Weekly Poetry: A Memorial Day Poem and More
Posted: Thursday, May 21, 2009
by Nicholas Gordon
http://www.poemsforfree.com
MAYBE GRIEF NEEDS RITUAL, AS MUSIC
Maybe grief needs ritual, as music
Embraces rules that turn sound into song.
Maybe if one trusts that one won't lose it,
One can turn away, though grief be strong.
Reserve, then, days for rituals of mourning
In which one may allow the flood of grief
Again to inundate the heart, restoring
Life to deserts thirsting for relief.
Dance depends on choreography
As pain declares its sovereign right to be,
Yet performs with grace restrained and brief.
To the graduate, no more a child,
On whom these many years my love has shone:
Take pleasure in the pleasure of my pride,
However much you've managed on your own.
Even as you dance upon your stage,
Growing ever more endowed with grace,
Remember that my love will never change,
A place for you beyond all time and place.
Do what you will within your own wide world,
Understanding in your own wise way:
Always know you are my field of wonder,
The wild, star-strewn moor on which I wander,
Even as I honor you today.
WE SEPARATED MANY YEARS AGO
We separated many years ago
In anger. He left me with an infant son.
I screamed at him for years, I loved him so,
But once he faded, my ordeal was done.
We both remarried, I to someone good,
A man who loves both me and my son well,
Who wants our world to be just as it should,
Whom I can trust to stay through good or ill.
Yet now my ex, though married, says he wants me,
Can't forget me, dwells upon my kiss,
And suddenly each flare of passion haunts me,
And I become aware of what I miss.
My husband has no words to praise my beauty,
No soft endearments trembling with desire.
Because he's so concerned to do his duty,
He's someone who contains his inner fire.
My ex is mad to have at any moment
Whatever ecstasy excites his lust.
His need is an excruciating torment
That bursts into a joy I cannot trust.
Ay, me! I dream of him and am again
The goddess of his fierce and cunning love.
I know that he will bring me only pain,
Yet all my thoughts and passions towards him move.
FRIENDS ARE PRISONERS OF EXPECTATION
Friends are prisoners of expectation,
Reflected in the mirror of their need.
Instead of being happy on their own,
Each knows that one cannot survive alone,
Nor think unless another plants the seed.
Dependent all for person on relation,
So to be fed, must one the other feed.
I WANT TO SAY HOW PROUD I AM OF YOU
I want to say how proud I am of you
That you have broken free of your addiction.
It's something I don't know that I could do
Were I so sorely tried by your affliction.
My years of growing up were on my own,
As you were in the belly of your beast,
The two of us indifferent and alone,
Most in need of love while loving least.
How sad! That you and I have lost those years:
I, of childhood, and you, of your only child.
But now's the time for joy and not for tears,
For you are well, and we are reconciled.
Whatever life may bring or time may prove,
Know that you will always have my love.
FLOWERS SYMBOLIZE UNBRIDLED PASSION
Flowers symbolize unbridled passion,
Love, and the attraction lust requires.
Of beauty born, they burn with hungry fires,
Waiting for the pleasures of possession.
Even so may lovers be drawn higher,
Rapture melting soon their self-obsession,
Swept up to tenderness by love's desires.
YOUR BIRTHDAY WAS THE DAY WE FIRST WERE US
Your birthday was the day we first were us,
And so for me it is a day twice blessed.
I celebrate my having you twice over:
First, that you are you, then that you're mine.
I never felt a love so free and fine,
So much of me that I am but a lover,
So rich and full to crowd out all the rest,
The me I was before I turned to us.
I am so joyful to be part of us,
To be at home with you and not a guest,
To celebrate this day and not another,
To share with you a common boundary line.
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