

Out far out to the dark side

Beyond our most powerful scopes,

Where people crouch like madmen in dark caves,

Chanting slogans we fail to understand.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Politics

February 19: President’s Day? Presidents’ Day? Or Presidents Day?

February 20: The Market Is a Merciless Beast

February 21: Fifty-Nine2

February 22: Need Is Not the Mother of Invention

February 23: Sixty-Seven

February 24: Thank God for Pendulums