How Much Can One Person Love Another

February 11, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day, which is celebrated on February 14.

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

A Valentine’s Day poem about a love that seems without limits:

How much can one person love another?

A universe exists in time and space,

Placed within the boundaries of one place,

Placed within a time far from forever.

Yet love comes to us from some quite other,

Visiting our sorrow with its grace,

Answering our rage with its embrace,

Leaving just a whisper of its wonder.

Even as I say this, you are there,

Nestling in where need undoes the day,

Taking up your small infinity.

Inside my heart, you wander everywhere,

Nor would I wish such innocence away

Even were life bitter as the sea.

© 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/howmu2.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day

2/10: How Might One Know Love Except by Loving

2/11: How Much Can One Person Love Another

How Might One Know Love Except by Loving

February 10, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day, which is celebrated on February 14.

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

A Valentine’s Day poem about the need to love in order to know what love is:

How might one know love except by loving?

A crush is sometimes right, but often wrong,

Perhaps because it's short, and life is long,

Perhaps because the proof is in the pudding.

Years go by, and one is always moving;

Very little truth can come along.

A week, a month, a year – love still seems strong;

Longer, and the trick is one of choosing.

Enduring love depends on mutual need,

Need acknowledged, open, unashamed

To say, I do not want to be alone.

If one could put aside one's pride and bleed,

No gift of gratitude would go unnamed,

Even if the landscape turned to 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/howmi9.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day

2/10: How Might One Know Love Except by Loving

Fate Is Oft the Filament of Passion

February 9, 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 number poem about the relationship between love and fate:

Fate is oft the filament of passion,

Illumined by the force of its fierce flow.

For love, far more than chance, may fortunes fashion,

The unwilled will that wills the world we know.

Years break, yet love maintains the tides below.

Of love, fate is the most precise expression,

Nor could one find a more complete confession,

Even as good tidings come and go.

© 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/fateis.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

2/8: Love Is like a Large White Cat

2/9: Fate Is Oft the Filament of Passion

Love Is like a Large White Cat

February 8, 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 comparing love to the personality of a cat:

Love is like a large white cat

Sitting on its paws.

You may pet it all you like;

It lives by its own laws.

It comes and goes as it decides

No matter what you say.

It seems the more you want it near,

The more it goes away.

And then when you are quite content

To sit out in the sun

Alone with just your thoughts and dreams,

Not needing anyone,

Out it comes, as if in fear

That somehow you'll forget,

And jumps up purring in your lap,

Demanding to be pet.

© 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/cat.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

2/8: Love Is like a Large White Cat

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