To Imagine What a Better World Might Be

July 16, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is revolution in honor of Bastille Day, which was celebrated on July 14th.

Today’s poem is a number poem about someone who changes the world through role playing games.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

To imagine what a better world might be,

Having thought it out in great detail,

Inventing settings, cultures, ways of seeing,

Reconstituting ancient ways of being,

Time traveling beyond the painted veil,

Yet all to change one’s own society;

Then turning one’s ideas into a tale,

Having sketched a future history,

Roles distributed to players, freeing

Each to live one’s vision fictively,

Experiencing the grace without agreeing …

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Revolution

July 10: Base Your Life on Reason, Only Reason

July 11: Andrew

July 12: The World Is Brought to Beauty Heart by Heart

July 13: Utopians Are Unrepentant Monsters

July 14: Before the Terror Comes the Tyranny

July 15: Frailty, Thy Name’s No Longer Woman

July 16: To Imagine What a Better World Might Be

Frailty, Thy Name's No Longer Woman

July 15, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is revolution in honor of Bastille Day, which was celebrated on July 14th.

Today’s poem is a number poem about the peaceful feminist revolution.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Frailty, thy name’s no longer woman!

One’s destiny no longer is one’s gender.

Rebellion has turned into revolution,

The kind that frees, that casts old selves asunder,

Yielding souls that find their selves in no one.

This is a time to try the souls of women,

When time is broken, and one becomes a sculptor,

Old enough to shape one’s generation.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Revolution

July 10: Base Your Life on Reason, Only Reason

July 11: Andrew

July 12: The World Is Brought to Beauty Heart by Hearthttps://www.poemsforfree.com/befor4.html

July 13: Utopians Are Unrepentant Monsters

July 14: Before the Terror Comes the Tyranny

July 15: Frailty, Thy Name’s No Longer Woman

Before the Terror Comes the Tyranny

July 14, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is revolution in honor of Bastille Day, which is celebrated today, July 14th.

Today’s poem is a Bastille Day poem warning of the dangers of revolutionary chaos.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Before the terror comes the tyranny.

A bloodstained flower has roots in bloodstained soil.

Some would steal the fruit of others' toil,

Then claim it as a right of property.

In revolutions, though, if chaos reigns,

Legitimacy is lost, and many will

Look back with less distaste at former ill,

Eager more for order than for gains.

Days of terror yield dictators new,

As the many yield power to the few,

Yearning for the clarity of chains.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/befor4.html. For more Bastille Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/bastilledaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Revolution

July 10: Base Your Life on Reason, Only Reason

July 11: Andrew

July 12: The World Is Brought to Beauty Heart by Heart

July 13: Utopians Are Unrepentant Monsters

July 14: Before the Terror Comes the Tyranny

Utopians Are Unrepentant Monsters

July 13, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is revolution in honor of Bastille Day, which falls on July 14th.

Today’s poem is a about how a desire for utopia, or perfect good, can lead to evil.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Utopians are unrepentant monsters.

The perfect is the perfect rationale.

O send us serial killers, rapists, gangsters,

Preferably to "should" becoming "shall"!

In those who seek to make their visions real,

A rage becomes the furnace of their zeal;

Nor can they love, who would impose their will,

Sure enough of paradise to kill.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Revolution

July 10: Base Your Life on Reason, Only Reason

July 11: Andrew

July 12: The World Is Brought to Beauty Heart by Heart

July 13: Utopians Are Unrepentant Monsters

The World Is Brought to Beauty Heart by Heart

July 12, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is revolution in honor of Bastille Day, which falls on July 14th.

Today’s poem is a number poem about peaceful revolution through artistic and cultural change.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The world is brought to beauty heart by heart.

How else might change take root but one by one?

Imagination is the proper tool,

Revealing what no doubt can overrule:

The wonder and the longing shaped by art.

Year by glacial year change will come.

For every game or story plays its part.

Over time, tiny shifts accrue

Until the old accommodates the new,

Returning, turning, till its day is done.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/thewo7.html. For more poems about politics, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Revolution

July 10: Base Your Life on Reason, Only Reason

July 11: Andrew

July 12: The World Is Brought to Beauty Heart by Heart

Andrew

July 11, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is revolution in honor of Bastille Day, which falls on July 14th.

Today’s poem is a name poem for a disillusioned idealist.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Andrew was a soldier of the faith:

No one was more loyal or more true.

Despite the hard, rich texture of illusion,

Reality insisted on confusion,

Eviscerating much that Andrew knew.

What remains stalks him like a wraith.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Revolution

July 10: Base Your Life on Reason, Only Reason

July 11: Andrew

Base Your Life on Reason, Only Reason

July 10, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is revolution in honor of Bastille Day, which falls on July 14th.

Today’s poem is a Bastille Day poem about the dangers of basing life only on reason, as some revolutionaries tried to do.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Base your life on reason, only reason,

And watch your heart go crazy on the spot!

Some would vary judgment with the season,

Though some would say it is, or it is not.

In politics, one should be politic,

Lest change change what one needs to stay alive.

Logic cannot tell what makes things tick;

Each thought remains a creature of the hive.

Despite the power of reason, please take heed:

An amputated cranium tends to bleed.

Yet nations healed holistically will thrive.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/baseyo.html. For more Bastille Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/bastilledaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Revolution

July 10: Base Your Life on Reason, Only Reason