Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Ainsley

February 2, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a name and friendship poem about a friend who is like home.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Ainsley is a place called home,
In which one finds a fire,
Needing warmth and friendship to
Sustain one's life-desire.
Let him, let him give you space,
Ever safe in his embrace,
Yet ever free to roam.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Friendship
January 31: Twenty-Seven
February 1: Thirty-Seven
February 2: Ainsley

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Thirty-Seven7

February 1, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number and friendship poem about the ancestral roots of online friendships.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thirty-seven shares her life online,
Having much to say to her close friends.
Intimacy makes the heart unfold,
Radiant beneath love's liquid gold,
The sunlight that a simple thumbs up sends,
Yielding of sweet sympathy a sign.

Sing, then, of love that's neither yours nor mine,
Enduring as a gift none comprehends,
Vested in our character of old,
Embrace on which our sanity depends,
Now virtual, served deftly by design.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/37g.html. For more friendship poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/friendshippoems.html .

This week’s theme: Friendship
January 31: Twenty-Seven
February 1: Thirty-Seven

Monday, January 30, 2017

Twenty-Seven4

January 31, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number and friendship poem about online friendships and the interdependence of selves.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Twenty-seven's often found online
Writing to her followers and friends.
Each thought leaps from her fingers into time,
Now urgent in a stream that twists and bends,
The conduit on which the heart depends,
Yearning for a grace it can't define.

Selves are not themselves till they combine,
Each needing something yours to mirror mine,
Vetting visions through another's lens,
Ending where who knows a person ends,
Never more than I nor less than thine.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/27d.html. For more friendship poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/friendshippoems.html .

This week’s theme: Friendship
January 31: Twenty-Seven

Sunday, January 29, 2017

Friends Are Prisoners of Expectation

January 30, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about the mutual need for others in order to be oneself.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Friends are prisoners of expectation,
Reflected in the mirror of their need.
Instead of being happy on their own,
Each knows that one cannot survive alone,
Nor think unless another plants the seed.
Dependent all for selfhood on relation,
So to be fed, must one the other feed.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/frien2.html. For more friendship poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/friendshippoems.html .

This week’s theme: Friendship
January 30: Friends Are Prisoners of Expectation

Meditation Is an Empty Room

January 29, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, which falls on January 28. This year is The Year of the Rooster.

Today’s poem describes the experience of meditation.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Meditation is an empty room.
Enter it, and you will be at peace.
Desire and decay, blight and bloom,
In you for just this timeless time will cease.
These are moments one can simply be
A windless lake, a mirror to the sky,
The selfless self, in whose infinity
Immersed, one will become an I-less eye.
One’s thoughts, fatigue, desire knock on the door.
No matter, the wind whispers from the shore.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/medita.html. For more poems about the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/chinesenewyearpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Chinese, or Lunar New Year
January 29: Meditation Is an Empty Room

Friday, January 27, 2017

Take Me, for Example: I'm Pretty Attractive, No

January 28, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, which falls on January 28. This year is The Year of the Rooster.

Today’s poem is a Chinese, or Lunar New Year poem for this year’s Chinese New Year, The Year of the Rooster, from the rooster’s point of view.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Take me, for example: I’m pretty attractive, no?
How can people say I shouldn’t flaunt it?
Every woman everywhere I go
Yearns for me. I cannot help but want it.
Even so, they say I am conceited,
Arrogant, and too full of myself.
Rest assured, they’re jealous and feel cheated,
Or they would take their own goods off the shelf!
For me there is no shame in showing off
The beauty of my body and my voice,
Having enough ego to put forth
Each morning some fine fanfare of my choice.
Revealing what I have to give the world
Ought not be a cause for disapproval.
One should keep one’s majesties unfurled,
Singing as one is through glory hurled
Towards one’s curt and ultimate removal.
Exuberance in life cannot be wrong.
Remember well my loud, well-crafted song.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/takem2.html. For more poems about the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/chinesenewyearpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Chinese, or Lunar New Year
January 28: Take Me, for Example: I’m PrettyAttractive, No

Thursday, January 26, 2017

There Is No Point in Being Merely Clever

January 27, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, which falls on January 28. This year is The Year of the Rooster.

Today’s poem is a Chinese, or Lunar New Year poem for The Year of the Monkey, from the monkey’s point of view.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

There is no point in being merely clever,
However much one likes to call the tune.
Each bit of insight leads one to forever,
Yielding thoughts that make the moment bloom.
Even so, some prostitute the mind
As they exchange intelligence for things,
Rewarded more than amply, but resigned
Over time to living without wings.
For me the mind is for perceiving beauty,
The glory and the radiance of being.
However cleverly one does one’s duty,
Each labor won is leisure lost for seeing.
Maybe one should use one’s mind for good,
Obliged by conscience to serve others’ needs.
No doubt. But while doing as one should,
Know where such self-sacrificing leads.
Each life’s a light that is for moments lit.
Yet one can spend them in the infinite.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/ther38.html. For more poems about the Chinese, or Lunar New Year, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/chinesenewyearpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Chinese, or Lunar New Year
January 27: There Is No Point in Being Merely Clever