What a Life the Artist Lives Within

September 20, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A philosophical poem about the artist’s innocence:

What a life the artist lives within!
Eden's innocence not left behind!
Ecstasy is everyday, and love
Is just one's ordinary state of mind.

Without, life still exacts its toll of pain.
Hunger is the engine of the will.
One commutes between despair and hope,
Even in the best times fearing ill.

Within, one dances to one's own sweet tune,
Elated with the beauty of one's art,
Walking in the gloom of midnight rain,
Singing in the sunshine of the heart.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/whatal.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Innocence
September 14: Forests Are a Glimpse of Permanence
September 15: There Is in Friendship Just a Bit of Eden
September 16: Fifteen’s Neither Child nor Adult
September 17: I Loved You, but I Could Not Wait Forever
September 18: Fifty-Eight Still Finds Delight in Learning
September 19: Evil Has No Easy Explanation
September 20: What a Life the Artist Lives Within

Evil Has No Easy Explanation

September 19, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A poem to a child about the guilt that innocent children feel when they are abused:

Evil has no easy explanation.
Everyone is evil and is good.
Sometimes we watch ourselves do something evil
Frozen in a scream that's never Heard.

We cannot stop ourselves, so we go on,
Knowing somewhere else the horror plays
And plays and plays until we are forgiven,
Healed by someone's gift of unearned love.

When someone has been tortured as a child,
Evil, like a mad dog, crouches near.
One buries it deep in a vaulted, lead-lined chamber,
But zombie-like it stalks the world within.

It's strange that darkened children need forgiveness
For evil that they suffer, innocent.
But guilt's the trademark of humiliation,
Burned into the flesh of memory.

Love washes over evil like an ocean,
Sweeping over seething, fisted anger,
Drowning it in cold, unquiet depths,
Leaving you weak and weeping on the strand.

You wouldn't be yourself without the pain
That twists inside like penitential dancers,
Making you the stage of some strange beauty,
Like no one else, the host of our redemption.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/evil.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Innocence
September 14: Forests Are a Glimpse of Permanence
September 15: There Is in Friendship Just a Bit of Eden
September 16: Fifteen’s Neither Child nor Adult
September 17: I Loved You, but I Could Not Wait Forever
September 18: Fifty-Eight Still Finds Delight in Learning
September 19: Evil Has No Easy Explanation

Fifty-Eight Still Finds Delight in Learning

September 18, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A number poem about how someone 58 years old can regain her childhood excitement and innocence:

Fifty-eight still finds delight in learning.
Implicit in her passion is her love
For being and devotion to its treasures,
The things that in one's life most lasting prove
Yet never cease to fill the heart with Yearning.

Ever in her eyes the lamp is burning,
Innocence regained at one remove,
Granted those who pioneer their pleasures,
Habitués of lands they know not of,
Travelers to morning, turning, turning . . .

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/58c.html. For more number poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Innocence
September 14: Forests Are a Glimpse of Permanence
September 15: There Is in Friendship Just a Bit of Eden
September 16: Fifteen’s Neither Child nor Adult
September 17: I Loved You, but I Could Not Wait Forever
September 18: Fifty-Eight Still Finds Delight in Learning

I Loved You, but I Could Not Wait Forever

September 17, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A love poem about the need for innocence to love:

I loved you, but I could not wait forever.
I made my choice, but you would not make yours.
In some delays, a year's as good as never,
As what is lost no change of heart restores.
I love you still, but cannot think of you
Without the bitter longing of regret.
This, too, will pass, I know, and time renew
The innocence one needs to love, and yet ...
You were my once, that never comes again,
A happiness untouched by any past.
Whatever love comes next comes with the stain
Of knowing well this love might well not last.
Goodbye, my love! I hope someday you'll be
Ripe for the love you could have had from me.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/ilove7.html. For more love poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Innocence
September 14: Forests Are a Glimpse of Permanence
September 15: There Is in Friendship Just a Bit of Eden
September 16: Fifteen’s Neither Child nor Adult
September 17: I Loved You, but I Could Not Wait Forever

Fifteen's Neither Child nor Adult

September 16, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A number poem about the uneasy teenage emergence from innocence into adulthood:

Fifteen's neither child nor adult,
In between charade and innocence,
Fending off the forces that would shape
Too soon an unremarkable result.
Even when a teen attempts to ape
Essences to which her heart assents,
No draft should be approved without revolt.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/15.html. For more poems about teenagers, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/teenpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Innocence
September 14: Forests Are a Glimpse of Permanence
September 15: There Is in Friendship Just a Bit of Eden
September 16: Fifteen’s Neither Child nor Adult

There Is in Friendship Just a Bit of Eden

September 15, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A friendship and thank you poem about the lovely innocence of true friendship:

There is in friendship just a bit of Eden,
Harboring our early innocence,
Acting out of joy in giving pleasure,
Not calculating cost or recompense,
Knowing someone we can put our trust in.

Your friendship is a fortune I invest in,
Offering more wealth than I can measure
Unless it be with songs or sacraments.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/ther12.html. For more poems about friendship, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/friendshippoems.html.

This week’s theme: Innocence
September 14: Forests Are a Glimpse of Permanence
September 15: There Is in Friendship Just a Bit of Eden

Forests Are a Glimpse of Permanence

September 14, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A number poem about the sense of lost innocence one associates with unspoiled nature:

Forests are a glimpse of permanence.
One walks within the hush of their embrace
Restored to a more humble sense of place,
Taking time to yield to reverence.
Yearning spills out into sentient space.

There is in forests an abiding sense,
Well worth saving, of lost innocence,
One's shrinking heritage of nature's grace.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/forest.html. For more poems about the environment, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/environmentalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Innocence
September 14: Forests Are a Glimpse of Permanence