Treat Yourself to All the Best of Life

April 4, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. Since trees, plants, and flowers are about to bloom, this week’s theme is bloom as a metaphor.

Today’s poem is a number poem about what brings the heart to bloom.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Treat yourself to all the best of life!

Have some love and friendship, passion, beauty!

In these you’ll find a lasting happiness,

Regardless of the risk of pain or stress,

The tough commitment to some long-term duty.

Yet some find little more than constant strife.

Ecstasy, adventure, wealth, and things

Inward flow to vanish in the self,

Granting much in pleasure, less in joy.

Hearts rarely come to full bloom on the shelf,

Though watered well in sun their sweet love sings.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/treat2.html. For more philosophical poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Bloom as a Metaphor

April 2: Fifty-Three

April 3: Stephen

April 4: Treat Yourself to All the Best of Life

Stephen

April 3, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. Since trees, plants, and flowers are about to bloom, this week’s theme is bloom as a metaphor.

Today’s poem is a name poem from a mother to her still-born child.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Stephen lived his life within my womb.

Though brief, it was a rich, full life and good.

Each day I told him of my love in ways

Perhaps most intimate, my silent phrase

Heard in the heart directly, blood to blood.

Each life must be redeemed within its doom,

Needing only love to make it bloom.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Bloom as a Metaphor

April 2: Fifty-Three

April 3: Stephen

Fifty-Three3

April 2, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. Since trees, plants, and flowers are about to bloom, this week’s theme is bloom as a metaphor.

Today’s poem is a number poem for a late bloomer.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Fifty-three reveals herself at last

In full career, a blossom that is blooming.

Fortune, time, and will have had their way,

Though, looking back, it sometimes seems like fate,

Years of choices that have led her here.

There is no point in questioning the past,

However one might find it all-consuming.

Remember, one is ever unbaked clay,

Early on, of course, but also late,

Embraced by shaping hands upon the wheel.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/53c.html. For more number poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Bloom as a Metaphor

April 2: Fifty-Three

Believe, Believe in the Power of Love

April 1, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The twin themes for this week are Passover and Easter, which this year are celebrated at the same time. The first night of Passover is the evening of Good Friday, March 30, and Easter Sunday is April 1.

Today’s poem is an Easter poem about the power of faith to move the heart.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Believe, believe in the power of love

To save us all from death and sin,

And God that way your heart will move.

Christ came to Earth to free us of

The state of vengeance we were in.

Believe, believe in the power of love

To change the heart from snake to dove,

To make dust bloom and goodness win,

And God that way your heart will move.

Christ arose from death to prove

That we a new life could begin.

Believe, believe in the power of love

To bring us to a life above,

A life of glory near to Him,

And God that way your heart will move.

Christ will all our sins remove

And make us feel His joy within.

Believe, believe in the power of love,

And God that way your heart will move.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/believ.html. For more Easter poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/easterpoems.html . For more Passover poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/passoverpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Easter and Passover

March 26: Enter Now the King, All but Insane

March 27: Passion Is the Wine, and Love, the Glass

March 28: Easter Is a Time of Love

March 29: Enduring Does Not Lead to Happiness

March 30: Why Do I Remain in Exile

March 31: Pour Yourself like Wine into the Glass

April 1: Believe, Believe, in the Power of Love

Pour Yourself like Wine into the Glass

March 31, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The twin themes for this week are Passover and Easter, which this year are celebrated at the same time. The first night of Passover is the evening of Good Friday, March 30, and Easter Sunday is April 1.

Today’s poem is a Passover poem about changing generations within an unchanging ritual.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Pour yourself like wine into the glass,

A liquid shaped by glass blown long ago,

Singing every year the words you know,

Songs that do not change as your years pass.

Old glass, new wine; new matter, ancient form;

Vintages that burst with life and joy;

Enduring hope no horror can destroy;

Ritual that makes a faith a home.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/pouryo.html. For more Easter poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/easterpoems.html . For more Passover poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/passoverpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Easter and Passover

March 26: Enter Now the King, All but Insane

March 27: Passion Is the Wine, and Love, the Glass

March 28: Easter Is a Time of Love

March 29: Enduring Does Not Lead to Happiness

March 30: Why Do I Remain in Exile

March 31: Pour Yourself like Wine into the Glass

Why Do I Remain in Exile

March 30, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The twin themes for this week are Passover and Easter, which this year are celebrated at the same time. The first night of Passover is the evening of Good Friday, March 30, and Easter Sunday is April 1.

Today’s poem is a Passover poem about a Jew’s ambivalent urge to live in Israel.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Why do I remain in exile?

I say, "Next year in Jerusalem!"*

Seders come and Seders go.

I feel the pull but not the pain.

I say, "Next year in Jerusalem!"

I do not mean it, not for real.

I feel the pull but not the pain.

My anguish must be self-imposed.

I do not mean it, not for real.

I mean it in my Jewish bones.

My anguish must be self-imposed.

I lie becalmed, and wait, and wonder.

I mean it in my Jewish bones.

Seders come and Seders go.

I lie becalmed, and wait, and wonder:

Why do I remain in exile?

*The traditional cry at the end of every Seder.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/whydoi.html. For more Easter poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/easterpoems.html . For more Passover poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/passoverpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Easter and Passover

March 26: Enter Now the King, All but Insane

March 27: Passion Is the Wine, and Love, the Glass

March 28: Easter Is a Time of Love

March 29: Enduring Does Not Lead to Happiness

March 30: Why Do I Remain in Exile

Enduring Does Not Lead to Happiness

March 29, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The twin themes for this week are Passover and Easter, which this year are celebrated at the same time. The first night of Passover is the evening of Good Friday, March 30, and Easter Sunday is April 1.

Today’s poem is an Easter poem about the proper way to sacrifice.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Enduring does not lead to happiness.

A person ought not suffer out of duty.

Some choose to sacrifice under duress,

Taking as cruel chance what could be beauty.

Each ought to give for love, as did the Lord,

Reckoning the grace as the reward.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/enduri.html. For more Easter poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/easterpoems.html . For more Passover poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/passoverpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Easter and Passover

March 26: Enter Now the King, All but Insane

March 27: Passion Is the Wine, and Love, the Glass

March 28: Easter Is a Time of Love

March 29: Enduring Does Not Lead to Happiness