Bobbie Jo Can't Be with Us

March 10, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is life after death.

Today’s poem is a name poem for a deceased friend on her birthday.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Bobbie Jo can't be with us

On this, her special day,

Because, although she fought like hell,

Bobbie could not stay.

If love can reach across the void,

Each of us will let her know

Just how much we treasure still

Our time with Bobbie Jo.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Life After Death

March 5: Death Is like a Car

March 6: Death Is Nothing but a Moment’s Rest

March 7: I Think of You as Watching from

March 8: Our Grandson Tyler Was Just Over Seven

March 9: Where Did You Go, My Lovely Ones

March 10: Bobbie Jo Can’t Be with Us

Where Did You Go, My Lovely Ones

March 9, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is life after death.

Today’s poem is from a mother to her children, all of whom died in a fire.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Where did you go, my lovely ones?

Where did you go, my babies?

Where did you come from, where did you go,

My gentlemen and ladies?

Where are you now, my lovely ones?

Where are you now, my babies?

I sing to you, but do you hear,

My gentlemen and ladies?

Where can I turn, my lovely ones?

Where can I turn, my babies?

I cannot live, I cannot die,

My gentlemen and ladies.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Life After Death

March 5: Death Is like a Car

March 6: Death Is Nothing but a Moment’s Rest

March 7: I Think of You as Watching from

March 8: Our Grandson Tyler Was Just Over Seven

March 9: Where Did You Go, My Lovely Ones

Our Grandson Tyler Was Just Over Seven

March 8, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is life after death.

Today’s poem is about the dead coming back to visit the living.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Our grandson Tyler was just over seven

When he died while eating supper in our home.

Two weeks earlier he'd talked of heaven,

And of how after death we're not alone.

His best friend said a prayer when he was buried,

And just as if he'd answered from the dead,

We heard the drone of planes high up, unhurried,

And saw the "missing man" fly overhead.

He left behind his mom and little brother,

Pappy, Emma, Uncle Bubba, too;

And ten months old, his baby cousin Jordan,

Who now does all the things he used to do.

We see him in her smile, her hands, her shoulders;

He quiets her and makes her more serene.

He comes to her at night, and to his brother,

And tells them of the wonders he has seen.

He tells them of a paradise of angels

Filled like a billion suns with love and glory,

And of the many souls arranged on stages

Waiting for the end of history;

And of the recent dead, who can return

To tell their loved ones what death has in store,

Who hang around that little ones might learn

The secrets of "life" on the other shore.

Is all this true? And are the dead still living?

Can our love persuade their souls to stay?

I only know that Tyler is still with us,

Though long since his flesh has passed away.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Life After Death

March 5: Death Is like a Car

March 6: Death Is Nothing but a Moment’s Rest

March 7: I Think of You as Watching from

March 8: Our Grandson Tyler Was Just Over Seven

I Think of You as Watching from

March 7, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is life after death.

Today’s poem is about the emotional need to believe in an afterlife.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I think of you as watching from

A time and space beyond the sky,

A place where we might someday come,

Alexis and I, and we three some

Sweet moments share. Though it's a lie,

I think of you as watching from

This place, and know you're gone, but numb

With grief, I cannot let you die.

There is no place where we can come

Together once again. It's dumb

To think so. Yet when I cry,

I think of you as watching from

A happiness I cannot plumb,

More real than real, more want than why,

A place where we might someday come,

Alexis and I. No heart can sum

The measurements that yield goodbye.

And so I keep you watching from

A place where we might someday come.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Life After Death

March 5: Death Is like a Car

March 6: Death Is Nothing but a Moment’s Rest

March 7: I Think of You as Watching from

Death Is Nothing but a Moment's Rest

March 6, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is life after death.

Today’s poem is about death as a waiting period for Christ’s Second Coming.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Death is nothing but a moment's rest

Until the Second Coming of the Lord

When He shall gather to Him of the best

To take them to the place of their reward.

I've felt the power of Jesus in my soul

Shining like a golden sun within,

Melting my hard heart to make me whole,

Burning out the remnants of my sin.

I've felt Him work within me, so I know

The glory that will come when I awake.

I'll sleep just like a child who'll homeward go,

And in my dreams of love great pleasure take.

So do not mourn my death, and do not grieve.

The Lord will come for me: This I believe.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Life After Death

March 5: Death Is like a Car

March 6: Death Is Nothing but a Moment’s Rest

Death Is like a Car

March 5, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is life after death.

Today’s poem is one in which a dying woman compares death to a variety of earthly experiences.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Death is like a car

That disappears around a curve,

Or like an ancient custom

That we've failed to preserve.

The car continues going

Even though we cannot see,

And the custom just remains

Outside of memory.

Death is a relation

To a certain time and place;

To Eternity it's nothing

In a line of endless grace.

I've loved you all so much

That I've known Eternity,

Vast and never ending

Deep within the thing that's me.

Time is like a river

And love a clear, still lake

That holds the sky within it,

Crystalline and yet opaque.

And I have had that gift

In an abundance that is rare,

With you and with my husband

Who's both gone and everywhere.

I feel the awesome beauty

Of the end of earthly breath.

I've had a rich, full life

And now a peaceful, shining death.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Life After Death

March 5: Death Is like a Car

Poetry and Explanation

March 4, 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 set of proverbs about the inadvisability of explaining what a poem means.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

POETRY AND EXPLANATION

1. Since poetry is a partnership between poet and reader, what the poet meant is not what the poem means.

2. The image always means more than the explanation, making any explanation by the poet reductive.

3. Explanations by those other than the poet, however, may be enriching because they are not authoritative.

4. What, then, is a reader to do when faced with an intriguing passage that seems obscure? First, search her own mind and heart; second, search the minds and hearts of others through reading and conversation; third, treat the explanation of any poet foolish enough to make one with the same attention given to that of any informed reader; fourth, always be aware that the fault may be with the poet and not with the reader.

5. What, then, is a poet to do, having written a passage that many readers find obscure? First, consider whether the passage is unnecessarily obscure, and, if so, revise it; second, if the passage is richly obscure, have faith in your readers; third, if neither of the first two suggestions works, consider another vocation.

6. The only thing a poet should even consider explaining is what he never should have written in the first place.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/poexpl.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

March 3: Thirty-Eight6

March 4: Poetry and Explanation