Twenty-Nine4

February 20, 2019

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 Presidents Day, which is celebrated today, February 20.

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

A number poem about someone who is completely devoted to a political cause:

Twenty-nine delights in erudition,

Well versed in everything he wants to know.

Each database his intellect devours

Needs just a bit of sun before it flowers,

Time within him rarely running slow.

Yet he never changes his position.

Nor does he care about his own condition,

Invested in a cause he can't forgo,

Needing every bit of ammunition,

Each fact that might give his ideas more power.

© 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/29d.html. For more political poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics

2/18: Here We Have No Harbingers

2/19: Borders Are Obscenities

2/20: Twenty-Nine4

Borders Are Obscenities

February 19, 2019

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 Presidents Day, which will be celebrated tomorrow, February 20.

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

A political poem about the nature of borders:

Borders are obscenities,

Barbed wire through the heart,

Guardians of amenities

Tearing us apart;

Scars across the living Earth,

Remnants of old wounds;

Bastions of good luck at birth;

Death among the dunes;

Walls to stop a surging sea,

Keeping back the tide

Of those of us who are not we

Yet would join us inside;

Fortresses of fortunes good

And prison camps of bad;

Boundaries of brotherhood

In mines and sensors clad;

Soon, we hope, to be just lines

Unnoticed as we pass

Some unobtrusive welcome signs

Half hidden in tall grass.

© 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/border.html. For more political poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics

2/18: Here We Have No Harbingers

2/19: Borders Are Obscenities

Here We Have No Harbingers

February 18, 2019

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 Presidents Day, which is celebrated on February 20.

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

A poem about the gloomy prospects of a country deep in debt:

Here we have no harbingers,

No hints of what's to come.

We add up all our prophesies,

But cannot find a sum.

It's bad, it's bad – that's all we know.

We've spent our legacy,

And now must bear ballooning debt

Through poisonous debris.

The engineers and CEOs,

The bankers, brokers, boards,

Accountants and attorneys for

The all-but-knighted lords --

They did all right, those scavengers

Who ravaged lives and lands

To build a rag-tag vessel that

Will go down with all hands.

© 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/herew7.html. For more political poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics

2/18: Here We Have No Harbingers

How Little in Me Is Not Touched by You

February 17, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day, which was celebrated on February 14.

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

A Valentine’s Day poem to a friend:

How little in me is not touched by you!

A friendship is a light that fills the heart,

Painting with its gold each darkened hue,

Providing warmth to each sequestered part.

You are the mirror of my better self,

Verifier of the best in me,

A bridge across the unsuspected gulf

Lodged between what can and ought to be.

Expectations can be wings, not bars,

Necessary to sustain our flight.

The faith of friends in us is wholly ours,

Incoming to uplift us to its height.

No soul can see itself, but must depend,

Each on each, upon a trusted friend.

© 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/howlit.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day

2/11: Each Day Your Smile Becomes My Morning Star

2/12: Happiness Is Not a Tended Rose

2/13: Happy Valentine, My Love

2/14: Here Among the Lovers I Wait Willing

2/15: Here There Are Not Tears Enough to Tell You

2/16: Hope Is a Breeze Across an Open Field

2/17: How Little in Me Is Not Touched by You

Hope Is a Breeze Across an Open Field

February 16, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day, which was celebrated on February 14.

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

A Valentine’s Day poem about the need for freedom in love:

Hope is a breeze across an open field.

Anger comes from pounding on a door,

Positive one wants the door to yield.

Perhaps from this one senses something more.

Yearning is a song to wake the dead.

Very few can yearn for what is theirs.

Although love waits half-naked on the bed,

Life can seem a maze of doors and stairs.

Each soul pursues the prey of its desire,

Not knowing that to have must mean to kill.

There is no deed that documents love's fire;

In lovers' hearts, one comes and goes at will.

Need is a wind that strips the landscape bare;

Eventually one turns, and love is there.

© 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/breeze.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day

2/11: Each Day Your Smile Becomes My Morning Star

2/12: Happiness Is Not a Tended Rose

2/13: Happy Valentine, My Love

2/14: Here Among the Lovers I Wait Willing

2/15: Here There Are Not Tears Enough to Tell You

2/16: Hope Is a Breeze Across an Open Field

Here There Are Not Tears Enough to Tell You

February 15, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day, which was celebrated yesterday, February 14.

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

A Valentine’s Day poem about the difficulty of declaring one’s love:

Here there are not tears enough to tell you

All the love I have within my heart,

Plainly to proclaim my love before you,

Put with simple grace and little art.

Yet I must try, for love ought not be hidden,

Veiled for fear of nakedness if known,

Afraid to enter silences unbidden

Lest it should have to cross the stage alone.

Even so, love needs the wings of words:

No truth is not transfigured by expression.

The heart of love, like those of captured birds,

Interred too long succumbs to its depression.

Nor are words enough, for love is more

Elusive than a verbal net can hold,

Singing like a sea across my shore,

Dancing back, white fold on endless fold.

All I am and have I give to you,

Yet love needs more, and more I cannot do.

© 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/heret3.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day

2/11: Each Day Your Smile Becomes My Morning Star

2/12: Happiness Is Not a Tended Rose

2/13: Happy Valentine, My Love

2/14: Here Among the Lovers I Wait Willing

2/15: Here There Are Not Tears Enough to Tell You

Here Among the Lovers I Wait Willing

February 14, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day, which is celebrated today, February 14.

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

A poem about lovers who must be apart on Valentine’s Day:

Here among the lovers I wait willing,

Alone because I cannot be with you,

Pensive in the press of people filling

Promenades with passions old and new.

Yet I am happy in my melancholy,

Vested in a love that like the night

Arrays itself in dreams that clothe me wholly,

Leaving me contented till the light.

Even were I with you, we would wander

Near the things that still are yet to be,

Taking pleasure in that prescient wonder

In which we find the purest ecstasy.

Nor would our love be greater not apart,

Each with each together in the heart.

© 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/heream.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day

2/11: Each Day Your Smile Becomes My Morning Star

2/12: Happiness Is Not a Tended Rose

2/13: Happy Valentine, My Love

2/14: Here Among the Lovers I Wait Willing