Thirty-Eight Is Running for Her Life

April 9, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A number poem about running for one’s health:

Thirty-eight is running for her life.

Health, of course, is her concern, not fear.

It seems that humankind was born to run,

Regardless whether after game or from,

There being early on just axe and spear.

Yet even now, a daily run feels right.

Evolved to use our bodies, we must fight

Illnesses whose provenance is clear,

Grappling with the damage we have done,

Healing ourselves by running, running where

The labor of our longing greets the light.

© 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/38i.html. For more poems about health, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/healthpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Health

4/8: Give Your Pain a Bit of Gratitude

4/9: Thirty-Eight Is Running for Her Life

Give Your Pain a Bit of Gratitude

April 8, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A get-well-soon poem about enduring pain:

Give your pain a bit of gratitude.

Endure it with due deference to its cause.

The healing instruments could not intrude

Without obeying certain natural laws.

Each moment is a step towards getting well,

Light shining past the doorway of your pain.

Let time take you gently through this hell,

Sure that time will heal what wounds remain.

One lives in hope yet suffers in despair,

Often bearing more than one can bear,

Needing time to savor time 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/givey2.html. For more poems about health, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/healthpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Health

4/8: Give Your Pain a Bit of Gratitude

Even When the Sky Is Stone

April 7, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A philosophical poem about the role of imagination in perception:

Even when the sky is stone

The earth is free to sing;

The best potatoes know the songs

That season every spring.

Even when the wall is dry

The paint is not asleep;

Some foul-mouthed cuckoo keeps it up

With jokes that make us weep.

Even when the frog is free

It may not know the dance;

What good is it to have the right

And leave the choice to chance?

Even when the water's clear

Things aren't what they seem;

To understand the simplest words

There is a need to dream.

© 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/skysto.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Truth

4/1: Facts Are Less Reliable than Dreams

4/2: The Truth Is Far Too Truthful

4/3: What You Think You Know, You Don’t

4/4: A Double-Blind Study Is Truly Doubly Blind

4/5: Beverly

4/6: Each Moment Is a Word of Glass

4/7: Even When the Sky Is Stone

Each Moment Is a Word of Glass

April 6, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A philosophical poem about words and the perception of reality:

Each moment is a word of glass;

Each life, within a bubble sealed.

No pleasure save what one has said,

No love save self in glass concealed.

How shall we gaze like fiery stars

Upon this gallery of breath?

One says only what one is;

There is no rostrum beyond death.

Speak, then, of dancing particles

Within the curvature of eyes,

And with equations sow the seeds

Upon which data crystallize;

While in the forests lovers gleam

Like whispers on a moonlit stream.

© 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/wordgl.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Truth

4/1: Facts Are Less Reliable than Dreams

4/2: The Truth Is Far Too Truthful

4/3: What You Think You Know, You Don’t

4/4: A Double-Blind Study Is Truly Doubly Blind

4/5: Beverly

4/6: Each Moment Is a Word of Glass

Beverly

April 5, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A philosophical name poem about language and perception:

Beverly enjoys a conversation.

Even when alone, she chatters on

Vivaciously, convivial as a bird,

Eager in pursuit of some bright word.

Reality to her is a relation:

Language is the sculptor of sensation

Yielding to the wisdom of the stone.

© 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/bev.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Truth

4/1: Facts Are Less Reliable than Dreams

4/2: The Truth Is Far Too Truthful

4/3: What You Think You Know, You Don’t

4/4: A Double-Blind Study Is Truly Doubly Blind

4/5: Beverly

A Double-Blind Study Is Truly Doubly Blind

April 4, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A philosophical poem about the limitations of double-blind studies:

A double-blind study is truly doubly blind:

First, because it thinks it's in control;

Second, because it's in too much control,

Masking viscera with the face of mind.

Being's neither linear nor lined;

Cause and effect are interactive; the whole

Disintegrates divided into parts; the goal

Must be with more humility defined.

One sees by flashlight; variables unknown

Cannot be controlled; nothing is

Isolable; each moment is unique.

Yes, statistics help, but they are prone

To hide what might be missing. Scientists quiz

The world and get the answers that they seek.

© 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/adoubl.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Truth

4/1: Facts Are Less Reliable than Dreams

4/2: The Truth Is Far Too Truthful

4/3: What You Think You Know, You Don’t

4/4: A Double-Blind Study Is Truly Doubly Blind

What You Think You Know, You Don't

April 3, 2019

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A philosophical poem about the need for skepticism, especially when dealing with the truth about oneself:

What you think you know, you don't,

And what you don't, you do,

If you know that you don't know

What you think is true.

From inside out, you're pretty sure

That you are who you are.

But then, from outside in, some comment

Leaves a door ajar.

You cannot help but take a peek

At what your life has been

To someone else, a person whom

You now can glimpse within.

And there you are a stranger to

Yourself, for what you see

Is nothing like the person who

You thought that you would be.

So who are you? What's the truth

Of you? You'll never know.

For there is simply nothing, nothing,

Nothing simply so.

© 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/whatyo.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Truth

4/1: Facts Are Less Reliable than Dreams

4/2: The Truth Is Far Too Truthful

4/3: What You Think You Know, You Don’t