Win or Lose, What's at Stake Is Grace

September 13, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of Labor Day (USA), is professions.

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

A poem about football (soccer) players competing for the World Cup:

Win or lose, what's at stake is grace.
One pits oneself against one's wildest dreams,
Relying, more than anything, on will.
Life is far more lustful than it seems,
Demanding more of one than an embrace.

Come witness, then, the love that life redeems
Upon a field of lovers, dreamers all,
Playing with more passion in our place.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/winorl.html. For more poems about professions, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/professionspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Professions
September 7: Shall There Be a Moment After All
September 8: The Point of Playing Roles Is Demolishing Walls
September 9: Fifty-Three, Well Armed with Expertise
September 10: Fifty-Six Devotes Himself to Beauty
September 11: For You, Who Does Such Good, There Is a Heaven
September 12: Great Bosses Grant the Glory They Receive
September 13: Win or Lose, What’s at Stake Is Grace

Great Bosses Grant the Glory They Receive

September 12, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of Labor Day (USA), is professions.

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

A goodbye poem for a great boss:

Great bosses grant the glory they receive,
Offering their praise and their devotion.
On them the mantle settles like a cloak
Designed to shelter lots of little folk,
Bearing blame while smothering self-promotion.
Yet freely we give more than we receive,
Eager to float their ships upon our ocean.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/greatb.html. For more poems about professions, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/professionspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Professions
September 7: Shall There Be a Moment After All
September 8: The Point of Playing Roles Is Demolishing Walls
September 9: Fifty-Three, Well Armed with Expertise
September 10: Fifty-Six Devotes Himself to Beauty
September 11: For You, Who Does Such Good, There Is a Heaven
September 12: Great Bosses Grant the Glory They Receive

For You, Who Does Such Good, There Is a Heaven

September 11, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of Labor Day (USA), is professions.

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

A number poem for a physician about recognizing the good she does:

For you, who does such good, there is a heaven
Open and waiting for you in your heart.
Remember, then, to enter it to leaven
The bread of life with the sanctity of your art,
Yeast that would a rise in pleasure start.

So when you've signed the day's last patient's chart,
Immensely glad it's only half-past seven,
X-out all but thoughts that grace impart.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/fory14.html. For more poems about professions, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/professionspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Professions
September 7: Shall There Be a Moment After All
September 8: The Point of Playing Roles Is Demolishing Walls
September 9: Fifty-Three, Well Armed with Expertise
September 10: Fifty-Six Devotes Himself to Beauty
September 11: For You, Who Does Such Good, There Is a Heaven

Fifty-Six Devotes Himself to Beauty

September 10, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of Labor Day (USA), is professions.

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

A philosophical number poem for a theatrical director about the challenge of making truths flow beautifully through time:

Fifty-six devotes himself to beauty.
In beauty, too, he finds his rich reward.
For him, his pleasure also is his duty,
The labor that creates the silent chord
Yielding frozen truths by beauty thawed.

So might those truths like water flow through time;
In eternal moments, the sublime:
Xanthic glints of gold his art makes shine.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/56d.html. For more poems about professions, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/professionspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Professions
September 7: Shall There Be a Moment After All
September 8: The Point of Playing Roles Is Demolishing Walls
September 9: Fifty-Three, Well Armed with Expertise
September 10: Fifty-Six Devotes Himself to Beauty

Fifty-Three, Well Armed with Expertise

September 9, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of Labor Day (USA), is professions.

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

A number poem for an evaluator of mathematical education grants:

Fifty-three, well armed with expertise,
Invades the sacred precincts of a grant.
Funding anxiously awaits her smile,
The lifeblood of a promising idea.
Yet much debris must first be cleared away.

There may be some tough moments in her day,
Hard-edged talk as she makes problems clear,
Revisions that she phrases for the file.
Even so, she knows what both sides want:
Each to give each child a gift that frees.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/53d.html. For more poems about professions, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/professionspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Professions
September 7: Shall There Be a Moment After All
September 8: The Point of Playing Roles Is Demolishing Walls
September 9: Fifty-Three, Well Armed with Expertise

The Point of Playing Roles Is Demolishing Walls

September 8, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of Labor Day (USA), is professions.

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

A psychological number poem about the profession of designing RPGs (Role Playing Games):

The point of playing roles is demolishing walls.
Having demolished them renews the heart.
Imagination, though, requires rules,
Restructuring a world with well-wrought tools,
Tempering the wayward will with art.
Yet a game too gated quickly palls.

So ought the character perform the part
In which the player moves as fortune calls,
X-ing out the self the game refuels.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/thepo4.html. For more poems about professions, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/professionspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Professions
September 7: Shall There Be a Moment After All
September 8: The Point of Playing Roles Is Demolishing Walls

Shall There Be a Moment After All

September 7, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of Labor Day (USA), is professions.

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

A philosophical number poem about the transcendent moment that can be achieved by an actor:

Shall there be a moment after all
In which each soul is overwhelmed by grace,
X-ing out the sense of time and place,
There within some small, half-empty hall
You fill beyond the brim with your embrace;

One moment in that spare, well-crafted space,
Needing all your art, each soul in thrall,
Enduring being's beauty face to face?

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/shallt.html. For more poems about professions, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/professionspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Professions
September 7: Shall There Be a Moment After All