Maybe This Was Harder than I Thought

January 22, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Nationality and Race/Lunar New Year in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, which this year is celebrated on January 20^th, and the Lunar, or Chinese New Year, which this year is celebrated on January 25^th.

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

A poem for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday about the sorrow he might feel looking at the state of race relations today:

Maybe this was harder than I thought.

And, believe me, I knew it would be hard!

Race remains a flag, a wall, a card

That all sides play to stir up base support.

If love and justice were the ends I sought,

Neither was achieved. The rosiest bard,

Looking at black children bleak and scarred,

Understanding what our struggles wrought,

The jails packed with blacks, the gangs, the guns,

Hatred hovering hawk-like over Heaven,

Each bias fanned by electronic winds,

Rage bubbling over, would not sing of joy.

Knowing this, the truth that stings and stuns,

In sorrow I survey the burnt-out ruin,

Needing faith to walk across our sins,

Great with hope no future can 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/mayb19.html. For more poems for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/martinlutherkingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday/Lunar New Year

1/20: Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They

1/21: Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways

1/22: Maybe This Was Harder than I Thought

Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways

January 21, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Nationality and Race/Lunar New Year in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, which this year is celebrated on January 20^th, and the Lunar, or Chinese New Year, which this year is celebrated on January 25^th.

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

A poem for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday about how racism is destructive to all who hate:

Might not racism cut both ways?

All are crippled equally by hatred.

Racist rage consumes the darkest days,

Taking with it all one sees as sacred.

In all of us that ancient fire still smolders,

Needing but a bit of breeze to flare.

Let Atlas bear the world upon his shoulders:

Under all that love, the hate's still there.

Then what is one to do but know one's heart,

Hating hatred in a wash of tears,

Even as one's world is torn apart,

Rage raging all around one, stoked by fears?

Know that, white or black, your rage is wrong,

Incinerating all that you desire.

Nor will that rage light up your days for long,

Given the proclivities of fire.

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

This week’s theme: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday/Lunar New Year

1/20: Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They

1/21: Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways

Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They

January 20, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday/Lunar New Year in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, which this year is celebrated on January 20^th, and the Lunar, or Chinese New Year, which this year is celebrated on January 25^th.

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

A poem for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday about how a leader uses dreams to guide us towards a better life:

Maybe dreams cannot come true, but they

Are mountains that give shape to the horizon,

Reference points to guide us on the way

Towards lands long promised us in distant Zion.

If we never get that far, we'll be

Nearer for the journey we have taken,

Letting the next generation see

Up close the dreams they else might have forsaken.

The dreamer lives a bit beyond what is,

Having had the courage to say no,

Existing in a future wholly his,

Revealing through his grace where we must go.

Knowing well this world of lust and greed

In which the dream but rarely marks the deed,

None could bear to dream but for the soul

Great enough to bear it for the whole.

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

This week’s theme: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday/Lunar New Year

1/20: Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They

How Does Love Mature into a Garden

January 19, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

An anniversary poem about the need to cultivate one’s love:

How does love mature into a garden?

A wild field, of course, need not be wed.

Pure pleasure tends the softest soil to harden;

Perhaps the heart requires that tears be shed.

Yearning blooms when it becomes a song,

A melody that savors its own beauty;

Nor will requited passion linger long

Not stroked from time to time by naked duty.

In gardens one defines where nature ends;

Vividly one wills the world to be.

Each swath of loveliness on love depends,

Restored each day to passion one can see.

Sing, then, of sweet desire turned to love,

And of the grace that does all lovers move,

Renewing in your song each day the vow

You never made more willingly than now.

© 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/howdoe.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries

1/13: All the Love You Ask of God Is Here

1/14: Harvests Do Require Times of Planting

1/15: We’ve Traveled Several Rocky Roads Together

1/16: Four Years? No, It Cannot Be That Long

1/17: Habitués of Heaven Hate to Hurry

1/18: Heaven Isn’t Known for Being Easy

1/19: How Does Love Mature into a Garden

Heaven Isn't Known for Being Easy

January 18, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

An anniversary poem about the need to give up the desire for power if one is to love:

Heaven isn't known for being easy.

Although the door is open, few desire

Peace and inner glory, ecstasy,

Purchased through the sacrifice of power.

Yet there are those who find their way through love.

After all attempts at ecstasy--

Nocturnal, furtive, loyal, desperate, easy--

No hunger is diminished, nor is love

Inviolate in the sunburst of desire.

Venery's delight derives from power

Etched into the grinning face of love.

Rarer is unbidden ecstasy,

Simple as delight free of desire,

A nakedness that masquerades as easy,

Removed from the necessities of power.

Yet there are those who find their way through love.

© 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/heavis.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries

1/13: All the Love You Ask of God Is Here

1/14: Harvests Do Require Times of Planting

1/15: We’ve Traveled Several Rocky Roads Together

1/16: Four Years? No, It Cannot Be That Long

1/17: Habitués of Heaven Hate to Hurry

1/18: Heaven Isn’t Known for Being Easy

Habitués of Heaven Hate to Hurry

January 17, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A seventh anniversary poem asking angels to join the celebration:

Habitués of Heaven hate to hurry,

After eons soaked in ecstasy,

Perched upon a pinhead, pink and blurry,

Passionately pleased simply to be.

Yet those of us below, who work and worry,

Send from time to time an urgent plea,

Ever hoping for a glimpse of glory

Vouchsafed from beyond what we can see.

Enter, then, O angels, in your fury,

Nether worlds no bigger than a pea,

To brush the moment with your burning beauty,

Hallowing this anniversary!

© 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/habitu.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries

1/13: All the Love You Ask of God Is Here

1/14: Harvests Do Require Times of Planting

1/15: We’ve Traveled Several Rocky Roads Together

1/16: Four Years? No, It Cannot Be That Long

1/17: Habitués of Heaven Hate to Hurry

Four Years? No, It Cannot Be That Long

January 16, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A fourth anniversary poem about how time flies:

Four years? No, it cannot be that long!

Only yesterday you two were married!

Unplug the sundial! The shadow must be wrong!

Rotating somethings somewhere have miscarried!

Yet so it is -- four years have passed already,

Even as the moment is still here.

As time moves on, the miracle holds steady --

Real life, real love, far more than one can bear,

Simply, truly, beautifully 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/4years.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries

1/13: All the Love You Ask of God Is Here

1/14: Harvests Do Require Times of Planting

1/15: We’ve Traveled Several Rocky Roads Together

1/16: Four Years? No, It Cannot Be That Long