Each Truth Is like a Scrim Across the Darkness

February 7, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A philosophical poem about the wisdom of risking love:

Each truth is like a scrim across the darkness.

We cannot see what most we'd like to know.

We drive among sheer cliffs in pale moonlight

Unsure of where we are or where to go.

When we allow our heads to make our choices,

We lose because of what we cannot see.

When we give way and let desire take us,

We lose because we want what cannot be.

We inch along the dream-lit rocky ridges

Knowing always, always we must lose.

The end for all is darkness everlasting,

And so it matters less which road we choose.

What matters is the beauty of sheer being;

The gifts we have and those we will become;

The ecstasy of loving so completely

That we ourselves are more than minds can plumb.

Love well and know that love must end in pain.

Be a fool and pay the unmarked price.

Be generous of self, and passion gain:

One who never loses, loses twice.

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

This week’s theme: Love

2/3: A Girlfriend’s Neither Gotten nor Forgotten

2/4: Sometimes I Wish I Were a Wall

2/5: Love Is Never Vague or General

2/6: Lovers Sometimes Rub Each Other’s

2/7: Each Truth Is like a Scrim Across the Darkness

Lovers Sometimes Rub Each Other's

February 6, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A love poem about the usefulness of getting outside one’s own point of view:

Lovers sometimes rub each other's

Nerves a little raw.

We find ourselves beside ourselves

And don't want any more.

But then we think: What would we do

Without that sweet embrace?

How could we go from day to day

Not seeing that dear face?

And then we see our discontent

From the other side,

Looking at how we must look

Without our blinding pride:

And we feel love come flowing in

Like a warm and gentle sea,

Knowing that this special place

Is where we want to be.

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

This week’s theme: Love

2/3: A Girlfriend’s Neither Gotten nor Forgotten

2/4: Sometimes I Wish I Were a Wall

2/5: Love Is Never Vague or General

2/6: Lovers Sometimes Rub Each Other’s

Love Is Never Vague or General

February 5, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A poem about the specificity of love:

Love is never vague or general:

It's all about thin fingers and fat toes.

What makes someone attractive no one knows,

But all know that it isn't rational.

There is a chemistry, some catalyst:

A scent, a lilt of voice, a social grace,

Some subtle hint impossible to trace,

Fit fodder for a gentle satirist.

But passion is, of love, merely the seed:

It's love itself that most engenders love.

And here again, mysteries silent move,

Shifting darkly where there is most need.

Love is about a casual caress,

A patient silence in which souls can dance,

An obvious, clumsy gesture towards romance,

A comfort zone where long, hard days undress.

It's all about the richness of a night

In which two lovers work to keep the glow:

The feel of skin, the way a tongue moves slow,

The thousand tiny things that make things right.

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

This week’s theme: Love

2/3: A Girlfriend’s Neither Gotten nor Forgotten

2/4: Sometimes I Wish I Were a Wall

2/5: Love Is Never Vague or General

Sometimes I Wish I Were a Wall

February 4, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A love poem in which a lover wishes he could bear his lover's pain:

Sometimes I wish I were a wall

Upon which you could hang your pain--

To see it so, to know its beauty,

Bond of yearning, bearing love.

Pain is color, in between

Desire and death, white and black;

Light's most lovely at the dawn,

And then, again, approaching night.

Sometimes I wish that I could kiss

The world and take away all pain,

Feel it all, for everyone,

And then go mad to prove I'm real.

But love continues, as does pain,

And death engenders both, for aye,

And the river murmurs ceaselessly

Around the bend on which we live.

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

This week’s theme: Love

2/3: A Girlfriend’s Neither Gotten nor Forgotten

2/4: Sometimes I Wish I Were a Wall

A Girlfriend's Neither Gotten nor Forgotten

February 3, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A love poem about what a girlfriend is and isn’t:

A girlfriend's neither gotten nor forgotten.

She's never just a friend who is a girl.

She doesn't wear a nameplate or a flower.

You never can be certain she’s the one.

You're going to have to jump right off a building

And probably break your ego and your neck.

Nine times out of ten you'll wish you'd vanished,

But one time out of ten--why, there she'll be!

A girlfriend isn't something you acquire.

A girlfriend is a person, not a thing.

And if you leap and land next to the right one,

She'll burn her image right into your heart.

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

This week’s theme: Love

2/3: A Girlfriend’s Neither Gotten nor Forgotten

I Want to Say I Love You on Your Birthday

February 2, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A birthday love poem from a rejected lover:

I want to say I love you on your birthday,

Though love is something you don't want from me.

Things didn't go so well when I last said it,

And so I'll keep it silent in my heart.

But how the words reverberate within me!

A song that I must struggle not to sing,

A music I must dance to without motion,

A poem that I must never read aloud.

Your wishes are a wall I would not scale,

Yet won't abandon, loathe to leave behind.

I cannot have, and cannot bear to lose you,

And so I send you this in my despair.

© 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/iwant8.html. For more poems about love, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Unrequited Love

1/27: You Don’t Love Me, but Ah! Do I Love You

1/28: I Want You, but I Don’t Want You to Know

1/29: I Know that You Don’t Feel for Me

1/30: Eventually, You’ll Understand I Love You

1/31: Love Me the Way I’ve Long Loved You

2/1: Adrianna Rules My Sovereign Heart

2/2: I Want to Say I Love You on Your Birthday

Adrianna Rules My Sovereign Heart

February 1, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A name and love poem to a flirt:

Adrianna rules my sovereign heart,

Delighting in my daily desperation.

Rack and ruin are the inspiration

In which she finds a purpose for her art.

Alas! I cannot give her up, for she

Need only smile to make my poor heart dance,

Need only touch my arm to make me prance

About inside, a fool no truth can free.

© 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/adria2.html. For more poems about love, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Unrequited Love

1/27: You Don’t Love Me, but Ah! Do I Love You

1/28: I Want You, but I Don’t Want You to Know

1/29: I Know that You Don’t Feel for Me

1/30: Eventually, You’ll Understand I Love You

1/31: Love Me the Way I’ve Long Loved You

2/1: Adrianna Rules My Sovereign Heart