I Live Behind Forbidding Walls

July 7, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A love poem about the cruel irony of losing one’s lover by remaining honorable in his or her eyes:

I live behind forbidding walls

Made of adamantine words.

I could walk out when my heart calls,

But, ah! Here flight is just for birds.

It was my luck to find my love

Just after I had been engaged.

I would for love the whole Earth move,

Nor care what god might be enraged.

Cruel irony! That word I gave,

My lover looked to me to keep;

For love performs as we behave,

Nor do respect and trust come cheap.

And so I did what all thought right,

Though it was wrong, and honor kept.

I stayed an angel in his sight,

And ever since in silence wept.

Our love remains, though we're apart,

Unsullied as a distant star,

While I must walk within my heart,

Condemned as haunted spirits are.

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

This week’s theme: Love and Separation

July 6: Your Heart Broke When I Said I Had to Leave You

July 7: I Live Behind Forbidding Walls

Your Heart Broke When I Said I Had to Leave You

July 6, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A love poem from a soldier to his or her loved one about bearing their separation:

Your heart broke when I said I had to leave you

To serve our country somewhere far away.

But every day tells me how much I love you,

And how I'll mend it once I'm home to stay.

For life is but a dream, and we the dreamers,

Making what we will of what we are.

When gates clang shut, we are our own redeemers,

As love leaves for us a door ajar.

So dream with me these empty months of sorrow

As we find ways to be together still.

No longing can be brighter than tomorrow,

Nor dream less certain than our strength of will.

© 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/yourh2.html. For more love poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Love and Separation

July 6: Your Heart Broke When I Said I Had to Leave You

America Can Never Be America

July 5, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of American Independence Day (July 4th), is America.

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

A poem for American Independence Day (July 4th) about calculus and dreams:

America can never be America.

Maybe no nation can ever be America.

Each nation can approach it fervently,

Reaching halfway, then halfway, then halfway.

In approaching dreams, there is no calculus

Calculating how one might finally reach one.

A good thing. Calculus is the death of dreams.

© 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/ameri7.html. For more Independence Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/july4thpoems.html .

This week’s theme: America

June 29: America Is Built on a Foundation of Hope

June 30: America Is on a Long Journey

July 1: America Is Not an Exclusive Club

July 2: America’s Is the World’s Eventual State

July 3: America’s Built on Stolen Land

July 4: America: An Ideal That’s Less than Ideal

July 5: America Can Never Be America

America: An Ideal That's Less than Ideal

July 4, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of American Independence Day (July 4th), is America.

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

A poem for American Independence Day (July 4th) about the nature of ideals:

America: An ideal that’s less than ideal.

Maybe all ideals are less than ideal,

Except those that have never been realized.

Reason is a house that’s never been lived in,

In which the furnishings are always new.

Children have never tested the bedsprings or pillows.

Adults have never soiled the backsplash with their greed and passion.

© 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/ameri6.html. For more Independence Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/july4thpoems.html .

This week’s theme: America

June 29: America Is Built on a Foundation of Hope

June 30: America Is on a Long Journey

July 1: America Is Not an Exclusive Club

July 2: America’s Is the World’s Eventual State

July 3: America’s Built on Stolen Land

July 4: America: An Ideal That’s Less than Ideal

America's Built on Stolen Land

July 3, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of American Independence Day (July 4th), is America.

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

A poem for American Independence Day (July 4th) about America’s debt of sin:

America’s built on stolen land

Made profitable by stolen labor.

Equity with interest should,

Reinvested properly,

Irrigate urban deserts,

Create rural gardens,

Amortize a debt of sin.

© 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/ameri5.html. For more Independence Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/july4thpoems.html .

This week’s theme: America

June 29: America Is Built on a Foundation of Hope

June 30: America Is on a Long Journey

July 1: America Is Not an Exclusive Club

July 2: America’s Is the World’s Eventual State

July 3: America’s Built on Stolen Land

America's Is the World's Eventual State

July 2, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of American Independence Day (July 4th), is America.

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

A poem for American Independence Day (July 4th) about America as a multi-national nation:

America’s is the world’s eventual state:

Multi-national, a nation of nations,

Enduring the backlash, the hatred, the political divide,

Reaffirming the oneness of humanity,

Inching forward, falling back, inching forward,

Crawling, like a soldier under fire,

As ever towards hope, towards acceptance, towards beauty, towards 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/ameri4.html. For more Independence Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/july4thpoems.html .

This week’s theme: America

June 29: America Is Built on a Foundation of Hope

June 30: America Is on a Long Journey

July 1: America Is Not an Exclusive Club

July 2: America’s Is the World’s Eventual State

America Is Not an Exclusive Club

July 1, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of American Independence Day (July 4th), is America.

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

A poem for American Independence Day (July 4th) about America and immigration:

America is not an exclusive club.

Membership ought not be difficult.

Each gathering should be a kaleidoscope of colors,

Robes, tongues, tastes, music, poetry, faith, and song.

In the end, all rivers flow into America’s sea,

Coming together to fulfill the tidal dream,

As love, over generations, unites us all.

© 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/ameri3.html. For more Independence Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/july4thpoems.html .

This week’s theme: America

June 29: America Is Built on a Foundation of Hope

June 30: America Is on a Long Journey

July 1: America Is Not an Exclusive Club