Obama/Osama

A poem contrasting the political styles of Barack Obama and Osama Bin Laden, written when the two were adversaries:

Obama meets Osama,

Brandishing a word

As deadly as the sunlight,

More potent as more heard,

As true as it's absurd.

Osama meets Obama;

Suicide meets life.

As certainty meets hope,

Meaning meets the knife.

Absolutes need night.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/obama.html. For more poems about politics, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics

July 13: Darfur/Darfur

July 14: Obama/Osama

Darfur/Darfur

July 13, 2020

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 Bastille Day, or the national holiday of France, which is celebrated on July 14^th.

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

A political poem about genocide in Darfur containing two opposing points of view about whether to intervene in such a catastrophe:

Darfur's another test of whether we

Are ready to become a sovereign world,

Restraining with state violence a state

From genocide and other crimes of hate,

Unleashing thunderbolts from heaven hurled

Right through the savage heart of sovereignty.

Dirty truths devour clean designs,

A process that turns dreams to spit-out bones.

Remember to be wary of the good,

For what one does is rarely what one would,

Uniting love with skulls heaped up like stones,

Reading story books with snakes for spines.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/darfur.html. For more poems about politics, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics

July 13: Darfur/Darfur

After Love and Fear, There's Pride

July 12, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A love poem from a spouse to his or her soldier posted far away:

After love and fear, there's pride;

After tears, the night;

After all the words are gone,

A chair with just one light.

After memories, the dream

That you will come home safe;

After sleep, another day

Of waiting for my life.

After hope, the happiness

Of thinking of your love;

After moments of despair,

A stone no thought can move.

After all the sacrifice,

The hunger and the pain,

The passions and the promises,

The losses and the gains,

There's nothing but my love for you,

Which waits upon the wind

To bring you from the barricades

That now you must defend.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/afterl.html. For more love poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Love and Separation

July 6: Your Heart Broke When I Said I Had to Leave You

July 7: I Live Behind Forbidding Walls

July 8: Every Day I Think of You and Miss You

July 9: We Choose to Stay Together

July 10: In Many Ways, It’s as if I Last Saw You

July 11: I Miss You, Though I’m Not Quite Sure I Love You

July 12: After Love and Fear, There’s Pride

I Miss You, Though I'm Not Quite Sure I Love You

July 11, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A not-quite love poem about the first experience of missing someone:

I miss you, though I'm not quite sure I love you.

All I know is I like my music sad.

Long, empty days I'm pensive, thinking of you,

And while you're gone, I'm never really glad.

I think of love as some enormous sea,

Tempestuous or still, but never ending,

Something that once there will always be.

But that is not the message that I'm sending.

Missing you, for me, is something new:

An opening into my changing heart.

Love is something that I won't yet do,

But my feeling for you is a start.

Love, like prayer, should not be lightly said,

So I'll just say, "You're in my heart" instead!

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/imiss6.html. For more love poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Love and Separation

July 6: Your Heart Broke When I Said I Had to Leave You

July 7: I Live Behind Forbidding Walls

July 8: Every Day I Think of You and Miss You

July 9: We Choose to Stay Together

July 10: In Many Ways, It’s as if I Last Saw You

July 11: I Miss You, Though I’m Not Quite Sure I Love You

In Many Ways, It's as if I Last Saw You

July 10, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A name and love poem about remembering the last time one saw one’s lover:

In many ways, it's as if I last saw you

Recently, the image is so clear --

Even your eyes, hidden behind sunglasses on the pier;

Nor does it take much to restore you

Exactly, as if once again you were here.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/inmany.html. For more love poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Love and Separation

July 6: Your Heart Broke When I Said I Had to Leave You

July 7: I Live Behind Forbidding Walls

July 8: Every Day I Think of You and Miss You

July 9: We Choose to Stay Together

July 10: In Many Ways, It’s as if I Last Saw You

We Choose to Stay Together

July 9, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A love poem about reasons for staying together even when apart:

We choose to stay together

Even though we're far apart,

Joined by the strong tether

Of the longings of the heart.

We could not face the pain

That giving up would bring,

And so we must sustain our love

Despite our suffering.

You are my sovereign princess,

Whom I will not betray,

Nor be your subject any less

Because you're far away.

Though rivers run as swift as deer

And mountains turn to dust,

I'll wait as year gives way to year

Because I simply must.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/wechoo.html. For more love poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Love and Separation

July 6: Your Heart Broke When I Said I Had to Leave You

July 7: I Live Behind Forbidding Walls

July 8: Every Day I Think of You and Miss You

July 9: We Choose to Stay Together

Every Day I Think of You and Miss You

July 8, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

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

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

A name and love poem about missing one’s lover more as time goes by:

Every day I think of you and miss you,

More as time spreads open like a sea.

My pillow knows how much I long to kiss you,

As I must dream till you come back to me.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/everyd.html. For more love poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Love and Separation

July 6: Your Heart Broke When I Said I Had to Leave You

July 7: I Live Behind Forbidding Walls

July 8: Every Day I Think of You and Miss You