Sinners All, We Ask for Your Forgiveness

March 13, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is St. Patrick’s Day.

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

A St. Patrick’s Day poem about the ubiquity of God’s love:

Sinners all, we ask for Your forgiveness

As we await the hour of Your return.

If only grace were something one could earn!

Nor can we hope to imitate Your goodness.

The saints know well the hopelessness of being

Put upon the pedestal of faith

As though we had already gained Your grace.

The heart is naked to Your restless seeking.

Regard us all, then, equally with love:

In saints and vicious pederasts find lovers,

Cherishing not one above the others,

Knowing none has anything to prove.

© 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/sinner.html. For more St. Patrick’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/stpatricksdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: St. Patrick’s Day

3/11: Sing in Celebration of Your Race

3/12: Sing Me a Love Song for My Irish Boy

3/13: Sinners All, We Ask for Your Forgiveness

Sing Me a Love Song for My Irish Boy

March 12, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is St. Patrick’s Day.

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

A St. Patrick’s Day love poem:

Sing me a love song for my Irish boy;

Take from me my heart, my head, my home;

Pass to him my body, life, and joy;

Add to his my fields of fertile loam.

To him I am and will be earth and heaven,

Resting in the sanctum of his fire;

In me he'll find all his gods have given,

Creating dynasties of his desire.

Know, my love, that I will come to you

'Ere this sun has set on Patrick's Day;

So you must find the courage to be true,

Daring to give other dreams away.

After this leap, all loneliness is past:

Years may come and go, but love will last.

© 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/singme.html. For more St. Patrick’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/stpatricksdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: St. Patrick’s Day

3/11: Sing in Celebration of Your Race

3/12: Sing Me a Love Song for My Irish Boy

Sing in Celebration of Your Race

March 11, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is St. Patrick’s Day.

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

A St. Patrick’s Day poem about the effect of ethnicity on one’s personality:

Sing in celebration of your race,

The anonymous composer of your song,

Passionate provider of your grace,

A host to which you cannot help belong.

Take a day to sing of who you are,

Rejoicing in the choice of what must be,

In gratitude for what, beyond the bar,

Chooses in dark joy one's history.

Know the lineaments of ancient lore

'Ere you feel and act, and know not why.

Stories long forgotten lie in store,

Destined for revision by and by.

All you are and do is not by chance,

Yet you may face your partners as you dance.

© 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/singi2.html. For more St. Patrick’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/stpatricksdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: St. Patrick’s Day

3/11: Sing in Celebration of Your Race

How Can I Have a Fight with My Best Friend

March 10, 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 love after fights:

How can I have a fight with my best friend?

The mountain blows, the landscape is destroyed.

A desert where there once were fields and gardens.

Black lava where flowers once brought joy.

And then shoots of grass come through the blackness;

Slowly love asserts itself again.

He calls, I cry, we go through days of whispers,

And fields once more grow lush in sun and rain.

Ah! but now I'm fearful of the mountain:

I walk by trembling, set for it to blow.

Life's beautiful, but also very painful;

I have the strength to love, now that I 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/howca3.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

3/10: How Can I Have a Fight with My Best Friend

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