Thank God for Pendulums

February 24, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is politics in honor of Presidents Day, which this year was celebrated on February 19^th.

Today’s poem is about the constant sweep of the political and social pendulum from right to left.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thank God for pendulums!

Compassion will swing back

Like a corpse on a noose,

And we'll grab it by the knees,

Revive it mouth to mouth.

Faith in people will come back,

And social dreams,

Self-sacrifice and sharing,

While the market crumbles,

Caught in contradictions,

And discos of running dogs and lackeys

Boogie down into the dustbin of history!

Yes, pendulums! Marriage

Till death will come back,

And loving children,

And life once again a fire,

And we its worshippers,

While those who struggle to "succeed"

Cut each other's throats.

Thank God even

That it will swing away again,

Out far out to the dark side

Beyond our most powerful scopes,

Where people crouch like madmen in dark caves,

Chanting slogans we fail to understand.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Politics

February 19: President’s Day? Presidents’ Day? Or Presidents Day?

February 20: The Market Is a Merciless Beast

February 21: Fifty-Nine2

February 22: Need Is Not the Mother of Invention

February 23: Sixty-Seven

February 24: Thank God for Pendulums

Sixty-Seven

February 23, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is politics in honor of Presidents Day, which this year was celebrated on February 19^th.

Today’s poem is a political number poem for someone who holds on to his political dreams.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Sixty-seven is a man of dreams,

Invested purely in what ought to be,

X-ing out the barriers to will

That make it hard to see what one would see.

Yet years need not accomplish much, it seems.

So does his passion sing like dammed-up streams

Enveloping the islands that agree,

Vast armies of the afternoon, who still

Expect their words to keep their honor free,

Needing to sustain what hope redeems.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/67.html. For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics

February 19: President’s Day? Presidents’ Day? Or Presidents Day?

February 20: The Market Is a Merciless Beast

February 21: Fifty-Nine2

February 22: Need Is Not the Mother of Invention

February 23: Sixty-Seven

Need Is Not the Mother of Invention

February 22, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is politics in honor of Presidents Day, which this year was celebrated on February 19^th.

Today’s poem is a political number poem about the true mother of invention.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Need is not the mother of invention;

Instead, we trace that energy to greed.

Nor does technology the children feed,

Even as it feeds on that pretension.

The bird is dying as the brigands carve,

Extracting meat from macerated bones.

Eden ought not be dug up for stones,

Nor the millions prosper as the billions starve.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/needi2.html. For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics

February 19: President’s Day? Presidents’ Day? Or Presidents Day?

February 20: The Market Is a Merciless Beast

February 21: Fifty-Nine2

February 22: Need Is Not the Mother of Invention

Fifty-Nine2

February 21, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is politics in honor of Presidents Day, which this year was celebrated on February 19^th.

Today’s poem is a political number poem for someone who exposes an unjust status quo.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Fifty-nine takes pleasure in exposing

Instruments of everyday oppression,

Fantasies of normalcy sustaining

The brutal oligarchy of possession.

Yet what she does is more than mere expression.

Nor does she care what fat she might be frying

In bold pursuit of media attention,

Nemesis of all who show discretion

Even as they see so many dying.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/59b.html. For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics

February 19: President’s Day? Presidents’ Day? Or Presidents Day?

February 20: The Market Is a Merciless Beast

February 21: Fifty-Nine2

The Market Is a Merciless Beast

February 20, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is politics in honor of Presidents Day, which was celebrated yesterday, February 19^th.

Today’s poem is a political poem about the relationship between the market and the heart.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The market is a merciless beast,

Bloodstained in tooth and claw,

A superbly crafted predator

Honed well by nature’s law.

Tame it and you’ll get a dog—

Friendly, useful, smart,

Overbred imperfectly,

The flawed result of art.

Which do you choose? The perfect beast

To maximize return?

To set unbiased by the heart

What people pay and earn?

Or the dog, who would prefer

To find some way to please,

And with a trick or two, the pain

Of life’s worst hardships ease?

Oh, yes, the market undisturbed

Works most efficiently.

But do you choose the wilderness

And nature’s cruelty?

Or do you choose the park, where nature,

Guided by the will,

As tame as we, is modified

To spare the weak and ill?

Which is your reflection?

The wild or the tame?

Your answer is a mirror,

Its heart and yours the same.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Politics

February 19: President’s Day? Presidents’ Day? Or Presidents Day?

February 20: The Market Is a Merciless Beast

President's Day? Presidents' Day? Or Presidents Day

February 19, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is politics in honor of Presidents Day, which is celebrated today, February 19^th.

Today’s poem is about the proper spelling of Presidents Day.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

President's Day? Presidents' Day? Or Presidents Day?

Regarding spelling, what's the difference?

Even apostrophes must have their say,

Subtly shading each rendition's sense.

In the first, Washington alone

Deserves the day, the only president

Every state has honored on its own.

Nor does the change of date change what is meant.

The second rendition suggests that Lincoln, too,

Should share the honor, combining holidays

'Tween their birthdays, giving both their due,

Depending on which state such honor pays.

All presidents, too, the second could convey,

Yet the third one must be read that way.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Politics

February 19: President’s Day? Presidents’ Day? Or Presidents Day?

Before Love, That Jolting Lilt

February 18, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Valentine’s Day, which is celebrated on February 14^th.

Today’s poem is a Valentine’s Day poem about the slow and painful journey into love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Before love, that jolting lilt

East of roses, in perturbed darkness,

Missing the eternal circumstance,

Yearning still, again, for that exploratory tilt.

Vainly would I fly into your heart

Afire, burning, consumed, expended.

Love is not an ending; nor does it end

Easily: becomes pith, becomes seed, starts

Needing, kneading, mid-desperation,

The long climb out of loneliness, turning

In hope, in anguish, in foolish expectation.

No two are joined except in painful learning:

Each frightened lesion closed for restoration.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Valentine’s Day

February 12: Vest Your Love in Me, as I in You

February 13: Be My Valentine, for I

February 14: Be My Valentine: What Does That Mean

February 15: Blessings Are the Things We Take for Granted

February 16: Before I Ask Y’all, Please Understand

February 17: Before I Knew You, I Had Always Loved You

February 18: Before Love, That Jolting Lilt