Richard Is a Restless Dreamer

July 17, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is politics in honor of Bastille Day, or the national holiday of France, which is celebrated on July 14^th.

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

A political name poem about a scientist whose skills are devoted to the practical realization of his dreams:

Richard is a restless dreamer,

Idealist with a practical bent,

Careful carer, benevolent schemer,

Heart and mind with one intent,

A skilled, professional redeemer,

Reason to love’s frontiers sent,

Delivering grace with science blent.

© 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/richa2.html. For more poems about politics, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics

July 13: Darfur/Darfur

July 14: Obama/Osama

July 15: The Last Depression Led to Holocaust

July 16: Shake Up the World! ItCould Use Some Shaking

July 17: Richard Is a Restless Dreamer

Shake Up the World! It Could Use Some Shaking

July 16, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is politics in honor of Bastille Day, or the national holiday of France, which is celebrated on July 14^th.

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

A political number poem about the need to raise one’s voice against injustice:

Shake up the world! It could use some shaking.

Every moment waits for your commands.

Voices were created to be heard;

Enduring wrong politely is absurd;

Nor can one hope for change without demands.

There is no justice simply for the taking,

Yet some would silent raise their righteous hands.

The birthplace of the whirlwind is the word,

Wind that shapes the contours of the land,

One wind of many wills, the world remaking.

© 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/shakeu.html. For more poems about politics, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics

July 13: Darfur/Darfur

July 14: Obama/Osama

July 15: The Last Depression Led to Holocaust

July 16: Shake Up the World! It Could Use Some Shaking

The Last Depression Led to Holocaust

July 15, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is politics in honor of Bastille Day, or the national holiday of France, which is celebrated on July 14^th.

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

A political poem about where one must begin one’s battle against hatred:

The last depression led to holocaust.

The rationale for massacre is fear.

Long before it starts, the game is lost.

The neighborhood of hate is always here.

The best place to begin is one's own heart.

There the mad dogs pull against their chains,

Lusting to tear some stranger's throat apart,

Rage that only love and patience tames.

Each heart becomes a lantern in a crowd.

Yes, people see according to your light,

As you by theirs -- but speak of love aloud,

Lest other voices drown the coming night.

And do not turn away from victims' cries,

For evil's spooked by nothing more than eyes.

© 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/thelas.html. For more poems about politics, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics

July 13: Darfur/Darfur

July 14: Obama/Osama

July 15: The Last Depression Led to Holocaust

Obama/Osama

A poem contrasting the political styles of Barack Obama and Osama Bin Laden, written when the two were adversaries:

Obama meets Osama,

Brandishing a word

As deadly as the sunlight,

More potent as more heard,

As true as it's absurd.

Osama meets Obama;

Suicide meets life.

As certainty meets hope,

Meaning meets the knife.

Absolutes need night.

© 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/obama.html. For more poems about politics, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics

July 13: Darfur/Darfur

July 14: Obama/Osama

Darfur/Darfur

July 13, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is politics in honor of Bastille Day, or the national holiday of France, which is celebrated on July 14^th.

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

A political poem about genocide in Darfur containing two opposing points of view about whether to intervene in such a catastrophe:

Darfur's another test of whether we

Are ready to become a sovereign world,

Restraining with state violence a state

From genocide and other crimes of hate,

Unleashing thunderbolts from heaven hurled

Right through the savage heart of sovereignty.

Dirty truths devour clean designs,

A process that turns dreams to spit-out bones.

Remember to be wary of the good,

For what one does is rarely what one would,

Uniting love with skulls heaped up like stones,

Reading story books with snakes for spines.

© 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/darfur.html. For more poems about politics, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics

July 13: Darfur/Darfur

After Love and Fear, There's Pride

July 12, 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 spouse to his or her soldier posted far away:

After love and fear, there's pride;

After tears, the night;

After all the words are gone,

A chair with just one light.

After memories, the dream

That you will come home safe;

After sleep, another day

Of waiting for my life.

After hope, the happiness

Of thinking of your love;

After moments of despair,

A stone no thought can move.

After all the sacrifice,

The hunger and the pain,

The passions and the promises,

The losses and the gains,

There's nothing but my love for you,

Which waits upon the wind

To bring you from the barricades

That now you must defend.

© 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/afterl.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

July 8: Every Day I Think of You and Miss You

July 9: We Choose to Stay Together

July 10: In Many Ways, It’s as if I Last Saw You

July 11: I Miss You, Though I’m Not Quite Sure I Love You

July 12: After Love and Fear, There’s Pride

I Miss You, Though I'm Not Quite Sure I Love You

July 11, 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 not-quite love poem about the first experience of missing someone:

I miss you, though I'm not quite sure I love you.

All I know is I like my music sad.

Long, empty days I'm pensive, thinking of you,

And while you're gone, I'm never really glad.

I think of love as some enormous sea,

Tempestuous or still, but never ending,

Something that once there will always be.

But that is not the message that I'm sending.

Missing you, for me, is something new:

An opening into my changing heart.

Love is something that I won't yet do,

But my feeling for you is a start.

Love, like prayer, should not be lightly said,

So I'll just say, "You're in my heart" instead!

© 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/imiss6.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

July 8: Every Day I Think of You and Miss You

July 9: We Choose to Stay Together

July 10: In Many Ways, It’s as if I Last Saw You

July 11: I Miss You, Though I’m Not Quite Sure I Love You