Poem of the Week

November 10: Velcro Feelings Disconnect

November 11: Veterans Are Fugitives from Hell

November 12: Victories Retain the Stench of Death

Friday, November 10, 2017

Veterans Are Fugitives from Hell

November 11, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is war, in honor of Veterans Day, which is celebrated today, November 11.

Today’s poem is a Veterans Day poem about how one’s hardened heart is not so easily softened.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Veterans are fugitives from hell,

Escapees from death pursued by pain.

The truth they left behind makes truth insane;

Each nightmare is a truth they know too well.

Reason is unreasonable when words

Are whips that drive believers to the kill,

Necessary to sustain a will

Stirred by the sweet morning songs of birds.

Decencies are frills to put aside

As hearts are hardened for the jolting ride,

Yet on return are clamped and hardened still.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/veter2.html. For more Veterans Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/veteransdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Veterans Day

November 6: Veiled in Glory, One Looks Back and Grieves

November 7: Victories Require Validation

November 8: Veterans Have Served Their Time in Hell

November 10: Velcro Feelings Disconnect

November 11: Veterans Are Fugitives from Hell

Thursday, November 9, 2017

Velcro Feelings Disconnect

November 10, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is war, in honor of Veterans Day, which is celebrated on November 11.

Today’s poem is a Veterans Day poem about how the observance of Veterans Day allows one to move on without forgetting.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Velcro feelings disconnect

Eventually, but these

Time does not dissolve, their outlines

Etched into the sea.

Rest easy, then, as we erect

Among new-planted trees

No ordinary wayside shrines

Sustaining memory.

Days like these allow one

Again to move on. For what is gone

Yet lives, remembered ritually.

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

This week’s theme: Veterans Day

November 6: Veiled in Glory, One Looks Back and Grieves

November 7: Victories Require Validation

November 8: Veterans Have Served Their Time in Hell

November 10: Velcro Feelings Disconnect

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Voices of the Dead Are Rarely Heard

November 9, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is war, in honor of Veterans Day, which is celebrated on November 11.

Today’s poem is a Veterans Day poem about the need to remember.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Voices of the dead are rarely heard.

Each of us should set aside the time

To listen to their lost and anguished words,

Evocative as distant church bells’ chimes.

Reason cannot reason to life’s end,

A moment of its own annihilation.

Nor can any witness comprehend

'Ere death what might exist beyond sensation.

So let us long remember those who died,

Doing honor due, for they were loved

Alive and dead by those whose hearts abide,

Yet yearning though the mountains be unmoved.

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

This week’s theme: Veterans Day

November 6: Veiled in Glory, One Looks Back and Grieves

November 7: Victories Require Validation

November 8: Veterans Have Served Their Time in Hell

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Veterans Have Served Their Time in Hell

November 8, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is war, in honor of Veterans Day, which is celebrated on November 11.

Today’s poem is a Veterans Day poem about how vets’ anguish never wholly leaves them.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Veterans have served their time in hell,

Emerging on the sunny side of pain,

Taking with them always shards of night.

Even in the midst of their delight,

Rich in all that love and luck can gain,

Armed memories rise that know their weakness well.

Now death joins the damned ones in their cell

'Ere we can remove them from the slain,

Snuffing out their suffering with our light.

Days and years diminish not the blight,

As only those who've been there can explain,

Yet walking by the side of those who fell.

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

This week’s theme: Veterans Day

November 6: Veiled in Glory, One Looks Back and Grieves

November 7: Victories Require Validation

November 8: Veterans Have Served Their Time in Hell

Monday, November 6, 2017

Victories Require Validation

November 7, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is war, in honor of Veterans Day, which is celebrated on November 11.

Today’s poem is a Veterans Day poem about the need to justify wars.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Victories require validation.

Each act of violence must file its brief.

The loss of loved ones must find consolation,

Ennobled by some passionate belief.

Regard, then, all the murdered of the ages,

Aghast at all the words that justified,

Not without cause, the ever-righteous rages,

So small against the sum of those who died.

Due consideration waits on sages,

Aloof from the concerns of either side,

Years hence, when all are drained of hate and grief.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/vetda3.html. For more Veterans Day poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/veteransdaypoems.html .

This week’s theme: Veterans Day

November 6: Veiled in Glory, One Looks Back and Grieves

November 7: Victories Require Validation

Sunday, November 5, 2017

Veiled in Glory, One Looks Back and Grieves

November 6, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is war, in honor of Veterans Day, which is celebrated on November 11.

Today’s poem is a Veterans Day poem about the difficulty of putting war behind one.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Veiled in glory, one looks back and grieves.

Each day of war is like a year of peace.

The nightmare, long since over, never leaves,

Endures because one won’t give up its lease.

Remembering’s an act of loyalty,

As though one could so keep the dead alive.

Nor does what’s real seem like reality,

Since that is not what will at length survive.

Dreams of death and terror do, in time,

Adjust to one’s routine as duties chime.

Yet nothing will one’s lust for life revive.

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

This week’s theme: Veterans Day

November 6: Veiled in Glory, One Looks Back and Grieves

Horror Is Less Horrible than Life

November 5, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Halloween, which was celebrated on October 31.

Today’s poem is a Halloween poem about horror as a useful emotional exercise.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Horror is less horrible than life.

At least for most of us, it's an escape.

Let the nightmares out! Let squealers quake!

Let them safely fear the fictive knife!

Open up the Hell of undreamt dreams!

Wake the monsters lurking in the heart!

Exercise our fantasies through art,

Else dormant in a world of in-betweens,

Necessary nostrum of extremes.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/horro2.html. For more Halloween poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/halloweenpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Halloween

October 30: Witches, Werewolves, Ghosts, and Ghouls

October 31: Hobnob with the Hobgoblins

November 3: Harbingers of Unimagined Horrors

November 4: Happiness, All Snug, Lies Fast Asleep

November 5: Horror Is Less Horrible than Life

Friday, November 3, 2017

Happiness, All Snug, Lies Fast Asleep

November 4, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Halloween, which was celebrated on October 31.

Today’s poem is a Halloween poem addressed to the spirits who wander the night.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happiness, all snug, lies fast asleep

As spirits roam the neighborhoods at night,

Let loose upon the Earth till it be light,

Laughing revelers, whom death doth keep.

O spirits lost, who wail but cannot weep,

Wanton worshippers of rage and spite,

Each the unknown author of its plight,

Equal in the pain you sow and reap,

Now come to us from out your vasty deep!

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/happi9.html. For more Halloween poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/halloweenpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Halloween

October 30: Witches, Werewolves, Ghosts, and Ghouls

October 31: Hobnob with the Hobgoblins

November 3: Harbingers of Unimagined Horrors

November 4: Happiness, All Snug, Lies Fast Asleep

Thursday, November 2, 2017

Harbingers of Unimagined Horrors

November 3, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Halloween, which was celebrated on October 31.

Today’s poem summons the spirits for Halloween.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Harbingers of unimagined horrors,

Avatars of those who rule the night,

Lurking in the shallows of our shadows

Like fish that lack the lungs to breathe the light;

Omens from an almanac of sorrows

Written on a midnight long ago,

Etched into the mirrors of our marrows,

Ever masks for what we dare not know:

Now revel with us till the cocks thrice crow!

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/harbi2.html. For more Halloween poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/halloweenpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Halloween

October 30: Witches, Werewolves, Ghosts, and Ghouls

October 31: Hobnob with the Hobgoblins

November 3: Harbingers of Unimagined Horrors

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Have Witches Gone the Way of Wonders

November 2, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Halloween, which was celebrated on October 31.

Today’s poem is a Halloween poem about the role of superstition now and in the past.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Have witches gone the way of wonders,

Asterisks of yesterday?

Life restores what reason sunders,

Lest we lose our mind for play.

Once we knew that what we knew

Was like a ship upon a sea.

Evil spirits wandered through

Eternity, and what was true

Never tainted what might be.

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

This week’s theme: Halloween

October 30: Witches, Werewolves, Ghosts, and Ghouls

October 31: Hobnob with the Hobgoblins

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Hell Has Little Hope of Happiness

November 1, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Halloween, which was celebrated last night, October 31.

Today’s poem is a Halloween poem about devils as a lesson in morality.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Hell has little hope of happiness.

A devil is eternally on fire,

Locked within unquenchable desire,

Longing with hatred for lost holiness.

On Halloween the devils and the dead

Wander through the world as though to warn

Each soul of an eternity forlorn,

Evangelists condemned to speak through dread,

Nightmares that must preach through pain till dawn.

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

This week’s theme: Halloween

October 30: Witches, Werewolves, Ghosts, and Ghouls

October 31: Hobnob with the Hobgoblins

Monday, October 30, 2017

Hobnob with the Hobgoblins

October 31, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Halloween, which is celebrated tonight, October 31.

Today’s poem is about letting out a little fear on Halloween.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Hobnob with the hobgoblins

And gather with the ghouls!

Let the monsters in your heart

Loose to run with wolves!

Open up your happy Hell,

Window on your weir!

Even as you know quite well

Each demon from your dungeon will

Not ravish long your fear.

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

This week’s theme: Halloween

October 30: Witches, Werewolves, Ghosts, and Ghouls

October 31: Hobnob with the Hobgoblins

Witches, Werewolves, Ghosts, and Ghouls

October 30, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Halloween, which is celebrated on October 31.

Today’s poem is a poem for children about being frightened on Halloween.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Witches, werewolves, ghosts, and ghouls

Love to frighten little fools.

I'm not frightened! No, not me!

Is that a ghost behind that tree?

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/witch2.html. For more Halloween poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/halloweenpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Halloween

October 30: Witches, Werewolves, Ghosts, and Ghouls

Sunday, October 29, 2017

Thirty-Three

October 29, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is happiness.

Today’s poem is a number poem on the secret of happiness.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thirty-three: the age Christ died on the cross.

Has one need for birthdays more than this?

In such short span one may our souls revise,

Remake our worlds and liberate our eyes,

Terrify us with the threat of bliss--

Yet years roll on with neither gain nor loss.

The secret of happiness is always love,

However long one lives. Birthdays wheel

Round and round this truth like raucous cries,

Eased into a vast silence, unreal,

Eased into a calm winds cannot move.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/holid9.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Happiness

October 23: Thirty-Three5

October 24: You Had the Gift of Happiness

October 26: Forty-Five5

October 27: Proverbs on Happiness

October 28: Holidays Do Not Bring Happiness

October 29: Thirty-Three

Friday, October 27, 2017

Holidays Do Not Bring Happiness

October 28, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is happiness.

Today’s poem is a Happy Holidays poem about happiness as a decision.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Holidays do not bring happiness.

A day does not determine one's condition.

Pleasure? Even joy? Severe distress?

Perhaps. But happiness is a decision.

Yet happy people relish celebration,

Having much to celebrate, as all

On holidays ought revel in relation,

Loving well the world of love writ small.

Into life one pours one's inner beauty,

Doing, willing, being what one would,

As much in play and pleasure as in duty,

Yielding self as one pursues the good,

So living as though one believed one could.

This week’s theme: Happiness

October 23: Thirty-Three5

October 24: You Had the Gift of Happiness

October 26: Forty-Five5

October 27: Proverbs on Happiness

October 28: Holidays Do Not Bring Happiness

Thursday, October 26, 2017

Proverbs on Happiness

October 27, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is happiness.

Today’s poem is a set of proverbs on the nature of happiness.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

1. Happiness is another term for inner peace.

2. One achieves inner peace through harmony between what one does and what one believes.

3. Thus while outer events might make one happy or sad, happiness itself is entirely internal, and at all times completely within one's power.

4. This does not mean, however, that happiness is easy. It requires wisdom, discipline, and love.

5. Wisdom comes slowly, through the scrupulous pursuit of truth over time. Thus what one believes is never certain, but can always be sincere.

6. Discipline enables one to acquire habits in tune with one's beliefs. Behavior flows from character, which, like a mansion, is built of thousands of details, or acts, each judged not only for itself but for its contribution to the whole.

7. Love is the choice to open one's arms to life, enabling one to embrace imperfection. From it flow empathy, compassion, generosity, and acceptance. The opposite of love is fear.

8. To be happy, one must love oneself as well as others.

9. Because inner peace or harmony is never perfect, happiness is never achieved, and is always a question of more or less.

10. The inner and outer worlds are mirrors. How one shapes one's inner world through will shapes one's perception of the outer world. Thus an unhappy person is likely to perceive a world of lust, greed, and lies, whereas a happy one is likely to perceive a world of people struggling in the grip of love.

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

This week’s theme: Happiness

October 23: Thirty-Three5

October 24: You Had the Gift of Happiness

October 26: Forty-Five5

October 27: Proverbs on Happiness

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Forty-Five5

October 26, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is happiness.

Today’s poem is a number poem for someone who knows enough to will the wind.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Forty-five finds fortune in her favor,

Old enough to know to will the wind.

Reason sees no reason to rescind

The choices that would lead to love she'd savor.

Yet there is much that she would leave behind.

For her there's joy in relishing life's flavor,

In being ready rather than resigned,

Vested in the play of heart and mind,

Embracing all the gifts that fortune gave her.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/45e.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Happiness

October 23: Thirty-Three5

October 24: You Had the Gift of Happiness

October 26: Forty-Five5

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Happiness Is Much like Brushing Teeth

October 25, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is happiness.

Today’s poem is a twenty-sixth anniversary poem about the need to celebrate and renew happiness.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happiness is much like brushing teeth:

A semiconscious choice become routine,

Performed through practices sustained, though brief,

Perhaps without much thought for what they mean.

Years of I love you’s, kisses, sweet good nights,

Touching, pleasuring, talking, giving, sharing,

Whimsical rituals, familial rites,

Establish a routine for mutual caring.

Nor could such happiness survive for long

The sheer redundancy of daily life,

Yearning for change that sometimes comes on strong,

Self-centered grievances that lead to strife,

If one did not each day renew one’s love,

X-ing out the fear that in one moves,

Taking time at times to celebrate

Happiness, and choose again one’s fate.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/happ77.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Happiness

October 23: Thirty-Three5

October 24: You Had the Gift of Happiness

Monday, October 23, 2017

You Had the Gift of Happiness

October 24, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is happiness.

Today’s poem is for a deceased loved one who had the gift of happiness.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

You had the gift of happiness,

The unrelenting grace

To see the radiance of life

Within the ruthless face.

Cancer, heart attacks, and strokes,

Paralysis and pain,

A flood that left you penniless . . .

And still you smiled again.

It wasn't pure naivete

Or something just not there,

Or, even worse, an inner lie

That said you didn't care.

It was a certain blessedness

Attained by very few

That let you live within a love

Within the love in you.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/youha2.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Happiness

October 23: Thirty-Three5

October 24: You Had the Gift of Happiness

Thirty-Three5

October 23, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is happiness.

Today’s poem is a number poem for someone who knows how to count her blessings.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thirty-three counts well her many blessings,

Having come too far to be unsure.

In every moment there's a bit of wonder

Reserved for those who would refuse to plunder

Their portion for a place that's more secure.

Years yield good, rich oil through many pressings.

There are times one needs to change one's dressings:

Hearts and truths tend rarely to be pure.

Regardless whether welkins come asunder,

Even as the furies bluff and blunder,

Each acolyte of beauty will endure.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/33e.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Happiness

October 23: Thirty-Three5

Saturday, October 21, 2017

The Gift of Life Is Never More or Less

October 22, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is illnesses and disabilities.

Today’s poem is for someone who is terminally ill.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The gift of life is never more or less.

Either days or years are merely moments.

Reverence remains the source of bliss.

More memories do not increase remembrance.

If death must early come, then let it be

Nor more nor less than if it had come late:

A part of a much larger mystery,

Leaving wind and wisdom in its wake.

Longing is the music of our sphere,

Yearning for a time past time and space

In which all that we love is ever here,

Love everlasting, which is now our grace,

Living with us more than we can bear.

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

This week’s theme: Illnesses and Disabilities

October 16: I Want to Live

October 18: Linda

October 19: Breanna

October 20: Eighty-Eight

October 21: Mental Illness Doesn’t Touch the Soul

October 22: The Gift of Life Is Never More or Less

Mental Illness Doesn't Touch the Soul

October 21, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is illnesses and disabilities.

Today’s poem is for someone who is mentally ill.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Mental illness doesn't touch the soul

Even as it punishes the mind.

None can will the wanderings of the wind,

Though winter come, and tempests take their toll.

All who suffer innocent shall find

Love waiting by the window, well and whole,

Inside the heart, where it has full control,

Longing ever, ever unresigned.

Let go your fear, and follow, then, your path,

Neither more nor less constrained than those

Embraced by gods less ruthless in their wrath.

Sing bravely down the windrows of your woes,

Savoring a grace that comes and goes.

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

This week’s theme: Illnesses and Disabilities

October 16: I Want to Live

October 18: Linda

October 19: Breanna

October 20: Eighty-Eight

October 21: Mental Illness Doesn’t Touch the Soul

Thursday, October 19, 2017

Eighty-Eight

October 20, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is illnesses and disabilities.

Today’s poem is a number poem for a woman who is being kept alive by drugs.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Eighty-eight spends much of life in bed,

Interred beyond her time in drugs and pain.

Grateful only for the gift of sleep,

Having lost the will to laugh or weep,

The shrunken doll repeats just one refrain,

Yearning for the comforts of the dead.

Even so, the trail of pills has led

Into a world she grapples with in vain,

Grasping for a grace she cannot keep,

Harsh and vivid hauntings of the brain

That make of life a stew of joy and dread.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/88.html. For more poems about health and illness, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/healthpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Illnesses and Disabilities

October 16: I Want to Live

October 18: Linda

October 19: Breanna

October 20: Eighty-Eight

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Breanna

October 19, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is illnesses and disabilities.

Today’s poem is a name poem for someone with RETT Syndrome.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Breanna is a cookie tough and tender.

RETT Syndrome is the gift that makes her, her.

Even though we wish all were born well,

As she is, we do not think her ill,

Nor would we life bereft of her prefer.

None could teach us more of love and will,

As sweet Breanna sings of pain and wonder.

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

This week’s theme: Illnesses and Disabilities

October 16: I Want to Live

October 18: Linda

October 19: Breanna

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Linda2

October 18, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is illnesses and disabilities.

Today’s poem is a name poem for a woman confined to her room.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Linda is content within her room.

In outer order she sees inner space.

None knows so well the well-known love of place,

Dependent as she is upon its grace,

As she must here alone find ways to bloom.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/linda2.html. For more poems about disabilities, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/disabilitiespoems.html .

This week’s theme: Illnesses and Disabilities

October 16: I Want to Live

October 18: Linda

I'm Sorry I Can;t Tell You What

October 17, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is illnesses and disabilities.

Today’s poem is from a deaf child to her mother about acceptance and love.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I'm sorry I can't tell you what

I'm sure you'd rather hear,

But there's a burden in my heart

I can no longer bear.

There's an anger I must cross

Before I come to you

And make my peace with who you are,

And try your soul anew.

I know I wasn't what you wanted

When you wanted me,

A healthy, happy baby girl

You could raise easily.

I was born impaired, and you

Have never understood

That what I am is whole and fair

And beautiful and good.

You were sorry, first for me

And then for you, and wept,

But I would not be me without

The fact that I am deaf.

I am a gift to celebrate

And not a cause to grieve.

As a child this was what

I needed to believe.

I needed but a different road

To reach the common goal,

But you decided there were things

I couldn't do at all.

And rather than accept what life

Had given in its grace,

You looked at what life had withheld

And turned from its embrace.

Ah, Mother! How you injured me

By what you would not own!

To love myself I had to leave

And make my way alone,

And have my children in the course

Of what I would become,

But always, always looking back

To where I had no home.

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/imsor4.html. For more poems about disabilities, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/disabilitiespoems.html .

This week’s theme: Illnesses and Disabilities

October 16: I Want to Live