I Think of You as Watching from

March 7, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about the emotional need to believe in an afterlife.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I think of you as watching from

A time and space beyond the sky,

A place where we might someday come,

Alexis and I, and we three some

Sweet moments share. Though it's a lie,

I think of you as watching from

This place, and know you're gone, but numb

With grief, I cannot let you die.

There is no place where we can come

Together once again. It's dumb

To think so. Yet when I cry,

I think of you as watching from

A happiness I cannot plumb,

More real than real, more want than why,

A place where we might someday come,

Alexis and I. No heart can sum

The measurements that yield goodbye.

And so I keep you watching from

A place where we might someday come.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Life After Death

March 5: Death Is like a Car

March 6: Death Is Nothing but a Moment’s Rest

March 7: I Think of You as Watching from

Death Is Nothing but a Moment's Rest

March 6, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is about death as a waiting period for Christ’s Second Coming.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Death is nothing but a moment's rest

Until the Second Coming of the Lord

When He shall gather to Him of the best

To take them to the place of their reward.

I've felt the power of Jesus in my soul

Shining like a golden sun within,

Melting my hard heart to make me whole,

Burning out the remnants of my sin.

I've felt Him work within me, so I know

The glory that will come when I awake.

I'll sleep just like a child who'll homeward go,

And in my dreams of love great pleasure take.

So do not mourn my death, and do not grieve.

The Lord will come for me: This I believe.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Life After Death

March 5: Death Is like a Car

March 6: Death Is Nothing but a Moment’s Rest

Death Is like a Car

March 5, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is one in which a dying woman compares death to a variety of earthly experiences.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Death is like a car

That disappears around a curve,

Or like an ancient custom

That we've failed to preserve.

The car continues going

Even though we cannot see,

And the custom just remains

Outside of memory.

Death is a relation

To a certain time and place;

To Eternity it's nothing

In a line of endless grace.

I've loved you all so much

That I've known Eternity,

Vast and never ending

Deep within the thing that's me.

Time is like a river

And love a clear, still lake

That holds the sky within it,

Crystalline and yet opaque.

And I have had that gift

In an abundance that is rare,

With you and with my husband

Who's both gone and everywhere.

I feel the awesome beauty

Of the end of earthly breath.

I've had a rich, full life

And now a peaceful, shining death.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: Life After Death

March 5: Death Is like a Car

Poetry and Explanation

March 4, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a set of proverbs about the inadvisability of explaining what a poem means.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

POETRY AND EXPLANATION

1. Since poetry is a partnership between poet and reader, what the poet meant is not what the poem means.

2. The image always means more than the explanation, making any explanation by the poet reductive.

3. Explanations by those other than the poet, however, may be enriching because they are not authoritative.

4. What, then, is a reader to do when faced with an intriguing passage that seems obscure? First, search her own mind and heart; second, search the minds and hearts of others through reading and conversation; third, treat the explanation of any poet foolish enough to make one with the same attention given to that of any informed reader; fourth, always be aware that the fault may be with the poet and not with the reader.

5. What, then, is a poet to do, having written a passage that many readers find obscure? First, consider whether the passage is unnecessarily obscure, and, if so, revise it; second, if the passage is richly obscure, have faith in your readers; third, if neither of the first two suggestions works, consider another vocation.

6. The only thing a poet should even consider explaining is what he never should have written in the first place.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: The Artist

February 26: There Is No Better Painting than a Sunrise

February 27: Fifty-Five3

February 28: Forty-Five6

March 1: Fifty-Four3

March 2: To Be Consumed by Something More than Beauty

March 3: Thirty-Eight6

March 4: Poetry and Explanation

Thirty-Eight6

March 3, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number poem about an artist who suddenly realizes that he needs to make a living.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thirty-eight must now make hay from beauty,

Having lost his love for lack of cents.

In professing a profession that pays well,

Rejuvenating what he has to sell,

The artist weighs ideals against expense,

Yearning for his bit of labor's booty.

Even as he redefines his duty

Intent on an intention less intense,

Grappling with his heart, he cannot tell

How much his art was an excuse to fail,

There being need no longer for pretense.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/38f.html. For more philosophical poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: The Artist

February 26: There Is No Better Painting than a Sunrise

February 27: Fifty-Five3

February 28: Forty-Five6

March 1: Fifty-Four3

March 2: To Be Consumed by Something More than Beauty

March 3: Thirty-Eight6

To Be Consumed by Something More than Beauty

March 2, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number poem about the experience of artistic creation.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

To be consumed by something more than beauty,

Holding in one's hand the sense of all,

Innocent of self, of interest pure,

Reaching for a grace that will endure,

The fragments of a light beyond the wall

Yielding truth with neither rage nor pity;

Seized by inner craftsmen, skilled and sure,

In reverent abandon, ruthless awe,

X-ing out the fruits of one's own fancy . . .

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: The Artist

February 26: There Is No Better Painting than a Sunrise

February 27: Fifty-Five3

February 28: Forty-Five6

March 1: Fifty-Four3

March 2: To Be Consumed by Something More than Beauty

Fifty-Four3

March 1, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

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

Today’s poem is a number poem about how a person might make her life a work of art.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Fifty-four redecorates her day

In passionate pursuit of near perfection.

For her each detail elevates the whole,

The vivid essence culled from the collection,

Yielding grace no fragment can convey.

Facing entropy, she has her way,

Overcoming dullness through selection,

Undoing the conventions of her role,

Revealing unseen radiance through rejection.

© by Nicholas Gordon

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

This week’s theme: The Artist

February 26: There Is No Better Painting than a Sunrise

February 27: Fifty-Five3

February 28: Forty-Five6

March 1: Fifty-Four3