Greatness Is Effect Far More than Cause

February 19, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of President’s Day, Lincoln’s Birthday, and Washington’s Birthday, is political activism and greatness.

Today’s poem is an epitaph for George Washington about how the nation’s need shaped his life.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Greatness is effect far more than cause.
Each hero is the servant of his fate,
On whom is laid the sacrificial weight
Reserved for those who would heed higher laws.
Given peace, I would have shunned applause,
Electing to remain a farmer, great
With long-gestating plans for my estate,
A much-loved labor lost to much-loathed wars.
So was I the father of a nation,
Having given over life and love,
Instrument of some far greater hand,
Not by choice but of necessity.
Glory was the means by which to fashion
The myth that would a king's replacement prove:
Only I would do, and that demand
Narrowed, deepened, scoured, chastened me.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/greatn.html. For more Presidents Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/presidentsdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Political Activism and Greatness.
Feb. 15: Greatness Is the Child of Choice and Chance
Feb. 16: Seventy-Six2
Feb. 17: Great Ends Demand Great Sacrifice
Feb. 18: Some Would Have the Courage of Their Dreams
Feb. 19: Greatness Is Effect Far More than Cause

Some Would Have the Courage of Their Dreams

February 18, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of President’s Day, Lincoln’s Birthday, and Washington’s Birthday, is political activism and greatness.

Today’s poem is a number poem for someone who is dedicated to political change.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Some would have the courage of their dreams.
If one falls short, at least one's moved ahead.
Xeroxing the present only means
That one must read what one's already read.
Yet one small change a lifelong quest redeems.

Fate must reap what will has left for dead.
One need not accept a world that seems
Unchangeable, or shrug when blood is shed,
Resigned as once we were to kings and queens.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/somew5.html. For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Political Activism and Greatness.
Feb. 15: Greatness Is the Child of Choice and Chance
Feb. 16: Seventy-Six2
Feb. 17: Great Ends Demand Great Sacrifice
Feb. 18: Some Would Have the Courage of Their Dreams

Great Ends Demand Great Sacrifice

February 17, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of President’s Day, Lincoln’s Birthday, and Washington’s Birthday, is political activism and greatness.

Today’s poem is a name poem for George Washington about leaders who pursue great ends.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Great ends demand great sacrifice,
Else the dream becomes a debt.
Open hearts will pay the price,
Redeeming loss without regret.
Great leaders also make demands,
Else the mandate turns to dust.
Willing minds find willing hands,
As courage shared engenders trust.
So a nation moves ahead,
Having found its avatar,
In hard times hungry to be led,
Navigating by its star.
Great followers must take great care
To choose a leader who will be
Out of love and duty there,
Not shy, but still reluctantly.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/greate.html. For more Presidents Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/presidentsdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Political Activism and Greatness.
Feb. 15: Greatness Is the Child of Choice and Chance
Feb. 16: Seventy-Six2
Feb. 17: Great Ends Demand Great Sacrifice

Seventy-Six2

February 16, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of President’s Day, Lincoln’s Birthday, and Washington’s Birthday, is political activism and greatness.

Today’s poem is a number poem for a seventy-six year old who has passed political activism down to his children and grandchildren.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Seventy-six has sown the sacred seed,
Ensuring that another generation,
Vested in the cause of liberation,
Engages in the politics of justice.
Nor after centuries is there less need.
The archetypal rulers are relentless.
Yet one can pit one's love against their greed.

Sing, then, of an inherited vocation,
Identities along a chain that's endless,
Xeroxing the dream that marks the breed.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/76b.html. For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Political Activism and Greatness.
Feb. 15: Greatness Is the Child of Choice and Chance
Feb. 16: Seventy-Six2

Greatness Is the Child of Choice and Chance

February 15, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week, in honor of President’s Day, Lincoln’s Birthday, and Washington’s Birthday, is political activism and greatness.

Today’s poem is a name poem for George Washington about what is necessary to achieve greatness.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Greatness is the child of choice and chance,
Even when one's character is right.
One must fit the urgent circumstance,
Requiring wrongs that one's gifts can requite.
Greatness needs a time that calls for greatness,
Embracing an entire generation,
When some grave danger, failure, or injustice
Awaits a leader to unite the nation.
So might the mantle fall upon a soul
Having just the qualities to be
In mien and temper suited to the role.
Nor ought one, chosen, turn down history.
Greatness waits upon one like a bride
That knows well one's humility and pride,
On which she plays to keep one by her side.
Nor, after, will one care how much she lied.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/great2.html. For more Presidents Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/presidentsdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Political Activism and Greatness.
Feb. 15: Greatness Is the Child of Choice and Chance

A Valentine Is Nothing Like

February 14, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day.

Today’s poem is a humorous definition of a Valentine.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

A Valentine is nothing like
A chocolate or a rose.
For in a week these shall be gone,
But Valentines remain.

If love were always sweet to tongue
Or fragrant to the nose,
Each day would be like Valentine's,
And we would go insane.

A Valentine just hangs around
Waiting to be kissed
Long after special days have passed
And every days are here.

So one is wise to choose one well
And chocolates to resist.
For in the midst of mania
It's nice to have one near.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/avalen.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day.
Feb. 8: I’m Far Too Shy to Tell You that I Love You
Feb. 9: You Are the Landscape of My Life
Feb. 10: Although Our Love Is Over, It Remains
Feb. 11: The Day of Love Requires a Companion
Feb. 12: Will You Be My Valentine
Feb. 13: Very Little Love Is Lost in Living
Feb. 14: A Valentine Is Nothing Like

Very Little Love Is Lost in Living

February 13, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day.

Today’s poem is a Valentine’s Day poem about the nature of love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Very little love is lost in living.
A star can fill a universe with light,
Lasting not one second less for giving
Each of us the gift of its delight.
Nor do we love ourselves the less for loving,
Taking others' pleasures for our own.
In love there is an ecstasy unmoving,
Neither more engaged nor less alone,
Eternal in its house of flesh and bone.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/veryli.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day.
Feb. 8: I’m Far Too Shy to Tell You that I Love You
Feb. 9: You Are the Landscape of My Life
Feb. 10: Although Our Love Is Over, It Remains
Feb. 11: The Day of Love Requires a Companion
Feb. 12: Will You Be My Valentine
Feb. 13: Very Little Love Is Lost in Living

Will You Be My Valentine

February 12, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day.

Today’s poem is a will-you-be-my-valentine poem.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Will you be my Valentine?
I know that I am yours.
You are like a tossing sea
And I am like your shores.

You are like an endless wave
And I your waiting sand.
And I will wait forever as
You come and smooth my hand.

I will wait forever, yet
You are a part of me.
I hold you in my arms, while you
Come to me endlessly.

Will you be my Valentine?
I know that I am yours.
I love you with a love that yearns
To be your golden shores.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/willyou.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day.
Feb. 8: I’m Far Too Shy to Tell You that I Love You
Feb. 9: You Are the Landscape of My Life
Feb. 10: Although Our Love Is Over, It Remains
Feb. 11: The Day of Love Requires a Companion
Feb. 12: Will You Be My Valentine

The Day of Love Requires a Companion

February 11, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day.

Today’s poem is about being alone on Valentine’s Day.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The day of love requires a companion,
But I find myself at this time all alone.
Words of sweet affection fill the morning
Like bells outside the windows of my room.

I don't know why I don't have someone with me.
I've loved and been loved through the restless years.
The mysteries of love I hold within me
Are a darkness unrelieved by moon and stars.

And yet I feel more love than I have ever
Felt within the circle of a kiss.
Love need not be a passion or a fever,
Nor does it need a hand for its caress.

Love does not require a companion.
It doesn't need an object or a home.
It flies above the ecstasy of morning
And fills the universe inside my room.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/theday.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day.
Feb. 8: I’m Far Too Shy to Tell You that I Love You
Feb. 9: You Are the Landscape of My Life
Feb. 10: Although Our Love Is Over, It Remains
Feb. 11: The Day of Love Requires a Companion

Although Our Love Is Over, It Remains

February 10, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day.

Today’s poem is a Valentine’s Day poem to a former lover.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Although our love is over, it remains
An unfrequented garden in my heart,
Its beauty quite inseparable from pain,
A wilderness where once was willful art.

I hope a little piece of you is still
Reserved for me, a place you may not go,
But where my room, untenanted, can fill
A moment with my music, sweet and slow.

There are no wishes like a former lover's
That from the dark, repentant night must shine.
And so though we have both moved on to others,
I send you from afar this Valentine.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/altho3.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day.
Feb. 8: I’m Far Too Shy to Tell You that I Love You
Feb. 9: You Are the Landscape of My Life
Feb. 10: Although Our Love Is Over, It Remains

You Are the Landscape of My Life

February 9, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day.

Today’s poem is a Valentine’s Day love poem to a spouse.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

You are the landscape of my life,
The only place I feel at home,
The view familiar to my heart,
The woods and fields I call my own.

You are the music of my life,
The melody I silent sing,
The harmony beneath my words,
The rhythm of my wandering.

You are the space in which I live,
The boundary of my ecstasy,
The pleasure palace of my dreams,
The flesh that fills my fantasy.

All this you are to me and more,
A soul so much a part of mine
That when I look within, you are
In me, my love, my valentine.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/youa10.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day.
Feb. 8: I’m Far Too Shy to Tell You that I Love You
Feb. 9: You Are the Landscape of My Life

I'm Far Too Shy to Tell You that I Love You2

February 8, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day.

Today’s poem is about a teenager asking someone for the first time to be her valentine.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I’m far too shy to tell you that I love you
And far too young to know if it is true.
I only know I’m always thinking of you
And hoping that you’re thinking of me, too.

My feelings are a wave that has no shore,
Reaching, reaching for what’s never there.
All I am is yearning, yet what for
Is far too frightening for me to dare.

But this day of love might be a chance
To see what kind of fortune might be mine.
And so I take a plunge into romance
And ask you: Will you be my valentine?

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/imfar2.html. For more Valentine’s Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/valentinesdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day.
Feb. 8: I’m Far Too Shy to Tell You that I Love You

You're like Music Playing in My Head

February 7, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about the complete absorption of early love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

You’re like music playing in my head
Everywhere I go from day to day.
I try a door and think of you instead,
Not knowing where I am or what I’ll say.
I live in a perpetual embrace,
Hugging the sweet thought that you are mine.
Walking through a park I touch your face,
Not caring if there’s rain or bright sunshine.
The cause must be, of course, our love is new;
It can’t go on like this for years and years.
I must take note of other things than you
And clear my head of smiles and grateful tears.
Yet such talk seems fantasy to me:
The world’s the dream, and you reality.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/youre.html. For more love poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Romantic Love.
Feb. 1: I Want to Make Your Heart Beat Just for Me
Feb. 2: For You the Earth Must Be a Greener Green
Feb. 3: Supplication
Feb. 4: What Makes Stars Romantic
Feb. 5: You Cannot Feel the Twisting of My Heart
Feb. 6: Early Love Is like a Mountain Stream
Feb. 7: You’re like Music Playing in My Head

Early Love Is like a Mountain Stream

February 6, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a love poem about the full course of a love, from beginning to end.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Early love is like a mountain stream --
Clear and pure and laughing down the hills,
A flash of sunlight dimpling as it spills
Down into the valley of our dreams.

But then, for most of life, love is a river
Carrying downstream its muddy load --
A thriving habitat, a winding road,
A moment moving slowly through forever.

The current pushes hard against the tide,
Swirling with deep countercurrents, so
Complex one can’t untangle yes from no.
The wind whips wavelets ‘cross the water wide.

How beautiful! The broad breast of our love
Meets the even broader breast of the sea!
Our golden dreams a golden memory,
And in between a life - rich, full, enough.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/earlyl.html. For more love poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Romantic Love.
Feb. 1: I Want to Make Your Heart Beat Just for Me
Feb. 2: For You the Earth Must Be a Greener Green
Feb. 3: Supplication
Feb. 4: What Makes Stars Romantic
Feb. 5: You Cannot Feel the Twisting of My Heart
Feb. 6: Early Love Is like a Mountain Stream

You Cannot Feel the Twisting of My Heart

February 5, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a love poem about the pangs of jealousy.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

You cannot feel the twisting of my heart
Or see the sea that surges through my brain
Every time you play your fickle part

With practiced nonchalance and well-honed art
To lure some new recruit to your domain.
You cannot feel the twisting of my heart.

I know that I'd be happier apart
From you, but I must crave the pain
Every time you play your fickle part

And Cupid flips another poisoned dart
Into my desire with perfect aim.
You cannot feel the twisting of my heart.

Just when I think you're mine, again you start
To flutter in my hands, which grasp in vain
Every time you play your fickle part

And smile like some hot, adulterous tart
Out to drive all men in sight insane.
You cannot feel the twisting of my heart
Every time you play your fickle part.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/youca4.html. For more love poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Romantic Love.
Feb. 1: I Want to Make Your Heart Beat Just for Me
Feb. 2: For You the Earth Must Be a Greener Green
Feb. 3: Supplication
Feb. 4: What Makes Stars Romantic
Feb. 5: You Cannot Feel the Twisting of My Heart

What Makes Stars Romantic

February 4, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a love poem that wonders what makes stars romantic.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

What makes stars romantic? Is it the beauty
Of a night sky dark lit with diamonds?
Or the wilderness of blue-white witnesses
Staring wordless back across the abyss?
Or the fascination of forever? (For love
Is a fragment of forever lodged in the heart.)

Is it the need for two when one seems so small?
The desire to touch in the temple? The vast, lonely
Field of life in which love, too, is a light
Amidst darkness? (So many lovers scattered across
The black canopy like burning dust.)

Or is it the passion at a star’s heart?
The heat of love lighting the emptiness,
Hurling its ardor across light years of sorrow
To tell us something about what yearns within?

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/whatma.html. For more love poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html.

This week’s theme: Romantic Love.
Feb. 1: I Want to Make Your Heart Beat Just for Me
Feb. 2: For You the Earth Must Be a Greener Green
Feb. 3: Supplication
Feb. 4: What Makes Stars Romantic

Supplication

February 3, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a love poem to a lover who must soon leave.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

SUPPLICATION

Let me hold you
In arms like strong winds,
Enfold you with mountains,
Be the warm meadow on which you lie.

In the darklight
Let me hold you
In sleepless flesh,
In wordless flesh
Let me be your silence.

And when you leave me
Let me hold you
With the love of those who love you,
And be the air and sunlight
And the sea in which you dream.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/suppli.html/. For more love poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html/.

This week’s theme: Romantic Love.
Feb. 1: I Want to Make Your Heart Beat Just for Me
Feb. 2: For You the Earth Must Be a Greener Green
Feb. 3: Supplication

For You the Earth Must Be a Greener Green

February 2, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number poem wishing all good things for one’s love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

For you the Earth must be a greener green;
Orange buds must burst with greater glory;
Rivers must be pure, light full of grace,
Time unfold a more enchanting story;
Years must shape a spirit more serene.

To you the birds must sing with more delight;
Hyacinths must pour forth sweeter scent;
Rain must wear more gently, storms retrace
Each devastated path, and harm repent,
Each turbulence turn calm, and sorrow right.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/greene.html/. For more love poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html/.

This week’s theme: Romantic Love.
Feb. 1: I Want to Make Your Heart Beat Just for Me
Feb. 2: For You the Earth Must Be a Greener Green

I Want to Make Your Heart Beat Just for Me

February 1, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about taking the plunge and declaring one’s love for a friend.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I want to make your heart beat just for me.
I want a true love in my lonely life.
I’ve looked a long time, dated many men,
But none I walked with walked in step with me.

We walk together well, the best of friends.
Somehow we just fit, as if clean cut
To go together, zigzags complementary.
But now I would be something more than friends.

I know I take a chance to mention love.
I’ve no idea what feeling’s in your heart.
But if you’d catch a burning, plunging star,
I know I’d make you happy for your love.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/iwant2.html/. For more love poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html/.

This week’s theme: Romantic Love.
Feb. 1: I Want to Make Your Heart Beat Just for Me

Next Time You Find Your Wife Unappealing

January 31, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is married love: the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.

Today’s poem is a bit of advice to a husband who finds his aging wife unappealing.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Next time you find your wife unappealing,
Breasts hanging like sandbags from her chest,
A little bald spot in the center of her head,
Back just beginning to hump between her shoulder blades,
Wrinkled flesh like a half-deflated balloon around her thighs,
Look at yourself in the mirror.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/nextti.html . For more poems about marriage, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/marriagepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Married Love.
Jan. 25: Marriage Proverbs2
Jan. 26: Marriage Proverbs
Jan. 27: There Is a Point to Living Vertically
Jan. 28: Sometimes When You’re Married
Jan. 29: We Drive a Tractor/Trailer Unit
Jan. 30: The Time for Love Is Now Fast Disappearing
Jan. 31: Next Time You Find Your Wife Unappealing

The Time for Love Is Now Fast Disappearing

January 30, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is married love: the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.

Today’s poem is a poem about the marriage of a couple nearing death.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The time for love is now fast disappearing
As years tick on and flesh descends towards dust.
Death, so long a question, now is nearing,
And one makes peace with pain because one must.
Yet love still grips the heart with unspent yearning,
A hunger unappeased from birth to death,
A need for need, an unrequited burning
That casts its doomed delight past all regret.
O star that lights the else unlit creation,
Desiring ever what can never be,
Longing for some sense beyond sensation,
Candle to a light we cannot see:
Be for us now in these last years of life
The beacon that guides home a man and wife.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/thetim.html . For more poems about marriage, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/marriagepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Married Love.
Jan. 25: Marriage Proverbs2
Jan. 26: Marriage Proverbs
Jan. 27: There Is a Point to Living Vertically
Jan. 28: Sometimes When You’re Married
Jan. 29: We Drive a Tractor/Trailer Unit
Jan. 30: The Time for Love Is Now Fast Disappearing

We Drive a Tractor/Trailer Unit

January 29, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is married love: the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.

Today’s poem is a poem about a married couple who live in the truck they drive across the country.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

We drive a tractor/trailer unit
Spinning down the pike.
That way we can find the time
To make love when we like.

You sleep, I drive, I sleep, you drive,
But then we stop awhile.
And when we get back on the road,
We share the same soft smile.

Some say that such togetherness
Is living behind bars,
Never free to let yourself
Expand out to the stars.

But being on the road with you
Is what I want from life.
There is a universe inside
A husband and a wife.

There is a universe so rich
That should all heaven move
Across the way on eighteen wheels,
I'd much prefer our love.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/wedriv.html . For more poems about marriage, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/marriagepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Married Love.
Jan. 25: Marriage Proverbs2
Jan. 26: Marriage Proverbs
Jan. 27: There Is a Point to Living Vertically
Jan. 28: Sometimes When You’re Married
Jan. 29: We Drive a Tractor/Trailer Unit

Sometimes When You're Married

January 28, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is married love: the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.

Today’s poem is a poem about turning away from marriage to indulge in the pleasures of an imaginary life.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Sometimes when you're married
You drift away within.
Outside you stroll together;
Inside you live in sin.

A rich imagination
Provides your ecstasy,
A cordless, mobile heaven
Where everything is free.

The garden that you tend
Is not the one you roam;
The part of you that sings
Is not the one at home.

A strange and burning life:
What's real is not what's true.
And no one knows the passion
That you believe is you.

And so you are distracted,
Two people in a jar,
Bound by love and fate,
Yet never what you are

Until by chance life rips
A hole right through your wall,
And nothing you've imagined
Looks like you at all.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/somet3.html . For more poems about marriage, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/marriagepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Married Love.
Jan. 25: Marriage Proverbs2
Jan. 26: Marriage Proverbs
Jan. 27: There Is a Point to Living Vertically
Jan. 28: Sometimes When You’re Married

There Is a Point to Living Vertically

January 27, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is married love: the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.

Today’s poem is a poem about the beauty of living with one person for life.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

There is a point to living vertically,
To being with one person all one's life,
To diving 'neath the hapless, hopeless sea
Where one might meet the wonder of one's wife.
There is a mythic journey to be taken
That has much more to do with time than place,
That finds a fortune not to be forsaken,
Measured less in pleasure than in grace.
There is between us something more than passion,
A longing for belonging, and a sense
That here is love with neither writ nor ration,
Tendered with the joy of innocence.
The years pass quickly, though the time is long;
To spend them loving well cannot be wrong.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/vertic.html . For more poems about marriage, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/marriagepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Married Love.
Jan. 25: Marriage Proverbs2
Jan. 26: Marriage Proverbs
Jan. 27: There Is a Point to Living Vertically

Marriage Proverbs

January 26, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is married love: the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.

Today’s poem is another set of proverbs on marriage.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

1. Romantic love is a lightning bolt. Married love is an electric current.
2. Marriage is a mirror in which one sees a reflection of oneself.
3. The source of joy, in marriage as in lovemaking, is union with another. That is why, while there may be pleasure in purchased sex, there is little joy.
4. Similarly in marriage: when love is mutual, joy bubbles over onto all of life; when it is not, nothing is untouched by sadness.
5. In a good marriage one is continuously in love, regardless of anger, hurt, or the longing to be free. The trick is to be aware of it.
6. In time, one may resent the permanence of one's spouse almost as much as one relies on it.
7. That is why married couples bicker over trivia. For what is annoying at the moment is insufferable over a lifetime.
8. The hatred in a divorce is directly proportional to the love in the marriage, since only a strong hatred can sever a strong love and set the wounded free.
9. Marriage is a bulwark against time. For time is the measure of change, and in marriage two vow never to change.
10. In the end, of course, like the sea to a sandcastle, time sweeps over marriage, whether through death or betrayal. The bit of respite marriage affords is, however, all the Eden one needs for happiness. Or is likely to get.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/marripr.html . For more poems about marriage, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/marriagepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Married Love.
Jan. 25: Marriage Proverbs2
Jan. 26: Marriage Proverbs

Marriage Proverbs2

January 25, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is married love: the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.

Today’s poem is a set of proverbs on marriage.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

1. What excitement can match the intimate unfolding of another life?
2. The beauty of love is that giving and receiving become indistinguishable.
3. Each of us is born, lives, and dies alone, certain of nothing more than that we exist. Marriage is like a bamboo house built on stilts in the midst of that mad, rushing stream.
4. You are truly married when reflexively, without so much as a flicker of awareness, you begin to think of yourself as “we.”

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/marrip2.html . For more poems about marriage, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/marriagepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Married Love.
Jan. 25: Marriage Proverbs2

Sixty-Six2

January 24, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is racism and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

Today’s poem is a number poem about a sixty-six year old who fights racial hatred through song.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Sixty-six is now in full career,
Invested in an activist esthetic.
Xenophobes, take heed and you will hear
The songs that undermine your greed and fear,
Your need to make relations hierarchic.

So might the world in time turn empathetic
If oft-sung songs can make delight more dear,
X-ing out the hatreds that hearts sear.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/66b.html . For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Racism and Race.
Jan. 18: Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways
Jan. 19: Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They
Jan. 20: Melba
Jan. 21: Love Has Obstacles Enough, They Say
Jan. 22: I’m Married to This Muslim Arab
Jan. 23: Indians Are, of Course, Not Indians
Jan. 24: Sixty-Six2

January 23, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is racism and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

Today’s poem is a poem about the misnaming of Native Americans.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Indians are, of course, not Indians.
Nor were they ever Indians.
Denying their identities,
Inventing labels as we please,
Allows, of course, their genocide.
No word is ever innocent.
So names enable fratricide.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/india2.html . For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Racism and Race.
Jan. 18: Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways
Jan. 19: Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They
Jan. 20: Melba
Jan. 21: Love Has Obstacles Enough, They Say
Jan. 22: I’m Married to This Muslim Arab
Jan. 23: Indians Are, of Course, Not Indians

I'm Married to This Muslim Arab

January 22, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is racism and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

Today’s poem is a poem about how love bridges religious as well as racial differences.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I'm married to this Muslim Arab,
A lovely woman who wears the hijab.
Our differences dissolve in love
Of God, of life, of one another.

A lovely woman who wears the hijab
Comes naked to my marriage bed.
Of God, of life, of one another,
We then say not a single word.

Comes naked to my marriage bed,
As naked as we are to God.
We then say not a single word,
But silently I thank the Lord.

As naked as we are to God,
Our differences dissolve in love,
But silently I thank the Lord
I'm married to this Muslim Arab.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/immari.html . For more poems about race, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/racepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Racism and Race.
Jan. 18: Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways
Jan. 19: Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They
Jan. 20: Melba
Jan. 21: Love Has Obstacles Enough, They Say
Jan. 22: I’m Married to This Muslim Arab

Love Has Obstacles Enough, They Say

January 21, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is racism and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

Today’s poem is a love poem about the beauty and difficulty of interracial love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Love has obstacles enough, they say:
Why add to them the obstacle of race?
Two backgrounds so diverse can't share one space.
Love can't keep the world's harsh truths at bay.
Ah, love! Let such trite wisdom go its way!
All life is difficult yet full of grace.
All men and women share the same small place.
Nor should we out of fear our love betray.
Love is to daily life a vein of gold
Running through the rock like liquid fire,
Making ordinary moments glow.
May we treasure it as we grow old:
The breath that does our dreary clay inspire,
The touch that transforms everything we know.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/loveha.html . For more poems about race, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/racepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Racism and Race.
Jan. 18: Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways
Jan. 19: Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They
Jan. 20: Melba
Jan. 21: Love Has Obstacles Enough, They Say

Melba

January 20, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is racism and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

Today’s poem is a name poem about someone who enjoys the richness of a diverse racial and cultural milieu.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Melba mixes cultures like bright colors,
Each of which the dappled whole enhances.
Lavish in her love of life, she dances,
Blessed in years, to the tunes of many others,
A wealth of music as the world advances.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/melba.html . For more name poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Racism and Race.
Jan. 18: Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways
Jan. 19: Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They
Jan. 20: Melba

Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They

January 19, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is racism and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

Today’s poem is a name poem for Martin Luther King, Jr. about pursuing the dream of justice.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Maybe dreams cannot come true, but they
Are mountains that give shape to the horizon,
Reference points to guide us on the way
Towards lands long promised us in distant Zion.
If we never get that far, we'll be
Nearer for the journey we have taken,
Letting the next generation see
Up close the dreams they else might have forsaken.
The dreamer lives a bit beyond what is,
Having had the courage to say no,
Existing in a future wholly his,
Revealing through his grace where we must go.
Knowing well this world of lust and greed
In which the dream but rarely marks the deed,
None could bear to dream but for the soul
Great enough to bear it for the whole.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/maybed.html . For more poems for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/martinlutherkingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Racism and Race.
Jan. 18: Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways
Jan. 19: Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They

Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways

January 18, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is racism and race in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

Today’s poem is a name poem for Martin Luther King, Jr. about the dangers of racial hatred.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Might not racism cut both ways?
All are crippled equally by hatred.
Racist rage consumes the darkest days,
Taking with it all one sees as sacred.
In all of us that ancient fire still smolders,
Needing but a bit of breeze to flare.
Let Atlas bear the world upon his shoulders:
Under all that love, the hate's still there.
Then what is one to do but know one's heart,
Hating hatred in a wash of tears,
Even as one's world is torn apart,
Rage raging all around one, stoked by fears?
Know that, white or black, your rage is wrong,
Incinerating all that you desire.
Nor will that rage light up your days for long,
Given the proclivities of fire.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/mightn.html . For more poems for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/martinlutherkingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Racism and Race.
Jan. 18: Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways

Names Are Little Labels

January 17, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is names – what they mean, what they are not capable of meaning, and how well the meaning of the name fits the personality of the person who bears the name.

Today’s poem is a philosophical poem about names and souls.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Names are little labels that
We paste upon a sea.
Are Jack and Jill and Pat and Bill
Really you and me?

You may be Ruth or Jennifer
Or Ghali or Ahmed,
But you are more, much more than any
Word that might be said.

You are the moon and stars, the Earth,
The Universe, and more.
You dance across eternities
And sail beyond all shores.

You have within you all that is
And that shall ever be.
And yet you also are, of course,
Reiko, Ralph, and Bree.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/namesa.html . For more philosophical poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Names.
Jan. 11: It Was Pure Chance You Got the Name Irene
Jan. 12: Audree
Jan. 13: Dakota
Jan. 14: Patricia
Jan. 15: Gemma
Jan. 16: Raven Marie and Ivey Briana
Jan. 17: Names Are Little Labels

Raven Marie and Ivey Briana

January 16, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is names – what they mean, what they are not capable of meaning, and how well the meaning of the name fits the personality of the person who bears the name.

Today’s poem is a name poem for two sisters who are about to choose husbands.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Raven Marie and Ivey Briana
Are sisters with dynamite names,
Vanquishing all with their elegant manners,
Even while choosing their chains.
No life without love in the heart of its longing,
As long as sweet passion has life;
No soul but is whole with the grace of belonging,
Due honor as husband or wife.
Ivey Briana and Raven Marie
Very soon will come down to a kiss;
Each eventually, with a large family,
Yearning still yet quite happy with this.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/ravenm.html . For more name poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Names.
Jan. 11: It Was Pure Chance You Got the Name Irene
Jan. 12: Audree
Jan. 13: Dakota
Jan. 14: Patricia
Jan. 15: Gemma>
Jan. 16: Raven Marie and Ivey Briana

Gemma

January 15, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is names – what they mean, what they are not capable of meaning, and how well the meaning of the name fits the personality of the person who bears the name.

Today’s poem is a name poem and love poem for Gemma, who is, of course, a gem.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Gemma is a--should I say it?--gem.
Even apart, she sparkles in my mind,
More brilliant than all other jewels combined,
Making all the rest of life go dim.
After her, no smile will seem the same.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/gemma.html . For more name poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Names.
Jan. 11: It Was Pure Chance You Got the Name Irene
Jan. 12: Audree
Jan. 13: Dakota
Jan. 14: Patricia
Jan. 15: Gemma

Patricia

January 14, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is names – what they mean, what they are not capable of meaning, and how well the meaning of the name fits the personality of the person who bears the name.

Today’s poem is a name poem for a feminist whose name, ironically, is taken from the Latin patrician, or noble, which comes from pater, the Latin word for father.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Patricia is a gentlewoman’s name:
A name that’s rooted in the world of men.
The modern version’s not what you’d call tame,
Rough on shoes and words. But she knows when
It pays to shift her voice to feminine charm,
Choosing to take weakness off the shelf,
Intimate in order to disarm
A passing lover--and, perhaps, herself?

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/patric.html . For more name poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html . For more poems about feminism, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/feminismpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Names.
Jan. 11: It Was Pure Chance You Got the Name Irene
Jan. 12: Audree
Jan. 13: Dakota
Jan. 14: Patricia

Dakota

January 13, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is names – what they mean, what they are not capable of meaning, and how well the meaning of the name fits the personality of the person who bears the name.

Today’s poem is a place-name poem for a person whose personality fits the place.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Dakota is a vast and fertile plain,
Absolute and open to the wind.
Knowledge in this air is crystal clear;
Only those few things one needs are near;
Though merciless, the sun is also kind.
All is sharp and spare, yet rich in grain.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/dakota.html . For more name poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Names.
Jan. 11: It Was Pure Chance You Got the Name Irene
Jan. 12: Audree
Jan. 13: Dakota

Audree

January 12, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is names – what they mean, what they are not capable of meaning, and how well the meaning of the name fits the personality of the person who bears the name.

Today’s poem is a poem about how the spelling of a name might affect the person who bears it.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Audree loves the spelling of her name --
Unusual, yes, but somehow lyrical,
Dancing to a tune more musical,
Regardless that the sound is just the same.
Each bounce of beauty is a miracle,
Enchanting what would else be drab and plain.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/audree.html . For more name poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Names.
Jan. 11: It Was Pure Chance You Got the Name Irene
Jan. 12: Audree

It Was Pure Chance You Got the Name Irene

January 11, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is names – what they mean, what they are not capable of meaning, and how well the meaning of the name fits the personality of the person who bears the name. .

Today’s poem is a poem about the match between the person and the name.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

It was pure chance you got the name Irene,
For no one at your birth foresaw the flower
The sprite contained, nor could some lover glean
Such grace as would become you at this hour.
Nor can you now, even in late spring,
Imagine what your name will mean tomorrow,
What evanescence those sweet sounds will sing,
Or from what naked cry their sense will borrow.
No heart can summon up, nor courage dare
Encompass all the life a name has known;
Too much of what we love lies buried there,
Once again mere sound upon a stone.
How lovely the attempt, and yet absurd,
To brave both death and time with just a word.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/toiren.html . For more philosophical poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Names.
Jan. 11: It Was Pure Chance You Got the Name Irene

There Is No Being at the Heart of Being

January 10, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Today’s poem is an epiphany that reveals that there can be no epiphanies,

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

There is no being at the heart of being,
No soul beneath the shifting shards of self,
No way of seeing past the act of seeing,
No faith enough to walk across that gulf.
There is no love more loving than our loving,
No meaning that means more than we can mean,
No proof that we are capable of proving,
No grace that pain and sorrow might redeem.
Nothing is the object of our passion,
The void within the vastness of the void,
The rule no rule can rule nor reason ration,
In which all is created and destroyed.
The sea lies lucid in the morning light;
Yet when we dive, we dive towards perfect night.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/ther20.html . For more philosophical poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Epiphanies.
Jan. 4: Every Moment Is a Revelation
Jan. 5: Rare Is the Thing that Makes a Point
Jan. 6: Each of Us Might Follow a Bright Star
Jan. 7: Agostino
Jan. 8: There Is No Greater Paradise
Jan. 9: Zecharia
Jan. 10: There Is No Being at the Heart of Being

Zecharia

January 9, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Today’s poem is a name poem about the difficulty of being a modern prophet, whose epiphanies must be of the natural world.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Zechariah wanders in his longing
Even as he cherishes his state.
Choosing reason rather than belonging,
He feels the pathos of his complex fate.
A modern prophet must be only human,
Relinquishing the myths of god and tribe.
In visions passionate, he must illumine
A glory that needs neither faith nor bribe,
Having a domain he can describe.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/zechar.html . For more name poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Epiphanies.
Jan. 4: Every Moment Is a Revelation
Jan. 5: Rare Is the Thing that Makes a Point
Jan. 6: Each of Us Might Follow a Bright Star
Jan. 7: Agostino
Jan. 8: There Is No Greater Paradise
Jan. 9: Zecharia

January 8, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Today’s poem is a poem proclaiming that every moment is an epiphany.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

There is no greater paradise
Than simply being here.
The proof is in the agony
That willingly we bear.

A moment is beatitude;
A year, eternal grace;
A life, a window wide upon
The transcendental face.

Our gratitude's ubiquitous,
The stuff of every day,
The ground bass of an ecstasy
That never goes away.

And yet . . . and yet this wonder lies
Like grass beneath the snow:
Above we fear the brutal wind,
Eternal spring below.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/ther11.html . For more philosophical poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Epiphanies.
Jan. 4: Every Moment Is a Revelation
Jan. 5: Rare Is the Thing that Makes a Point
Jan. 6: Each of Us Might Follow a Bright Star
Jan. 7: Agostino
Jan. 8: There Is No Greater Paradise

Agostino

January 7, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Today’s poem is a name poem for a man who has had a revelation and been touched by grace.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Agostino has been touched by grace,
Giving him the gifts of faith and love.
Of him it can be said he lives in joy,
Singing thanks and praise beneath each breath.
To see him is to be in his embrace.
In him there is a love no loss can move,
Nor passion still, nor evidence destroy,
Only peace along the edge of death.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/agosti.html . For more name poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Epiphanies.
Jan. 4: Every Moment Is a Revelation
Jan. 5: Rare Is the Thing that Makes a Point
Jan. 6: Each of Us Might Follow a Bright Star
Jan. 7: Agostino

Each of Us Might Follow a Bright Star

January 6, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Today’s poem is a poem for Epiphany about the dangers of attempting to impose a personal epiphany on society.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Each of us might follow a bright star,
Perhaps to a redemptive revelation,
Intending, then, to change the way things are,
Passionate to socialize salvation.
However, please beware of what you do:
Ambition, even selfless, can turn sour.
No truth fits all, though burning inside you,
Yearning less for paradise than power.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/eacho4.html . For more Epiphany poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/epiphanypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Epiphanies.
Jan. 4: Every Moment Is a Revelation
Jan. 5: Rare Is the Thing that Makes a Point
Jan. 6: Each of Us Might Follow a Bright Star

Rare Is the Thing That Makes a Point

January 5, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Today’s poem is a poem about the sudden epiphany that occurs in those rare and precious moments when we encounter things directly, free from the words in which they are clothed.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com . The most efficient way to receive the poem of the day is to follow my blog by email by entering your email in the FOLLOW BY EMAIL box at the top right.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Rare is the thing that makes a point
Of its integrity.
Most lie swaddled in our words,
Indifferent to ideas.

But every once in a while one
Insists on our surprise,
Penetrates our cinema,
Reveals to us its silence.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/rareis.html . For more philosophical poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Epiphanies.
Jan. 4: Every Moment Is a Revelation
Jan. 5: Rare Is the Thing that Makes a Point

Every Moment Is a Revelation

January 4, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is epiphanies, in honor of the Christian holiday of Epiphany, which falls on January 6.

In Christianity, Epiphany, also known as Three Kings Day, celebrates the coming of the Magi to see the infant Christ in Bethlehem. But the word epiphany refers to any sudden insight or realization. This week’s poems will relate to epiphany in both of its meanings.

Today’s poem is a poem for Epiphany about the yearning for revelation yet the difficulty of bearing too great a truth.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Every moment is a revelation
Placed behind the scrim of what one sees.
In every unremarkable sensation,
Poised to dance, some truth awaits a breeze.
How might one then step behind the veil,
Alive in ways one was not meant to live?
None can bear such beauty long, nor fail,
Yet yearning, to revere what grace might give.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/every6.html . For more Epiphany poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/epiphanypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Epiphanies.
Jan. 4: Every Moment Is a Revelation

How Sad, the Year Just Passed

January 3, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Today’s poem is a New Year poem for 2001, which was the year of 9/11.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

How sad, the year just passed! A year the past
Arose like smoke from deep beneath the rubble,
Pouring up through fissures in the heart,
Perhaps our own as much as those of others.
Year of hatred writhing in raw pain,
Near mad with certainty arrayed in faith,
Each aggrieved alight with righteous anger,
Whirlwinds swirling through their swathes of rage.
Yet let us in the new year look for justice,
Ever the rock on which to live in peace,
Administered with love for every soul,
Regarding every evil as our own.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/howsad.html . For more New Year’s poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/newyearsdaypoems.html .

This three-day week’s theme: New Year Poems.
Jan. 1: Here Again We Have a New Beginning
Jan 2: New Year’s Falls at Just the Darkest Hours
Jan 3: How Sad, the Year Just Passed

New Year's Falls Just at the Darkest Hour

January 2, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Today’s poem is a poem about beginning the new year together.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

New Year's falls just at the darkest hour,
Even as the sun lies sick and dying.
When the darkness turns hope starts anew,
Year by year a lesson ever true,
Each of us the bitter cold defying.
All my life I want to be with you,
Restoring year by year our love-vined bower.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/newyea.html . For more New Year’s poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/newyearsdaypoems.html .

This three-day week’s theme: New Year Poems.
Jan. 1: Here Again We Have a New Beginning
Jan 2: New Year’s Falls at Just the Darkest Hours

Here Again We Have a New Beginning

January 1, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

This year begins a new direction as the poem of the week turns into the poem of the day. Each week will have a theme that the daily poems will explore and expand on.

Those of you who don’t want to receive so many poems can unsubscribe by clicking on the Unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email. But I hope that most of you will enjoy reading poems that explore a variety of topics from a number of perspectives.

The poems for today and the following two days will be New Year poems: one about the new year as a new beginning, one a romantic poem about beginning the new year together, and one written for the new year of 2002 looking back at the catastrophic year of 9/11.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

A New Year poem about beginning once again:

Here again we have a new beginning,
An old refrain to start a brand-new verse.
Perhaps the belly droops, the hair is thinning;
Perhaps each year the memory gets worse.
Yet new beginnings always start with hope,
Needing hope to nurture innocence,
Endeavoring to find a way to cope
When nothing deeply thought about makes sense.
Years come and go; Eden doesn't change.
Each new year we toddle forth again,
Afoot into a world that's ever strange,
Restored by some great turning tide within.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/hereag.html . For more New Year’s poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/newyearsdaypoems.html .

This three-day week’s theme: New Year Poems.
Jan. 1: Here Again We Have a New Beginning