Let Your Birth Sign Lie upon Your Chest

January 24, 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 Lunar New Year poem about the relationship between reason and religion:

Let your birth sign lie upon your chest,

Unity of character and fate

Now played out in fantasy and flesh,

A tableau to which readers may relate,

Reason and religion on a date.

Nor does this mean your reason has regressed,

Even if seduced by such a guest.

What faith might say is often reason dressed,

Yielding metaphors that illustrate

Exactly what no logic could suggest,

A time-encrusted truth by beauty blessed,

Retaining wisdom in its gnomic state.

© 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/letyo2.html. For more Lunar New Year poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chinesenewyearpoems.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

1/23: Love Is Far More Various than Race

1/24: Let Your Birth Sign Lie upon Your Chest

Love Is Far More Various than Race

January 23, 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 about love and race:

Love is far more various than race.

It goes much deeper than a person's skin.

It reaches to the heart, which is the same

In all the human race. It is the name

Of a hundred thousand feelings held within,

Yearning to be consumed in an embrace.

How does one particular embrace

Become more intimate than one's own name?

How of all the humans in this race

Do we find the one whose spirit is the same?

Of course we love to touch our lover's skin,

But what love touches is the soul within.

In marriage we must build one home within

Two hearts, one world in an embrace.

What matters is the will and not the race,

The choice to love what lies beneath the skin.

In every love the choice is just the same;

Without it, love is nothing but a name.

How do we make love more than just a name?

How do we not tire of the skin

We touch every day? In the race

To succeed, how do we keep the embrace

From smothering the passion still within?

How do we make our days not all the same?

Love is the decision to embrace

One body, one soul, one universe, one name.

To give up all we are and have within

And share the world beneath another's skin.

Once we do, the world is not the same:

The love two share enriches the whole race.

This is how love intersects with race:

Humanity is held in your embrace.

Your love will never leave the world the same:

When it looks for peace, it calls your name.

Do not fear the politics of skin:

Choose love each day, and joy will reign within.

Within your love is all you need embrace.

Love caresses skin and values race.

Two in name, you are in love the same.

© 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/race.html. For more poems about nationality and race, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/racepoems.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

1/23: Love Is Far More Various than Race

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