The Fire of Love

November 6, 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 Election Day (USA), which takes place this year on Nov. 3.

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

A political poem about the need in politics for love:

America is ever being born.
Innocence is its identity.
It must be free to dream, or it will die,
And with it, the world's still breaking, anguished heart.

Becoming, becoming, always becoming,
A land that will be far more than has been.
Beginning, beginning, always beginning,
Unwilling to settle for sorrow or sin.

Ought the root of politics be love?
How else might the nation live and prosper?
Every vote should be a vote for love.
Every law should be a law for love.

Loving is a policy
That serves the interest of the State,
For love will always answer love,
While hate can only stir up hate.

How beautiful, the anger at injustice!
Like a torch, it lights our darkened way.
Without it, we are waiting for the wind.
With it, we walk on through moonless nights.

Let us never lose our anger!
Let it be the fire of love!
Burning, yearning, learning, turning,
Moving hearts that would not move.

The limit of the possible
Is not a border wall.
It is, instead, a boundary
Accessible to all.

Let us cross it, you and I,
And build our world anew!
Again, again, closing in
On what is good and true.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/thefir.html. For more political poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Politics
November 2: Election Day Seems Sometimes like Which Crook
November 3: Elections Bring Regime Change
November 4: Graduation Means that Now You Must
November 5: Peace Is Not the Product of Despair
November 6: The Fire of Love

Peace Is Not the Product of Despair

November 5, 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 Election Day (USA), which takes place this year on Nov. 3.

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

A political Passover poem about the need for unused strength to bring about peace:

Peace is not the product of despair.
An army's most invincible least used.
Strength engenders weakness when abused,
Serving best by merely being there.
One conquers in the end by being just,
Vanquishing the conscience with the right.
Each child that's passed over in the night
Restores just one-half bullet's worth of trust.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/peace2.html. For more political poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics
November 2: Election Day Seems Sometimes like Which Crook
November 3: Elections Bring Regime Change
November 4: Graduation Means that Now You Must
November 5: Peace Is Not the Product of Despair

Graduation Means that Now You Must

November 4, 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 Election Day (USA), which takes place this year on Nov. 3.

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

A political graduation poem about the burden of student debt:

Graduation means that now you must
Repay the debt so innocently incurred,
Although the final tally seems absurd,
Demanding more than you consider just.
Unwillingly you had to make your bed
And now must lie in it, though we are all
The better for your choice. We like to call
Individual what is instead
Our common good. We feed on your success,
Nor can we be unscathed by your distress.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/grad11.html. For more political poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics
November 2: Election Day Seems Sometimes like Which Crook
November 3: Elections Bring Regime Change
November 4: Graduation Means that Now You Must

Elections Bring Regime Change

November 3, 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 Election Day (USA), which takes place this year on Nov. 3.

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

An Election Day poem about the importance of a peaceful change of power:

Elections bring regime change, even though
Little seems to change but the regimes.
Energetic leaders come and go.
Change is far more daunting than it seems.
This is due to what elections do:
In counting votes, they sum not some but all,
Of which no cook could make a tasty stew,
Nor architect an arch that would not fall.
Demands of opposite intent demand
A compromise constrained, complex, and bland.
Yet such will ever violence forestall.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/elect2.html. For more Election Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/electiondaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics
November 2: Election Day Seems Sometimes like Which Crook
November 3: Elections Bring Regime Change

Election Day Seems Sometimes like Which Crook

November 2, 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 Election Day (USA), which takes place this year on Nov. 3.

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

An Election Day poem about the importance of voting even when both sides seem corrupt:

Election Day seems sometimes like which crook
Leaves just a slightly less repulsive taste.
Each day the ugly, money-sucking waste
Creates an urge to give 'em all the hook.
There are, of course, many who have died
In defense of this most precious right,
Opening their bodies to the night,
Not bred to have their dignity denied.
Do, then, for their sake more closely look
At each contestant, though with Lysol laced.
Your vote affirms your power to decide.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/electi.html. For more Election Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/electiondaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics
November 2: Election Day Seems Sometimes like Which Crook

Holiness Is Never Wholly Holy

November 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 Halloween, is the spirit.

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

A Halloween poem about the questionable distinction between the holy and the profane:

Holiness is never wholly holy.
All is all - an angel or a flea,
Loved and deeply cherished equally,
Loved as though all love embraced them only.
One is just as sacred as a gnat,
Well loved, just as well loved as a thief,
Existing far beyond one's joy or grief,
Embraced by love that dances past belief.
Nor does one need more than the thought of that.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/holin3.html. For more Halloween poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/halloweenpoems.html .

This week’s theme: The Spirit
October 26: Hear, O Spirits! The World, the World Is One
October 27: Here Is So Much More than Here
October 28: Hell Does Not Admit Those Who Are Loved
October 29: Have a Little Sunshine in Your Heart
October 30: Hopes Last Longer than Their Disappointments
October 31: Have a Tiny Tidbit of Despair
November 1: Holiness Is Never Wholly Holy

Have a Tiny Tidbit of Despair

October 31, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of Halloween, is the spirit.

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

A Halloween poem about the need to taste despair if one is to know the truth of life:

Have a tiny tidbit of despair,
A little taste of what most must consume,
Letting go the blessings you assume,
Letting go the myth that life is fair.
Oh, savor it, that bitter, bitty bite,
Worthy of your easy empathy!
Endure this brutal world vicariously,
Even for a moment, that you might
Not be so thoroughly ignorant of life.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/havea5.html. For more Halloween poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/halloweenpoems.html .

This week’s theme: The Spirit
October 26: Hear, O Spirits! The World, the World Is One
October 27: Here Is So Much More than Here
October 28: Hell Does Not Admit Those Who Are Loved
October 29: Have a Little Sunshine in Your Heart
October 30: Hopes Last Longer than Their Disappointments
October 31: Have a Tiny Tidbit of Despair