Poem of the Week

2012-02-16T00:07:00.001-05:00

February 16, 2012 #672

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Mardi Gras.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Morning will be time enough for sleep.
A person needs to revel now and then,
Returning home from passion only when
Daylight makes the ecstasy look cheap.
In sensuality there is much sense,
Gift of gods assigned to procreation.
Revelry can lead to revelation
As one for once ignores the consequence,
Selfless in the sanctum of sensation.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2012-02-08T23:46:00.001-05:00

February 9, 2012 #671

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Valentine's Day.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Verities are strangely often true.
A lifelong love needs words, as faith needs prayer.
Let me, then, retell my love for you,
Each word alive with what is always there.
Nowhere else can passion be at ease,
Temptation without fear of consequence,
Instinct whose sole purpose is to please,
Nakedness made safe by innocence.
Even in the midst of work and worry,
'Mid doubts and disappointments, I am sure,
Surviving through the avarice and hurry,
Decent and restrained, is something pure.
As I am yours, so I know you're mine.
You are my love, my joy, my valentine.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2012-02-02T00:08:00.000-05:00

February 2, 2012 #670

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a love poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Some would look for love when love is nigh,
Or fill their fantasies with love unreal,
Afraid to love, and thus afraid to feel,
Afraid to be entangled in a lie.
For love is a commitment that might tie
One to a choice one would, perhaps, repeal,
Leading to regrets one would conceal,
Since any time, it's true, one's love could die.
Simpler just to dream instead of be,
Since being is so hard, and dreaming easy,
Allowing one one's choices without choosing.
One cannot choose to love and still be free,
A gift of self that tends to make one queasy,
Not knowing what, by keeping, one is losing.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2012-01-25T23:42:00.000-05:00

January 26, 2012 #669

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Winter.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Winter wills white whispers into being,
Into frigid air white dancing death,
Needles that can take away one's breath,
Thick, soft flakes preventing one from fleeing,
Ending briefly in bright drifted hills,
Returning with the churning chaff that kills.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2012-01-19T00:06:00.002-05:00

January 19, 2012 #668

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for the Lunar (Chinese) New Year, the Year of the Water Dragon.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

There is no knowledge – only good opinion.
Happiness is not afraid of pain.
Each truth is limited to its dominion.
Years sweep away one's walls again, again.
Everyone knows better in their hearts,
Although their hearts know better than to know.
Reason is a razor's edge that parts
Objects from the fullness of their flow.
Fortune is a poor excuse for failure.
The only help one needs is what one gives.
Hard work and happiness extend one's tenure,
Ever more alive the more one lives.
Death is a prerequisite of time,
Revealing far more than it ever hides.
All is limitless, yet etched in lines,
Graven images of what abides.
One dragon, yes, can harmonize a song,
Needing only dreams to sing along.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2012-01-11T23:40:00.001-05:00

January 12, 2012 #667

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Maybe it's a little strange that I
Am now the only one whose day of birth
Remains a holiday. I don't know why
That honor should be mine alone. My worth
Is certainly no more than Washington's,
Nor do I more than Lincoln days deserve.
Let me then suggest a change: Once
Unmoored from my name, let the holiday serve
To honor not the person but the cause,
Healing racial wounds, pursuing justice,
Examining the morals of our mores,
Revisiting the pain of prejudice.
Kings require homage; this king would
Instead be an occasion for remembrance:
Not of me, but of all who fought for good,
Giving “Freedom Day” its proper sense.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2012-01-05T00:22:00.001-05:00

January 5, 2012 #666

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Epiphany.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Each of us might follow a bright star,
Perhaps to a redemptive revelation,
Intending, then, to change the way things are,
Passionate to socialize salvation.
However, please beware of what you do:
Ambition, even selfless, can turn sour.
No truth fits all, though burning inside you,
Yearning less for paradise than power.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2011-12-29T00:00:00.001-05:00

December 29, 2011 #666

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for New Year's.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happy New Year, darling!
Another year gone by!
Peeling off the onion,
Pausing just to cry.
Yet what could be more lovely?
Nestled into need,
Embracing while dancing
Wherever life may lead.
Yearning is a blessing
Even though we have
All we've ever yearned for,
Rendered us by love.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2011-12-21T23:58:00.001-05:00

December 22, 2011 #665

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Christmas.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Morning never comes on Christmas Day!
Eons pass and still the sun won't rise
Running late, the parents check closed eyes,
Retrieving gifts they long had hid away.
Years pass too quickly; loves and friendships stray.
Christmas comes and goes; the magic dies.
Happiness is hard and elsewhere lies.
Reality erodes one's sense of play.
Innocence remains a memory,
Sustaining hope and faith in later years,
The gift of what the child once believed.
Morning comes, of course, eventually,
As dreams give way to deep and unshed tears,
Still waiting for a glory long since grieved.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2011-12-15T00:09:00.000-05:00

December 15, 2011 #664

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Hanukkah.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happy candles dance with light
As children watch them with delight.
Now they flicker, now they glow,
Until the flames burn down too low.
Kindness is a candle bright
Kindled by an inner light,
A flame that brings an inner glow --
Happiness, as well you know!

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2011-12-08T00:20:00.000-05:00

December 8, 2011 #663

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for the holiday season.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Satisfaction, like the sea, is tidal.
Each day, each week, each month it comes and goes.
Along the heart's shore, feeling's never idle,
Singing across sand in tidal flows.
One's happiness is much more like the sun,
Not influenced by currents, winds, or moon,
Self-energized, a power plant of one,
Giving light that others need to bloom.
Remember, in this season of desire,
Every moment you are free to love,
Enveloping your fortune in your fire,
That all life's beauty might within you move.
In each of us there is an unspent yearning,
Needing, wanting, wishing, turning, churning.
Gladness may be seasonal, but grace
Sings its song outside of time and place.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2011-11-30T23:52:00.000-05:00

December 1, 2011 #662

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for AIDS Awareness Day.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Death rides with us on our ecstasy,
Unwanted fellow traveler of joy,
Wanderer within our will to be,

Finding in our promiscuity
Multiple partners to pillage and destroy.
Death rides with us on our ecstasy,

Seed within our seed sown carelessly
By dupes who would the enemy deploy,
Wanderer within our will to be,

Foiled alone by a society
Whose common strength of will does each will buoy.
Death rides with us on our ecstasy,

Less threatening the more fidelity
Fences off the flesh with which we toy.
Wanderer within our will to be,

AIDS, if nothing else, has helped us see
That we must love if we would lust enjoy.
Death rides with us on our ecstasy,
Wanderer within our will to be.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2011-11-24T00:04:00.000-05:00

November 24, 2011 #661

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Thanksgiving.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Tell me, please, whom I ought to thank,
Having come here not of my own will.
All life can seem like a sadistic prank,
Nor can I count the creatures I must kill.
Kids imagine witches, werewolves, ghosts.
Scientists see horrors every day:
Guests that eat the insides of their hosts;
Insects that cut up their living prey.
Viciousness can sometimes seem the main
Ingredient in this well-seasoned stew;
Nor can I live without inflicting pain,
Grace for which I guess I should thank You.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2011-11-16T23:53:00.001-05:00

November 17, 2011 #660

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a wedding/happy holidays poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

When you read this, we'll be wed,
A married couple wishing you
A Merry Christmas, New Year's too,
And happiness in days ahead.

May we all be joined in love,
And share the joys with which we're blessed,
Bear with charm and grace the rest,
And to all good neighbors prove.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2011-11-09T23:48:00.000-05:00

November 10, 2011 #659

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Veterans Day.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Vast fields of crosses, all the same,
Each embellished with a name.
This is what your love had sought!
Embrace the child become a thought,
Reduced to regimented loss,
A name screwed on a plain, white cross!
Nor can you feel what you must feel
Since what is real cannot be real.
Devour the moment, make it yours,
As life continues on all fours,
Yearning, begging at closed doors.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2011-11-03T00:02:00.000-04:00

November 3, 2011 #658

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Eid al-Adha.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Each sacrifices what the heart loves most,
Imitating Abraham when he
Delivered Isaac to the eternal host,
Although with heavy heart, yet faithfully.
Love does not grasp, but gives away all things,
Aware of something holy in its fire,
Destined to retain the gifts it brings,
Having first relinquished the desire,
As Allah gives one all one would require.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2011-10-26T23:47:00.001-04:00

October 27, 2011 #657

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Halloween.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

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.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2011-10-19T23:44:00.001-04:00

October 20, 2011 #656

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a thank you poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The party was a gift I'll long remember.
How might I tell you what it meant to me?
Acts of love, generous and tender,
No little pleasure add to memory.
Kindness makes it beautiful to be.

Yet I'd not allow you to be lender
Only, as in this poor poem I render
Unglazed a bit of grace for you to see.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2011-10-12T23:54:00.001-04:00

October 13, 2011 #655

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a congratulations poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Congratulations on your retirement!
One makes a virtue of necessity.
Nor can one argue with reality,
Given its regard for sentiment.
Remember that one cannot judge one's fortune,
As what else might have been, one cannot know.
To choose what is remains the only option,
Unless one would be strangled by one's woe.
Let there be ironic celebration!
A moment of nostalgia and release,
The swift goodbye to long-sustained relation,
In which there is an element of peace.
Open doors await, to who knows where?
Now is ever, ever wholly there,
Singing with a grace that does not cease.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2011-10-06T00:08:00.001-04:00

October 6, 2011 #654

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Yom Kippur.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

You pray to be included in the book
Of life before your yearly doom is sealed,
Making sure no sin is left concealed,
Knowing that there'll be no second look.
In words that are sincere, with guilt unfurled,
Perhaps you pray with some uncertainty,
Poised between belief and poetry,
Unwilling now to take it literally,
Remnant of a strange and ancient world.

© by Nicholas Gordon

2011-10-05T23:42:00.001-04:00

September 29, 2011 #653

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Rosh Hashanah.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Revenge is often taken in the mind.
Open wounds untreated tend to bleed.
Some who else would be both good and kind
Hate others in the thought, if not the deed.
Have mercy, then, upon yourself, and clear
Away the anger twisting you inside,
Sanctifying for the coming year
Heart and spirit, cleansed of pain and pride.
As you ask forgiveness, so forgive,
Nor need you lose your honor with your fury.
All find their just reward in how they live,
Held to account by a less partial jury.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2011-09-28T23:44:00.000-04:00

Poem of the Week

2011-09-21T23:55:00.001-04:00

September 22, 2011 #652

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for autumn.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Autumn sheds its brilliant tears,
Undone by darkness, wind, and cold,
Then turns the tears to leafmeal so
Ultimately trees can grow.
Meanwhile, in naked wood and wold,
None can hide as winter nears.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2011-09-14T23:39:00.002-04:00

September 15, 2011 #651

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a name poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Agafya is plain, old-fashioned good --
Giving, caring, loving, generous, kind.
A person doesn't get that way by chance.
Fortune isn't merely circumstance.
Years are fields on which the play of mind
And will create what character one would.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Poem of the Week

2011-09-08T00:17:00.001-04:00

September 8, 2011 #650

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a philosophical love poem.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html .

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Fools desire flesh; the wise love souls.
Friendship, kindness, generosity,
Humor, wit, a harbor free of shoals --
These bring far more joy than ecstasy.
Yet there are those who, bored by harmony,
Prefer an edgy dissonance that holds
The prospect of a life near duty free,
Adventure unconstrained as time unfolds.
There is, of course, no choice without its cost.
One must be this or that or in between.
And what one isn't stays within the heart.
Wisdom lies in knowing what is lost.
The self's less self less selfless, and more mean,
While loving is a rich yet ruthless art.

© by Nicholas Gordon