Life Can Be Quite Ravenous

March 9, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A philosophical poem about the need to slow down:

Life can be quite ravenous,
Eating one alive.
At times one needs to slow it down,
Striving not to strive.

Space does not come easily.
One must make space for space,
Leaving room for simply room
And place that's simply place.

The self can be a mirror into
Infinite regress.
Look away, just look away
Into emptiness.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Philosophy.
March 8: A Life in Six Movements
March 9: Life Can Be Quite Ravenous

A Life in Six Movements

March 8, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A philosophical poem describing the course of an ordinary life from loneliness through passion, love, hate, loneliness again, and death:

A LIFE IN SIX MOVEMENTS

LONELINESS

The heart's a desert fringed by distant mountains.
Look! The wanderer has lost his way!
See where your restlessness has taken you!
You, who would not settle for your home!

Not even one cloud floats across to shade you.
At night you cannot share the brilliant stars.
Time moves so slowly you can scarcely bear it.
Yet this you would prefer to feeling pain!

PASSION

We are the puppets of an inner master,
Passive playthings pulled along by passion,
Seized by ecstasy, and not let go
Until we tumble senseless on the strand.

Oh, Master, bring to us that touch of Heaven!
That icy fire that lights the whirling stars!
That moment that obliterates the moment!
And play upon us with your golden hands!

LOVE

Did you know we can return to Eden
And recreate the innocence of old?
And unashamed walk naked through the garden?
And take our pleasure in the sacred groves?

Love's a choice - to step out of the self
Into sunlight, into Eden's joy,
Where we might hear the music of our lovers,
And dance with them the dance of grateful giving.

HATE

Betrayed! Yes! We think we are betrayed!
Oh, wanderer in Hell, why do you suffer?
There is no pleasure in your grim obsession,
Nor release from pain except through love.

We must repeat again, again, again
Our livid curses! We lust for bitterness!
And yet the people whom, in savage dreams,
We boil in oil turn out to be ourselves.

INDIFFERENCE

The flame's turned low; the cauldron merely simmers.
The sky is overcast; it does not rain.
We sleep too much to sleep well, dreaming dreams
More frightening and lustful than our days.

We wait for thunder, lightning, wait for rain
In fear and hope, with trembling and desire.
We do not care, we care, we do not care,
We do not want to care, but, yes, we care.

LONELINESS AGAIN

Oh, wanderer, at last you have come home!
The house is empty; everyone is gone.
Is no one with you? What happened to your love?
Never mind. Now it's all the same.

Don't worry, nothing terrible awaits you.
You are and then you're not, it's nothing more.
Come, we'll take you to the dreaded line,
Which, though we're with you, you must cross alone.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Philosophy.
March 8: A Life in Six Movements

Health and Happiness Proceed from Love

March 7, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

An eleventh anniversary poem about love and passion:

Health and happiness proceed from love,
As love proceeds from uncorrupted passion.
Praised be the gift that does so blissful prove,
Poured forth from paradise for us to fashion.
Yet passion, like a wave, can come and go,
Even as love waits upon the shore,
Looking to put down some roots and grow,
Embracing of life's joys the quiet core.
Vested in one heart, one finds a place
Eternal in the beauty of its longing,
Nor does one ever tire of a face
That years have given unexpected grace,
Hallowed by the wonder of belonging.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/health.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries.
March 1: How Might a Couple Couple Late in Life
March 2: For Some the Years Turn Out to Be a Blessing
March 3: Forty Years of Marriage Are Pass
March 4: Happiness Comes Wholly from Within
March 5: Ten Years! Such a Round, Emphatic Number
March 6: Harbors Hold Our Cravings in Their Arms
March 7: Health and Happiness Proceed from Love

Harbors Hold Our Cravings in Their Arms

March 6, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A 39th anniversary poem about the need for emotional harbors:

Harbors hold our cravings in their arms
After days out on the open sea.
Passions, sheltered, unrestrain their charms,
Perhaps because at anchor we are free.
Years, like mist, reveal familiar beauties,
The freshness of the newly unforeseen,
Hidden in the diligence of duties
In obeisance to what has been.
Remember, then, the grace that comes with being
The harbor each to hold the other's heart,
Yearning for precisely what you're seeing,
Needing what you cannot have apart.
In celebration of your years together,
Neither circumstantial nor forever,
Take this day to tally up your trove,
Harboring your lust within your love.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/harbor.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries.
March 1: How Might a Couple Couple Late in Life
March 2: For Some the Years Turn Out to Be a Blessing
March 3: Forty Years of Marriage Are a Pass
March 4: Happiness Comes Wholly from Within
March 5: Ten Years! Such a Round, Emphatic Number
March 6: Harbors Hold Our Cravings in Their Arms

Ten Years! Such a Round, Emphatic Number

March 5, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A tenth anniversary poem comparing married love to a dance:

Ten years! Such a round, emphatic number!
Each step's an invitation to a dance
Not unlike the foxtrot or the rumba,
Yielding to the rhythms of romance.
Each is one, yet dances as a couple,
A single body joined by love and art,
Rejoicing in the movement, sure and supple,
Singing to the music of the heart.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/10yea2.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries.
March 1: How Might a Couple Couple Late in Life
March 2: For Some the Years Turn Out to Be a Blessing
March 3: Forty Years of Marriage Are a Pass
March 4: Happiness Comes Wholly from Within
March 5: Ten Years! Such a Round, Emphatic Number

Happiness Comes Wholly from Within

March 4, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A fourth anniversary poem in praise of those who know the secret of happiness:

Happiness comes wholly from within,
A gift of wisdom, temperament, and love.
Praised be those who know what is worthwhile,
Pleased to find their pleasures in the heart,
Yearning for a beauty that is theirs.

For them, good feelings aren't hard to spin.
One can care for life despite one's cares.
Underneath the feeling is the art,
Returning grace for grace and smile for smile.
They bear their riches on an inner wind,
Holding course for lands that blessed will prove.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/happ68.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries.
March 1: How Might a Couple Couple Late in Life
March 2: For Some the Years Turn Out to Be a Blessing
March 3: Forty Years of Marriage Are a Pass
March 4: Happiness Comes Wholly from Within

Forty Years of Marriage Are a Pass

March 3, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A 40th anniversary poem in which the anniversary is a mountain pass on which one can gaze on both the future and the past:

Forty years of marriage are a pass
On which one rests to see the view both ways,
Remembering the valleys left behind,
Taking in the grandeur just ahead.
Yet there is far too much for one to see.


Years of youth must blend like distant brass
Even as love knots the migrant days
And time blows through the moment like a wind.
Regrets and gratitude are here well wed,
So much alike, one could the other be.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/40yea2.html. For more anniversary poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Anniversaries.
March 1: How Might a Couple Couple Late in Life
March 2: For Some the Years Turn Out to Be a Blessing
March 3: Forty Years of Marriage Are a Pass