Gifts Given Freely, Out of Joy and Love

November 14, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A name poem about love as both giving and taking:

Gifts given freely, out of joy and love,

Are, like the gift of life, conceived in pleasure.

Blest are those whose hearts in that way move,

Receiving more of life than they can measure.

In giving, then, alight with hope and passion,

Each wanting, wanted, desperate with delight,

Lovers incandescent moments fashion,

As meteors slash through a starry night.

No love is strong without its strong demands.

Demons do not need as lovers do!

Love weaves its joys of mutual commands:

In giving pleasure, taking pleasure, too.

So may you give, and find such pleasure there

As lights the darkest dreams of those who care.

© 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/gifts.html. For more poems about love, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Love

11/12: Eventually, We Learn that Love Is as Seasonal as Potatoes

11/13: Desire Is

11/14: Gifts Given Freely, Out of Joy and Love

Desire Is

November 13, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A poem about love and desire:

Desire is

The hook

Love

The eye

Which forgives

More

Than it

Is

Willing to

See

© 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/desire.html. For more poems about love, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Love

11/12: Eventually, We Learn that Love Is as Seasonal as Potatoes

11/13: Desire Is

Eventually, We Learn that Love Is as Seasonal as Potatoes

November 12, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A name poem about two kinds of love felt simultaneously:

Eventually, we learn that love is as seasonal as potatoes.

Long days of sunshine are followed by short, lusty nights.

Long nights of easeful meditation are followed by doleful, inconsequential days.

Even sex is squeezed by moon, sun, and stars into potato pancakes and candy canes.

Nor do we know what tides pull on our kisses.

Way down deep below the senses is another sort of love,

As equable as the bottom of the sea.

Yet its currents are more powerful than bullrushes,

More seductive than the fragrance of orange blossoms.

At noon it is not heated by the sun,

Nor is it chilled by the midnight mourner’s cries.

© 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/potato.html. For more poems about love, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Love

11/12: Eventually, We Learn that Love Is as Seasonal as Potatoes

Voices of the Dead Are All Around Me

November 11, 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 today, November 11^th.

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

A Veteran’s Day poem about the unreality of reality after the more compelling reality of war:

Voices of the dead are all around me.

Everyone alive seems much less real.

The smoke and screams and bombs and blood surround me,

Enduring through the love I still can't feel.

Reality is rarely in the present

As truth and falsehood are defined by pain.

Nor can I stand one moment that is pleasant.

Sanity to me just seems insane.

Death is more attractive than a wife,

And loneliness a far less lonely life.

Yet I must turn and somehow live again.

© 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/voice2.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

11/11: Voices of the Dead Are All Around Me

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