When Love Is an Affliction

March 9, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A poem about the fear of breaking up a painful love:

When love is an affliction,

There's not much one can do.

Despite the way you've treated me,

I'm still in love with you.

I am the wave and you the rock

Against which I must break:

Again, again the crushing jolt,

The pain I can't forsake;

Again, again the long retreat

To safety, far from shore,

And then again, I don't know why,

The long trip back for more.

Perhaps it is nostalgia for

A long uncertain glow,

Or just some hope so beautiful

I cannot let it go.

Perhaps it is the need to try

For those who must depend

On who we are and what we do,

For whom this should not end.

What evil makes you hurt me so,

What defect of the heart?

What sense there is no greater whole

Of which you are a part?

What lonely choice that only you

Be served by what you choose?

What hard, hard fear of losing what

It is a gift to lose?

I dream sometimes my waiting love

Has made you turn again.

But you care only for yourself,

And I must love in vain.

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

This week’s theme: Fear of Love

3/4: Your Fear Is Not Surprising

3/5: There Is No Life Without Its Share of Pain

3/6: Love Lingers in the Alleyways

3/7: The Apartment Is Dark

3/8: You Wrote Your Name upon Her Thigh

3/9: When Love Is an Affliction

You Wrote Your Name upon Her Thigh

March 8, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A poem about a healthy fear of love that is not mutual:

You wrote your name upon her thigh

And looked at me. I wondered why

You hurt me so. What demon drew

You on to be so not like you?

Sometimes it seems you want to cause

Me grief, as if to test the loss

Of me, to see how much sweet pain

You need to feel alive again.

I love you, yet I fear a love

In which my function is to prove

Repeatedly you cannot lose

The thing you want but cannot choose.

I stay in hopes that you will see

Someday you cannot hope to be

Both fully loved and fully free,

For love comes only mutually.

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

This week’s theme: Fear of Love

3/4: Your Fear Is Not Surprising

3/5: There Is No Life Without Its Share of Pain

3/6: Love Lingers in the Alleyways

3/7: The Apartment Is Dark

3/8: You Wrote Your Name upon Her Thigh

The Apartment Is Dark

March 7, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A poem about the calm after a tempestuous breakup:

The apartment is dark.

I like it that way.

Through unshaded windows

I look across the street.

People there have lights on.

I see them through curtains.

A muscular young man

Washes dishes with his wife.

A woman drinks beer

In the blue light of TV.

On the top floor a mother,

A daughter, a daughter:

Three without men.

Next door an old couple

Smothers the fear

Of who will die first.

In a singles bar

I meet a woman

And have nothing to say.

Too many times

I have said the same things.

I watch here in darkness,

In the peace of aloneness,

And think about me,

And think about you.

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

This week’s theme: Fear of Love

3/4: Your Fear Is Not Surprising

3/5: There Is No Life Without Its Share of Pain

3/6: Love Lingers in the Alleyways

3/7: The Apartment Is Dark

Love Lingers in the Alleyways

March 6, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A poem about fearing the chains of love, and fearing the loss of what love might destroy:

Love lingers in the alleyways

And wafts across the streets,

And knocks upon my double doors

But never does come in.

Love finds a home in entrance ways

And rattles round retreats,

And scurries past the faint applause

Just two doors down from sin.

Ah! Would I love would I but know

What love might have in store!

For I have fears of heavy chains

That jangle in my joy.

And I have fears of floods that flow

From asking life for more.

Silent, I prefer the gains

Such tempests would destroy.

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

This week’s theme: Fear of Love

3/4: Your Fear Is Not Surprising

3/5: There Is No Life Without Its Share of Pain

3/6: Love Lingers in the Alleyways

There Is No Life Without Its Share of Pain

March 5, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A poem to someone in pain who is afraid to love again:

There is no life without its share of pain,

Nor can you love and not feel agony,

A need whose hunger drives you near insane,

A state in which you must, but cannot be.

There is no cure, nor anything to say,

Nor any aspirin for unhappiness.

Other friends and loves will come your way

And then pass on through death or faithlessness.

And so if you would ever dwell in joy,

You must embrace the agony of sorrow.

Time will all you love and need destroy,

But you will heal to love again tomorrow.

© 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/isno2.html. For more love poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Fear of Love

3/4: Your Fear Is Not Surprising

3/5: There Is No Life Without Its Share of Pain

Your Fear Is Not Surprising

March 4, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A poem to someone who is afraid to love:

Your fear is not surprising.

It's always ended badly:

Fury, betrayals, recriminations.

Then, for days and weeks and months

An agony worse than grief

Because you also feel like such a fool.

Love is like diving or rock climbing:

Spectacular, but your heart sticks in your mouth

Every moment you're there.

There's an ease in not caring,

A looseness in the belly.

Then, as love approaches, a knot tightens like a snake.

Being alone and free is like looking in from outside:

People give and get affection,

Are seized by extraordinary happiness and pain,

Live in prison and in heaven,

Deal with the necessity of working on what must be worked out,

While you watch them as if they were on TV.

Life is full of love and difficulty.

Its riches cannot be gotten at except through choice.

You must enter it by loving this person or that person,

And people inevitably fall short of your hopes.

But to live and not love, and not be loved,

Is like spending your entire life alone in your room.

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

This week’s theme: Fear of Love

3/4: Your Fear Is Not Surprising

Nine: A Number Poem About the Last Single-Digit Age

March 3, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is one-digit number poems for children under ten.

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

A number poem to a nine year old about the last single-digit age:

Nine is the last single-digit age.

In a year, you’ll require two.

Now, though, it’s too soon to turn the page.

Enjoy this last year of one-digit you!

© 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/9b.html. For more number poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html .

This week’s theme: One-Digit Number Poems for Children under Ten

2/25: One: A poem about delight in simply being.

2/26: Three: A poem about the gift of childhood imagination.

2/27: Four: A poem about the secret of happiness.

2/28: Five: A poem about what five year olds like.

3/1: Six: A poem about the power of the imagination.

3/2: Eight: A poem about childhood fantasies.

3/3: Nine: A poem about the last single-digit age.