Tuesday, July 10, 2018

To Say You Are My World Means

July 11, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is summer: its storms, its gentle winds, its fruit, its flowers.

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

A love poem comparing the beauty of love to that of a late summer evening:

To say you are my world means:
That when I look at the sky
I see your face,
And when I pause alone at the window
I feel your hands on my back.

It means:
That the beauty of a garden
Is half in the words I think to you;
That winter is my fear of losing you,
And that spring is the hope I never will.

It means:
That I have taken the risk of wrapping my life
So completely around yours
That the beauty of a late summer evening is
Inseparable from the beauty of our love.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/tosay.html. For more love poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Summer
7/11: To Say You Are My World Means

Thirty-Five3

July 10, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is summer: its storms, its gentle winds, its fruit, its flowers.

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

A number poem comparing a 35-year-old’s yearning for the past to a summer wind:

Thirty-five has reason to remember
How lovely was the life now left behind.
Indeed, though young, no longer in one's youth,
Recalling days awash in golden ruth,
There is much beauty in this summer wind,
Yearning far more simply than September.

For all, time is like music on the mind,
Insidiously bringing one to truth,
Vivid in the vastness of its wonder
Even as one is oneself the singer.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/35c.html. For more number poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Summer
7/10: Thirty-Five3

Sunday, July 8, 2018

Thirty-Two4

July 9, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is summer: its storms, its gentle winds, its fruit, its flowers.

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

A number poem comparing a 32-year-old to a summer storm:

Thirty-two is like a summer storm
Howling in the heat of windless days:
Impassioned in pursuit of promised treasure,
Raging through fields planted deep with pleasure,
The flood of life unleashed on well-worn ways.
Yet, of course, such tempests are the norm.

There is for now but little listless leisure
When passion is itself of passions shorn,
One pent-up dream in one’s ambitious gaze.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/32d.html. For more number poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Summer
7/9: Thirty-Two4

Saturday, July 7, 2018

Principles of Political Economy


July 8, 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 Independence Day (USA), which is celebrated on July 4th.

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

A set of proverbs on the relationship between politics and economics:

Principles of Political Economy

1. Political and economic activity are motivated primarily by perceived self-interest.
2. Immediate self-interest is more powerful than deferred self-interest unless one believes that the benefits of deferred self-interest will be equitably distributed.
3. Therefore just laws, strictly and equitably applied by a legitimate authority, are required if deferred self-interest is generally to prevail.
4. Productive activity in pursuit of deferred self-interest is the source of wealth.
5. The following conditions stimulate such productive activity: just laws equitably applied; individual rights and freedoms; security of property and person; political and economic stability; education; equitable distribution of opportunity; equitable distribution of wealth; developed infrastructure for production, transportation, and communication; available credit; a stable currency.
6. Neither a pure market economy nor a State-controlled economy is conducive to the development and maintenance of these conditions.
7. The proper balance of State intervention and market control is measured economically but determined politically.
8. While temporary restraints on trade may be beneficial, in general the freer the movement of goods, services, and investment, the greater the stimulation of productive activity, and therefore the greater the wealth.
9. The productive activity of each contributes to the wealth of all. This is as true of nations within the world economy as it is of individuals within a national economy.
10. The globalization of political and economic activity will increase global wealth only to the extent that the conditions listed in (5) above prevail globally.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed these proverbs, please like, comment on, or share them so that they might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see them on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/poleco.html. For more poems and proverbs about politics, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics

Friday, July 6, 2018

The Cancer That Killed You Was Part of You Gone Quite Insane

July 7, 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 Independence Day (USA), which is celebrated on July 4th.

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

A poem about the political causes of cancer:

The cancer that killed you was part of you gone quite insane:
The good run amok; death from life bursting awry,
Like a poor paranoid on a bell tower sniping away,
Killing the order that gives all the colony life.

Nature, of course, has madness built into its music,
Disturbing its peace with the agony all artists crave.
Perhaps that's what killed you: the one-in-so-many malfunctions
That chaos requires to shatter the oneness of light.

But chaos is aided in our time by greed in abundance:
Greed like a cancer destroying our colony Earth;
Greed that we eat, drink, and breathe, in our dreams, in our language;
Greed in the nuclei of our dwindling faiths.

What killed you, my loved one, is blended in recycled plastic
Spewing its toxins in micrograms into the sky.
Your life was a goat on the altar of modern convenience,
Bearing the sins of us all towards that merciless god.

We live in a world whose rulers are partners with death;
For whom cancer must be a number that balances out.
You were just perhaps the unlucky percent to be traded
For progress towards some CEO's end-of-year bottom line.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/thecan.html. For more poems about politics, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics
7/7: The Cancer That Killed You Was Part of You Gone Quite Insane

Thursday, July 5, 2018

Hubris Is a Quality of People

July 6, 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 Independence Day (USA), which is celebrated on July 4th.

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

A political poem warning of rulers afflicted by hubris, or excessive pride:

Hubris is a quality of people
Under the influence of being right.
Beware of power wielded in a cause
Restrained by nothing more than higher laws,
Intent on doing good through measured might.
So do righteous rulers' reigns turn lethal.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/hubris.html. For more poems about politics, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics
7/6: Hubris Is a Quality of People

Wednesday, July 4, 2018

Politics Brings Out the Worst in Us

July 5, 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 Independence Day (USA), which was celebrated yesterday, July 4th.

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

A political poem about fear and anger stoked for political purposes:

Politics brings out the worst in us.
One is more vile the more there is at stake.
Leveraging a little animus,
It turns mere opposition into hate.
The lava bubbling underneath each heart,
Inhibited by guilt or love or fear,
Comes bursting forth, by scribes with subtle art
Stoked vigorously as new elections near.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/politi.html. For more poems about politics, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics
7/5: Politics Brings Out the Worst in Us