Poem of the Week

December 7: Happiness Is Not a Holiday

December 9: Happiness, Even in a Desert

December 10: Hard By Celebrations There Are Tears

December 11: Here Is Common Cause for Celebration

Friday, December 9, 2016

Hard By Celebrations There Are Tears

December 10, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme, with the approach of the holiday season, is Happy Holidays.

Today’s poem is about the sadness that often comes with celebration.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Hard by celebrations there are tears,

A lonely longing for what cannot be.

Perhaps one lets it enter foolishly,

Passionate to weep for vanished years.

Yet living in the moment one is free,

Having jettisoned regrets and fears,

Open to the grace of eyes and ears,

Losing self in silent ecstasy.

In celebrating, one is marking time.

Deep beneath the ritual ballet

A tide removes the trite and the sublime,

Yearning, turning, churning through the day,

Sweeping all one cherishes away.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/hardby.html. For more poems for the holiday season, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Happy Holidays.

December 5: Have a Happy Holiday

December 7: Happiness Is Not a Holiday

December 9: Happiness, Even in a Desert

December 10: Hard By Celebrations There AreTears

Thursday, December 8, 2016

Happiness, Even in a Desert

December 9, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme, with the approach of the holiday season, is Happy Holidays.

Today’s poem is about celebrating the holidays in a hot, dry desert.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happiness, even in a desert,

Adjusts well to what moisture it can find.

Perhaps it takes a little extra effort;

Perhaps one needs to keep it more in mind.

Yet one must still depend on celebration,

Holidays transferred from colder climes,

Offering the blessing of relation,

Love that takes the stage at special times.

In such reunions, happiness takes root

Deep enough to tap the deepest well,

Alive and blooming, bearing succulent fruit,

Yearning, yes, for some well-watered dell,

Still able to survive, as time will tell.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/happ42.html. For more poems for the holiday season, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Happy Holidays.

December 5: Have a Happy Holiday

December 7: Happiness Is Not a Holiday

December 9: Happiness, Even in a Desert

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

How Have the Years So Suddenly Gone By

December 8, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme, with the approach of the holiday season, is Happy Holidays.

Today’s poem is about celebrations as stations in our journey through time.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

How have the years so suddenly gone by?

As though we were distracted on a train,

Perhaps absorbed in fantasy, terrain

Passing shuttered from the inner eye.

Yet when the train stops, shuddering through each car --

Holiday or birthday, wedding, wake --

Old enough to feel time's wistful ache,

Looking up, we wonder where we are.

In time, we see the need for celebration;

Days unmarked are lost within the flow.

A journey needs its moment in the station,

Yielding motion to restored relation,

So fleeting one is loath to let it go.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/howha2.html. For more poems for the holiday season, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Happy Holidays.

December 5: Have a Happy Holiday

December 7: Happiness Is Not a Holiday

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Happiness Is Not a Holiday

December 7, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme, with the approach of the holiday season, is Happy Holidays.

Today’s poem is about how holidays hold families together.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happiness is not a holiday.

An everyday will do, an any minute.

Perhaps one lingers briefly by the way,

Pausing to breathe in the infinite.

Yet holidays are necessary pleasures,

Holding open else-neglected doors,

Offering a wealth of well-known treasures

Likely to renew depleted stores.

In doing what the holiday demands,

Delighting in its long-obeyed commands,

A separated family now joins hands,

Yielding to a deeper harmony,

Still together, though infrequently.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/happ75.html. For more poems for the holiday season, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Happy Holidays.

December 5: Have a Happy Holiday

December 7: Happiness Is Not a Holiday

Monday, December 5, 2016

Heaven Is a Hollow in the Heart

December 6, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme, with the approach of the holiday season, is Happy Holidays.

Today’s poem is about how holidays are occasions to return to the child within.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Heaven is a hollow in the heart,

A little mountain valley fringed by tears,

Pure wilderness, untouched by craft or art,

Pure yearning, undiluted by the years.

Yes, we all have lessons to unlearn,

Having holidays in which to find

Occasional occasions to return,

Leaving burned-out fantasies behind.

Inherent in us all remains the child,

Deep beneath the layers of our lives,

A bit of hope too dear to be defiled,

Yet wandering in an Eden, lost and wild,

Self within the self that self revives.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/heave7.html. For more poems for the holiday season, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Happy Holidays.

December 5: Have a Happy Holiday

Sunday, December 4, 2016

Have a Happy Holiday

December 5, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme, with the approach of the holiday season, is Happy Holidays.

Today’s poem is a Happy Holidays poem for a child.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Have a happy holiday!

Have a lot of fun!

And give a little smile to

Give joy to everyone!

Each smile is just like music

Everyone can hear.

Happy, happy music!

A bit of holiday cheer!

The air is full of music,

And you can add yours, too,

The sweet and lovely melody

That comes from only you.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/haveah.html. For more poems for the holiday season, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Happy Holidays.

December 5: Have a Happy Holiday

Winter

December 4, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme, as the days grow shorter and colder, is the approach of winter.

Today’s poem is about how winter brings us together.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Winter howls like winds or wolves or weeping,

Inviting us to witness pain and death.

No truth can better penetrate the shell

That insulates our empathy so well,

Essence of the entropy of breath

Returning us to one another's keeping.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/winter.html. For more poems about months or seasons, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Winter.

November 28: And Now, with the Pensive Coming of the Winter

November 29: January

December 2: All Winter Long the Willows Wait

December 3: February

December 4: Winter

Saturday, December 3, 2016

February

December 3, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme, as the days grow shorter and colder, is the approach of winter.

Today’s poem is for February, who must bear being the coldest month.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

February knows his fortune well,

Even in the bitterness of dawn

Breaking in the coldest hour of hell,

Revealing but the worst that must be borne.

Underneath the ice the passions sleep

Ablaze with all the beauty of their burning,

Rendering a richness that will keep

Yet warm within the cavern of his yearning.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/februa.html. For more poems about months or seasons, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Winter.

November 28: And Now, with the Pensive Coming of the Winter

November 29: January

December 2: All Winter Long the Willows Wait

December 3: February

Thursday, December 1, 2016

All Winter Long the Willows Wait

December 2, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme, as the days grow shorter and colder, is the approach of winter.

Today’s poem is about willow trees sleeping through the winter.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

All winter long the willows wait,

Nor more nor less than willing,

Glad to be, but just a bit

Entropic in their chilling.

Life longs ever for rebirth,

Awake to its long sleep,

As willows need their leaves for breath,

Numb until they weep.

Do, then, winter well beneath

More blankets than you know,

Immense as any mustard seed,

Content to dream for now,

Holding in your arms a light

As Earth slides through its bitter night,

Ever doomed to bliss and blight

Lest things too easy go.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/allwin.html. For more poems about months or seasons, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Winter.

November 28: And Now, with the Pensive Coming of the Winter

November 29: January

December 2: All Winter Long the Willows Wait

Take from Winter Just a Bit of Hope

December 1, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme, as the days grow shorter and colder, is the approach of winter.

Today’s poem is about hope and the blessedness of life even in winter.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Take from winter just a bit of hope

In reckoning the blessedness of life,

Nor wonder why the wind, in bitter flight,

Around our reasoned corners wailing goes.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/takefr.html. For more poems about months or seasons, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Winter.

November 28: And Now, with the Pensive Coming of the Winter

November 29: January

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

The Wind Brings Down Its Icy Load

November 30, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme, as the days grow shorter and colder, is the approach of winter.

Today’s poem contrasts the bitter cold without with the warmth within.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The wind brings down its icy load;

Curtains close across the sky.

Travelers shudder on the road:

There will be shelter by-and-by.

All one has seen and one has sown

Now feeds the feasts of fantasy.

Merriment goes on within;

Trees and candles dance with light.

Without, the world is grey and grim;

Within the house, all is bright.

How might one stand against the wind

But with the joy one brings to it?

The window hints of happiness;

The wanderer walks quickly past.

The week-old ice is treacherous;

The snow is falling thick and fast.

Shelter cannot be a place

For those whose spirits will not rest.

Bells ring through the chilly air;

People purchase gifts on time.

Windows, doorways, front yards bear

Of inner truth the outward sign:

Love beneath commercial cheer;

Loneliness decked out in din.

The season freezes all but love;

Winter grips the waterways.

Upon white meadows nothing moves;

Life sleeps through the nights and days.

O love! At once both flame and fuel,

Light well what meets the inner gaze!

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/thewi2.html. For more poems about the holiday season, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Winter.

November 28: And Now, with the Pensive Coming of the Winter

November 29: January

Monday, November 28, 2016

January

November 29, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme, as the days grow shorter and colder, is the approach of winter.

Today’s poem is written for January, born into the winter cold.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

January waits, unsentimental,

Again born into beauty, cruel and kind.

Nor cold nor darkness fools the wily child,

Unweeping in a brutal wind and wild,

As the Earth turns passionless and blind.

Rejoicing in her birth, she dons the mantle,

Yearning to recall what lies behind.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/januar.html. For more poems about months or seasons, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Winter.

November 28: And Now, with the Pensive Coming of the Winter

November 29: January

Sunday, November 27, 2016

And Now, with the Pensive Coming of the Winter

November 28, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme, as the days grow shorter and colder, is the approach of winter.

Today’s poem anticipates the special beauty of winter.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

And now, with the pensive coming of the winter,

It’s time to see the beauty of bare trees

And glimpse the rugged silver of the river

So long hidden by the summer leaves.

It’s time to feel the crisp, cold clarity

Of frost that rips right through the veil of air,

Revealing distant mountains one can see

Distinctly, as though suddenly quite near.

Oh, yes, one may be shuddering with the cold

And shuffling like a penguin ‘cross the ice.

Yet as the year comes closer to its close,

It’s time to treasure well the lingering light.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/andnow.html. For more poems about months or seasons, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/calendarpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Winter.

November 28: And Now, with the Pensive Coming ofthe Winter

When God's as Real as Santa Claus

November 27, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is gratitude, in honor of Thanksgiving, which falls on November 24.

Today’s poem is about whom to thank when you don’t believe in God.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

When God's as real as Santa Claus,

And temples are works of art;

When the Bible's living literature,

And the Universe has no heart:

One feels grateful,

But to whom?

When the ritual vestments of faith

Are seen only from outside;

And the strength to live in the void

Becomes a matter of pride:

One feels grateful,

But to whom?

When life seems bursting with beauty,

But everything's accidental;

When calling the noumenal "Thou"

Seems impossibly sentimental:

One feels grateful,

But to whom?

When death is an absolute end,

And pain lets one barely get by;

Prayer's a harmless delusion

And the solace of heaven a lie:

One still feels grateful,

But to whom?

This human urge to say thank you,

Unavoidably orphic,

Requires, just for a moment,

A Creator, anthropomorphic:

So that one can feel grateful

To Whom.

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

This week’s theme: Gratitude.

November 21: Thank You for the Gift of Understanding

November 22: Gratitude, like Love, Is Part of Being

November 24: Thanksgiving Is a Moment to Remember

November 25: Thanksgiving Is a Time for Giving Thanks

November 26: To Live Is to Be Prey

November 27: When God’s as Real as Santa Claus

Saturday, November 26, 2016

To Live Is to Be Prey

November 26, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is gratitude, in honor of Thanksgiving, which falls on November 24.

Today’s poem is a Thanksgiving poem about eating and being eaten.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

To live is to be prey. Meals for microbes.

Horror hangs in the blood like a barracuda

As packs of ravenous viruses howl at the moon.

No flesh is but food. Fierce hunger waits at the crossings

Knowing nothing but lust for the taste of our gristle,

Singing hallelujahs to the Lord.

Give thanks, then, too, for the gift of robust hunger;

In humble gratitude, for the legacy of lust.

Vividly we live and die, our suffering

In perfect harmony with our feeding frenzy;

Nor can we be else but both murderers and murdered,

Grateful for the unsought grace of being.

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

This week’s theme: Gratitude.

November 21: Thank You for the Gift of Understanding

November 22: Gratitude, like Love, Is Part of Being

November 24: Thanksgiving Is a Moment to Remember

November 25: Thanksgiving Is a Time for Giving Thanks

November 26: To Live Is to Be Prey

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Thanksgiving Is a Time for Giving Thanks

November 25, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is gratitude, in honor of Thanksgiving, which falls on November 24.

Today’s poem is a Thanksgiving poem about compassion for the animals we eat.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thanksgiving is a time for giving thanks;

However, the reception's not so clear.

As we pass the drumsticks or the shanks,

No Maker holds such severed flesh less dear.

Kindness is a requisite for grace;

So must we be to all that suffer pain.

Gratitude seems slightly out of place

In places where compassion is less plain.

Very few this day will give much thought

In passing to the creatures that they eat.

Nor will we feel the empathy we ought,

Given that we are ourselves but meat.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/than24.html . For more poems about gratitude, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/thanksgivingpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Gratitude.

November 21: Thank You for the Gift of Understanding

November 22: Gratitude, like Love, Is Part of Being

November 24: Thanksgiving Is a Moment to Remember

November 25: Thanksgiving Is a Time for GivingThanks

Thanksgiving Is a Moment to Remember

November 24, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is gratitude, in honor of Thanksgiving, which falls on November 24.

Today’s poem is a Thanksgiving poem about friendship.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thanksgiving is a moment to remember

How little we can do to move the stars.

All we are and have we must surrender,

Nor is Earth less inscrutable than Mars.

Knowing this, we know the need for friends

Sharing both our pleasures and our pain,

Giving, though it may not serve their ends,

In joy the love that will our love sustain.

Very much like water in a lake,

In sum we serve as mirrors to the sky.

No one alone can heaven's picture take.

Given friends, we know the reason why.

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

This week’s theme: Gratitude.

November 21: Thank You for the Gift of Understanding

November 22: Gratitude, like Love, Is Part of Being

November 24: Thanksgiving Is a Moment toRemember

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Thank You for All That You Have Given

November 23, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is gratitude, in honor of Thanksgiving, which falls on November 24.

Today’s poem is a thank you poem to God.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thank you for all that you have given:

Happiness and terror, love and death,

Agony and pleasure, pulse and breath,

Night's monstrous dreams, by lusts and longings driven,

Knowledge, hope, despair, and ecstasy.

You gave us, us, by pain and passion riven,

One brief, bright burst of need and glory. Yet,

Unsatisfied, we hunger more to be.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/than10.html . For more poems about gratitude, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/thanksgivingpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Gratitude.

November 21: Thank You for the Gift of Understanding

November 22: Gratitude, like Love, Is Part of Being

Monday, November 21, 2016

Gratitude, like Love, Is Part of Being

November 22, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is gratitude, in honor of Thanksgiving, which falls on November 24.

Today’s poem is about gratitude to God for the gift of being.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Gratitude, like love, is part of being,

Remaining when all else is left behind,

Absurd and yet quite natural, a yearning

To give to light the worship of the wind.

In gratitude we find a gift worth giving

To something that no gift can serve at all,

Understanding that the gift of living

Depends upon some will beyond the wall,

Eliciting our gratitude and awe.

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

This week’s theme: Gratitude.

November 21: Thank You for the Gift of Understanding

November 22: Gratitude, like Love, Is Part of Being

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Thank You for the Gift of Understanding2

November 21, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is gratitude, in honor of Thanksgiving, which falls on November 24.

Today’s poem thanks God for allowing us to understand how little we understand.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thank you for the gift of understanding

How little one can hope to understand.

A universe is all we have at hand,

Nothing too confusing or demanding.

Knowledge is like spindrift on the sea

Sitting on the surface of a wave.

Granted one can know how things behave,

Ill-formed to know how they might come to be.

Vast Your Being, beyond imagination!

Immeasurable, of neither shape nor size.

Nor ought one lose one’s sense of adoration,

Gift equal to the gifts of mind and eyes.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/than47.html . For more poems about gratitude, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/thanksgivingpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Gratitude.

November 21: Thank You for the Gift ofUnderstanding

Logan

November 20, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is beauty.

Today’s poem is a name poem about enjoying the beauty of nature.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Logan loves the laurel in the glen.

Often when it blooms he wanders there,

Grace bursting in his heart, the urge to share

Alight with all the wonderment within,

Now lost in Eden, free from pain and sin.

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

This week’s theme: Beauty.

November 14: At Evening the Boats Crowd Towards Shore

November 15: Tell the World How Lovely Is the Earth

November 16: By the Tulips

November 18: I Wanted Nothing Less than Hope

November 19: Fifty-Four

November 20: Logan

Saturday, November 19, 2016

Fifty-Four4

November 19, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is beauty.

Today’s poem is a number poem about an artist’s motivation.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Fifty-four returns life's many favors.

Into what she does she pours her heart.

Fortune will reward the work one savors,

The roles where love of beauty spurs one's labors,

Yearning that must underlie all art.

Feeling is a shape, a tone, a color,

Out of which in time will come a whole.

Underneath all being is the Other,

Returning to whom is the artist's goal.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/54d.html . For more poems about beauty, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Beauty.

November 14: At Evening the Boats Crowd Towards Shore

November 15: Tell the World How Lovely Is the Earth

November 16: By the Tulips

November 18: I Wanted Nothing Less than Hope

November 19: Fifty-Four

Thursday, November 17, 2016

I Wanted Nothing Less than Hope

November 18, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is beauty.

Today’s poem is about why artists sometimes seem attracted to ugliness.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I wanted nothing less than hope,

But, relishing despair,

I plunged into the nearest hell

And spent some weekends there.

I saw no answers on the walls,

No rebirth in the rain,

No saving grace in suffering,

No rapture born of pain.

What held me there? It must have been

The jackal, crazed and lean,

Who took my face between his paws

And, hungry, picked it clean.

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

This week’s theme: Beauty.

November 14: At Evening the Boats Crowd Towards Shore

November 15: Tell the World How Lovely Is the Earth

November 16: By the Tulips

November 18: I Wanted Nothing Less than Hope

Flutes Are Doubled by the Violins

November 17, 2016

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is beauty.

Today’s poem is a humorous number poem to a conductor of youth orchestras.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Flutes are doubled by the violins.

Organ tones are held by brass and basses.

Racing madly, the inner strings and winds

Try with all their might to keep their places.

Yet the brass blare hides a multitude of sins.

The conductor waves his arms while making faces,

Wincing as one errant oboe wins,

Out of step as the next mad dash begins.

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

This week’s theme: Beauty.

November 14: At Evening the Boats Crowd Towards Shore

November 15: Tell the World How Lovely Is the Earth

November 16: By the Tulips