There Is Within My Happenstance

July 19, 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 humorous political poem about the guilty innocence of liberals:

There is within my happenstance

An unshed innocence,

Not rare among those buttercups

Whose sun is fueled by shame.

No matter what the circumstance,

My heart must hie me hence,

For all the quince of Nottingham

Is squandered in my name.

Extant there are no photographs

Of who or what I am,

For they were in the sandwiches

We ate one moonlit night.

Instead my mirror must reveal

The marmaladed ham

That lies atop the tabletop

And stuffs itself with light.

Ay me! What might I do that might

Undo my unfelt pain?

My life must gorge on life, and yet

I sorrow for my mice.

Ay me! The cherubs hunger as

My goods are shipped by plane.

And I must dance with polar bears

Across the shrinking ice.

© 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/quince.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

July 17: Richard Is a Restless Dreamer

July 18: The Triumph of the Victor

July 19: There Is Within My Happenstance

The Triumph of the Victor

July 18, 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 the irony that the moment of victory often contains the seeds of the victor’s eventual defeat:

The triumph of the victor means

The losses have begun.

To be well-nigh invincible

Is to be on the run.

Power is a current that

Goes swiftly out to sea.

One's will is wind on grass; one's only

Hope is to be free.

Safety lies in wisdom more than

Strength since strength must die,

While wisdom rides the waves beneath which

Sunken victors lie.

© 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/thetri.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

July 17: Richard Is a Restless Dreamer

July 18: The Triumph of the Victor

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