Mugabe and Mandela

January 25, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is nationality and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, which this year is celebrated on January 21.

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

A poem contrasting the ways in which two newly-liberated African countries treated their white minorities:

Mugabe and Mandela,

Two strategies for change:

One would whites include;

One would whites estrange.

Murder begets murder;

White murder begets black.

Once one goes for blood,

There's no exit back.

Power unrestrained

By wisdom, love, or law

Leads to even greater

Horrors than before.

Yet letting whites retain

The property they stole

Leaves blacks still dispossessed,

Though equal at the poll.

For wealth is ever power,

Wont to have its way

With those of any color

Who happen to hold sway.

And so the pot still boils

With anger finely honed.

Was violence avoided?

Or was it just postponed?

Mugabe and Mandela,

Two ways to found a state:

One through storms still sailing;

The other drowned in hate.

© 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/mugabe.html. For more poems about race, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/racepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Nationality and Race

1/21: Moses Never Reached the Promised Land

1/22: Love’s a Stream That Knows No Borders

1/23: Love Has Obstacles Enough, They Say

1/24: I’m Married to This Muslim Arab

1/25: Mugabe and Mandela

I'm Married to This Muslim Arab

January 24, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is nationality and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, which this year is celebrated on January 21.

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

A poem about an intermarriage of both race and religion:

I'm married to this Muslim Arab,

A lovely woman who wears the hijab.

Our differences dissolve in love

Of God, of life, of one another.

A lovely woman who wears the hijab

Comes naked to my marriage bed.

Of God, of life, of one another,

We then say not a single word.

Comes naked to my marriage bed,

As naked as we are to God.

We then say not a single word,

But silently I thank the Lord.

As naked as we are to God,

Our differences dissolve in love,

But silently I thank the Lord

I'm married to this Muslim Arab.

© 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/immarri.html. For more poems about race, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/racepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Nationality and Race

1/21: Moses Never Reached the Promised Land

1/22: Love’s a Stream That Knows No Borders

1/23: Love Has Obstacles Enough, They Say

1/24: I’m Married to This Muslim Arab

Love Has Obstacles Enough, They Say

January 23, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is nationality and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, which this year is celebrated on January 21.

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

A poem about overcoming the obstacles to interracial love:

Love has obstacles enough, they say:

Why add to them the obstacle of race?

Two backgrounds so diverse can't share one space.

Love can't keep the world's harsh truths at bay.

Ah, love! Let such trite wisdom go its way!

All life is difficult yet full of grace.

All men and women share the same small place.

Nor should we out of fear our love betray.

Love is to daily life a vein of gold

Running through the rock like liquid fire,

Making ordinary moments glow.

May we treasure it as we grow old:

The breath that does our dreary clay inspire,

The touch that transforms everything we know.

© 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/loveha.html. For more poems about nationality and race, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/racepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Nationality and Race

1/21: Moses Never Reached the Promised Land

1/22: Love’s a Stream That Knows No Borders

1/23: Love Has Obstacles Enough, They Say

Love's a Stream That Knows No Borders

January 22, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is nationality and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, which this year is celebrated on January 21.

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

A poem about how love transcends nationality and race:

Love's a stream that knows no borders,

Passports, visas, lengths of stay,

Laws and papers, rules and orders:

All these lies it sweeps away.

Love knows no color, race, or creed,

Spilling over states at will,

Submerging memory in need,

Drowning walls in waters still.

No bar can block it as it flows,

Tumbling towards eternity,

Gathering wisdom as it goes,

Yearning for our common sea.

© 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/lovesa.html. For more poems about nationality and race, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/racepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Nationality and Race

1/21: Moses Never Reached the Promised Land

1/22: Love’s a Stream That Knows No Borders

Moses Never Reached the Promised Land

January 21, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is nationality and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, which this year is celebrated today, January 21.

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

A poem for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday about the never-ending struggle for justice:

Moses never reached the promised land,

And I, too, died upon that distant mountain,

Resting on the laurels of my dream.

There is no end to struggle, no safe refuge

In which one can say, yes, I have arrived,

No longer feel the guilt of privilege,

Let go the fierce anxiety for justice,

Untie the knots of conscience in one's soul.

The promised land's a vision, not a place,

Held within the unrelenting heart.

Each generation must behold its beauty,

Reach for its uncompromising goodness,

Know that its long looked-for realization

Is in a time zone one will never see.

No matter. There's a joy in going forward

Greater than the joy of going home.

© 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/mosesn.html. For more poems for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/martinlutherkingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Nationality and Race

1/21: Moses Never Reached the Promised Land

Dylan

January 20, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is winter, both as a subject and a symbol.

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

A name poem for a young man who devotes himself to truths beyond time, and who is therefore prepared for winter as a metaphor for death.

Dylan says eternity's his garden,

Yielding the present for precincts better known.

Life goes on, of course, as habits harden

And winter wields the wind to drive him home.

No matter: He has been there all along.

© 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/dylan.html. For more name poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Winter as a Subject and a Symbol

1/14: Winter2

1/15: Though Winter Come, Thy Will Be Done

1/16: Winter3

1/17: For You There Is No More Enduring Passion

1/18: She Harbored No Illusions

1/19: Twenty-Six3

1/20: Dylan

Twenty-Six3

January 19, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is winter, both as a subject and a symbol.

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

A number poem in which winter is a metaphor for a young man’s prediction of hard times ahead:

Twenty-six whistles in the wind,

Well aware of bitter times ahead.

Even in the midst of winter snow,

Needing all the woodcraft he might know,

The young man has no fear or sense of dread.

Yet like us all, of course, he's running blind.

So let the coming years to him be kind,

In which, as good and bad both come and go,

Xerophytes will bloom, by deep springs fed.

© 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/26c.html. For more number poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Winter as a Subject and a Symbol

1/14: Winter2

1/15: Though Winter Come, Thy Will Be Done

1/16: Winter3

1/17: For You There Is No More Enduring Passion

1/18: She Harbored No Illusions

1/19: Twenty-Six3