Victories Are Never Victories

November 10, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Veterans Day, which is celebrated on November 11^th.

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

A Veteran’s Day poem calling all wars evil:

Victories are never victories.

Every battle waged is a defeat.

The end contains the seeds of the repeat.

Even heroes will take liberties.

Remember this, then, when you go to war:

Although the cause be just, the means is not.

None can write in blood without a blot

Seeping back beneath the bedroom door.

Death cries for vengeance; destruction for destruction.

A battle plan is always a reduction:

You kill your foe yet murder so much more.

© 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/victo2.html. For more Veteran’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/veteransdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Veterans Day

11/5: Thank You’s Howl like Wind Across the Dead

11/6: Vast Fields of Crosses, All the Same

11/7: Very Soon I’ll Hear the Victims’ Screams

11/8: Veterans Have Claims upon the Hearts

11/9: Veterans of Wars Unjust or Just

11/10: Victories Are Never Victories

Veterans of Wars Unjust or Just

November 9, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Veterans Day, which is celebrated on November 11^th.

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

A Veteran’s Day poem about honoring vets from both just and unjust wars:

Veterans of wars unjust or just

Equally deserve consideration,

Their anger, hatred, fear, and livid lust

Equally in service to their nation.

Remember that the battlefield remains

A place where murder is one's daily duty.

Nor can one be so brutal without stains

Seeping into one's one well of beauty.

Do, then, pay them homage due, for they

Are heroes, though their bitter battles may

Yield peace or conquest, joy or simply pain.

© 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/veter3.html. For more Veteran’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/veteransdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Veterans Day

11/5: Thank You’s Howl like Wind Across the Dead

11/6: Vast Fields of Crosses, All the Same

11/7: Very Soon I’ll Hear the Victims’ Screams

11/8: Veterans Have Claims upon the Hearts

11/9: Veterans of Wars Unjust or Just

Veterans Have Claims upon the Hearts

November 8, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Veterans Day, which is celebrated on November 11^th.

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

A Veteran's Day poem about the need to honor veterans regardless of whether one approves of their wars:

Veterans have claims upon the hearts

Even of those who railed against their wars.

The years of sacrifice transcend the cause,

Endured through agonies no word imparts.

Reason cannot comprehend such hell,

As strangers murder strangers out of duty.

Nor does the bleak, obscene, nightmarish beauty

Stop haunting dreams that love and rage compel.

Decency demands we do them honor,

Albeit with a hatred of the horror

Yet harrowing our world, alive and well.

© 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/veter4.html. For more Veteran’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/veteransdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Veterans Day

11/5: Thank You’s Howl like Wind Across the Dead

11/6: Vast Fields of Crosses, All the Same

11/7: Very Soon I’ll Hear the Victims’ Screams

11/8: Veterans Have Claims upon the Hearts

Very Soon I'll Hear the Victims' Screams

November 7, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Veterans Day, which is celebrated on November 11^th.

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

A Veteran’s Day poem about a vet’s recurrent nightmares:

Very soon I'll hear the victims' screams,

Even in the midst of my content,

The end not quite enough to quell the means,

Each nightmare not exactly what I meant.

Recruited in a time of peace, I went

Abroad to serve more adolescent dreams,

Not unaware, of course, I might be sent

Someday to where the widow wails and keens.

Dumb ignorance! For now I must repent

Aberrations no regret redeems,

Yet hounding me like dogs on mayhem bent.

© 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/veryso.html. For more Veteran’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/veteransdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Veterans Day

11/5: Thank You’s Howl like Wind Across the Dead

11/6: Vast Fields of Crosses, All the Same

11/7: Very Soon I’ll Hear the Victims’ Screams

Vast Fields of Crosses, All the Same

November 6, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Veterans Day, which is celebrated on November 11^th.

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

A Veteran’s Day poem addressed to parents in a military cemetery:

Vast fields of crosses, all the same,

Each embellished with a name.

This is what your love has wrought!

Embrace the child become a thought,

Reduced to regimented loss,

A name screwed on a plain, white cross!

Nor can you feel what you must feel

Since what is real cannot be real.

Devour the moment, make it yours,

As life continues on all fours,

Yearning, begging at closed doors.

© 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/vastfi.html. For more Veteran’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/veteransdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Veterans Day

11/5: Thank You’s Howl like Wind Across the Dead

11/6: Vast Fields of Crosses, All the Same

Thank You's Howl like Wind Across the Dead

November 5, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Veterans Day, which is celebrated on November 11^th.

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

A Veteran’s Day poem of thanks to the dead, who can no longer hear:

Thank you's howl like wind across the dead,

Howl dark and cold through trees that cannot speak,

As none below has ears for what we say,

Nor can a smile crease a vanished cheek.

Killing lays all souls on one small bed.

Yet we must thank you for ourselves, to seek

One moment of forgiveness on our way,

Unloosing tears we weep but cannot shed.

© 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/vetday.html. For more Veteran’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/veteransdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Veterans Day

11/5: Thank You’s Howl like Wind Across the Dead

Have a Little Hell to Salt Your Heaven

November 4, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Halloween, which is celebrated on Oct. 31.

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

A Halloween poem about the need to include some horror in one’s life:

Have a little Hell to salt your Heaven,

A dash of horror in your well-whipped cream.

Love and joy are not all you’ve been given.

Let some unsavory nightmare spice your dream!

Open up your long-sealed inner dungeon

Wherein you keep the monsters of your heart.

Enjoy one midnight just a rare smoked smidgeon,

Exquisite taste of what you are, in part,

Night shades for your culinary art!

© 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/.html. For more Halloween poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/halloweenpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Halloween

10/29: Brooms Inspire Restless Witches

10/30: Happy, Happy Halloween

10/31: Have a Look in the Mirror of Your Dreams

11/1: Hobgoblins Know the Proper Way to Dance

11/2: Horror Is a Kind of Play

11/3: Hollow, Hollow Halloween

11/4: Have a Little Hell to Salt Your Heaven