Philosophical Poems for Free
by Nicholas Gordon

Philosophical poems, philosophical poetry, free for any personal or non-commercial purpose.
All poems: copyright by Nicholas Gordon. For philosophical stories, click on Philosophical Stories for Free.

Aesthetics

• At Evening the Boats Crowd Towards Shore
• Blessings Do Not Come in Bite-Sized Portions
• Bridges Are a Sign of Separation
• By the Tulips
• Composers Aren't Poseurs, One May Hope
• Connor Sings a Classic Irish Tune
• Everyone Finds Comfort in a Song
• Fashion Finds No Favor in Your Heart
• Fear Not the Fairest Fortunes of Your Heart
• Fifty5
• Fifty-Five3
• Fifty-Four3
• Fifty-Four4
• Fifty-Six Devotes Himself to Beauty
• For Every Moment You're Immersed in Beauty
• For What Does One Live, But for Goodness and Beauty
• For You, May Every Moment Sing
• For You There Is No Greater Good than Beauty
• For You There Will Be Always Gifts of Beauty
• For You There'll Always Be the Gift of Beauty
• For Those Who Would Make Life a Thing of Beauty
• Forever Is a Metaphor for Now
• Fortune Is More Fortunate Within
• Forty-Five
• Forty-Five6
• Forty-Seven Listens to Her Music
• Grace Is Rarely Graceful, Though One Wake
• Health and Happiness to You and Yours
• Here's a Sonnet for Your Anniversary
• Holidays Are like Well-Tended Gardens
• How Beautiful the Light upon the Water
• How Can I Touch You when You're Far Away
• I Look at You and Think: I Cannot Live
• I Wanted Nothing Less Than Hope
• Intent on Giving Birth
• Isabella Loves the Sound of Music
• Jacob2
• Jordyn
• Joy Leaves a Bit of Wonder in Its Wake
• Logan
• May Poetry Flow
• Mind Is Not the Medium for Joy
• No One Is the Author of This Poem
• Out of Who We Are Comes Where We Live
• Poetry and Explanation
• Proverbs on Beauty and Goodness (also under Ethics)
• Rich Vein of Funky Wisdom, Soulful Art
• Salvation Is a Song That One Can Sing
• Seasons Sing with Unrelenting Passion
• Sentimental Moments Are Well Planned
• Seventy-Two3
• Shall There Be a Moment After All
• Sing of Gardeners, Who Nurture Beauty
• Sing of Passions Greater than the Self
• Sing of the Eternal Moment
• Sing of the Sweet Urge the Capture Beauty
• Sixty-Five Suspends Her Animation
• Some Pass Silently Across the Stage
• Some Would Sing to Celebrate the Season
• Songs Lend Thought the Persuasive Force of Beauty
• The Blank Page Beckons like a Holy Book
• The Perfect Poem Should Flow like Wind
• The Time Is Now
• The World Is Brought to Beauty Heart by Heart
• The World's a Notebook Full of Scenes and Stories
• There Is No Better Painting than a Sunrise
• There Is No Greater Passion than for Beauty
• Thirty-Eight6
• Thirty-Five Has All the Joy He Needs
• Thirty-Four Sings Softly in the Moonlight
• Thirty-Four's Devoted to a Dream
• Thirty-Nine2
• Thirty-One2
• Thirty-Seven2
• Thirty-Seven Is Immersed in Beauty
• Thirty-Six Knows Well by Now His Goal
• To Be Consumed by Something More than Beauty
• To Create a World Requires Passion
• To Daydream Is to Stir the Pot of Hope
• To Imagine What a Better World Might Be
• What a Life the Artist Lives Within
• When I Pray to You, Words Are Not Enough

Death

• Death Can Also Be a Dance
• Death Is like a Car
• Every Moment Sings with Fascination
• Here Is So Much More than Here
• Here the Winter Winds Come Off the Sea
• In Eighth Grade My Best Friend Passed Away
• One Night I Saw Aaron
• Recently I Dreamed I Talked to You
• Rest in Peace, My Loved One, Rest in Peace
• Sing of Life That, Though It Has an End
• Tears Flow Down to Endless Streams of Sadness
• The Gift of Life Is Never More or Less
• The Only Hope Is that There Is No Hope
• The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling!
• The Years May Sing of Darkness
• Time Is a Gift, like Food or Love or Death
• Understand, Death Has No Use for Time
• Years Turn the Pages; the Book Remains

Epistemology

• A Double-Blind Study Is Truly Doubly Blind
• All I Wanted Was to Find the Truth
• Anthony
• Behind the Act Is Always the Perception
• Beverly
• By the Eighth Day There Was No Longer Need
• Changes Find Their Agent in Obsession
• Charles
• Each Moment Is a Word of Glass
• Each Numeral Contains a Mystic Meaning
• Each Year We Celebrate Christ's Resurrection
• Eager for a Miracle
• Even a Mole-Rat Relishes the Sweetness
• Even Angels Tire of Ecstasy
• Even Trees Awake to a Breakfast of Light
• Even When the Sky is Stone
• Every Moment Is a Revelation
• Everyday Suns Are Rarely Wonders
• Facts Are Less Reliable than Dreams
• Facts Are Never Simply What Is True
• Faith Is What One Cannot Know
• Fifty-Four
• Given the Glory of Mountains and Seas
• God Knows the Price of Tuning Forks
• Happy Graduation
• Have Witches Gone the Way of Wonders
• Here Is Neither Here nor There
• Home Is a Myth That Must Be Recreated
• Home Must Be a Daily Re-Creation
• Hope Is Not the Creature of Sensation
• Hours Mean No More or Less than Years
• How Beautifully the Rushing Glass
• How Much You Mean to Me I Cannot Say
• How Odd to See the Lamps Still Burning
• Hubble-Scopes Aloft Will See Anew
• I Don't Know Why My Mind Goes Numb with Numbers
• Ideas Are Quite Content to Be a Patchwork
• In Every Point of View That's Held Sincerely
• Janice
• Josh
• Knowing and Not Knowing
• Language Cannot Be but in the Heart
• Let the Earth Catch Up to Us
• Mary at Midnight, the Babe in Her Arms
• Maybe There's No Magic to the Morning
• Meaning Is a Measure of Repose
• Meaning Is a Morning Song
• More than Once the Earth May Yield Its Secrets
• Movement Comes Most Often Without Motion
• Names Are Little Labels
• Neil
• Numbers
• People Who Are Certain Are a Curtain
• Please Be Assured that What You Read Is True
• Pretend There Were No Memories
• Rare Is the Thing That Makes a Point
• Reason Doesn't Travel Well
• Reason Is No Cause for Revelation
• Reason Ought Not Be the Enemy
• Reason Without Faith Is Pure Relation
• Righteousness Remains the Rock of Faith
• Rules of a Skeptic
• Samuel
• Seldom Do We See Trees Go Out Walking
• Several Days Before I Was to Die
• Shadow Is the Haunt of Beauty
• Shine like a Moon upon Your Field of Snow
• So May You Be Happy at This Time
• Sole Proprietor and Only Inmate
• Talk Is a Phobic Reaction
• The Los Angeles of 1958
• The Mountains Seem as Distant as the Years
• The Only True Idea
• The Past Is Never Over
• The Point of Life Is that There Is No Point
• The Thought Electric Wings Across the Shallows
• The Truth Is Far Too Truthful
• The Uncertainty of Certainty
• The Whole Point of Being
• There Are Mountains Too Beautiful to See
• There Is No Greater Clarity
• There Is No Greater Paradise
• There Is No Knowledge -- Only Good Opinion
• Thirty-Two3
• To Be Is Rarely Totally to Be
• To Be Sure, There Aren't Many Happy Seahorses
• Trapped Within My Point of View
• Truth Is a Passion Uncontrolled by Sense
• Truth Is Just the Opposite of Sense
• Truth Is When One Says What One Believes
• Truth Is When We Think that What We Think
• What You Think You Know, You Don't
• Why Should We Care that We Must Lose the Past?
• Words Are Good for Things, like Cars and Trees
• Words Are Spoken with the Hand and Eye
• Words Mean Too Much to Mean Too Much at All

Ethics

• Abner/Abner
• Adam Is a Model for Us All
• Adrian Knows Well the Unsaid Rules
• After the Virus
• Agafya
• Agatha
• Alessandra
• Alessandro Savors Solitude
• All of Us Can Take Our Cue from Trees
• Amalia
• Amelia
• Because Each One of Us Is Equally
• Beyond the Reign of Terror
• Blessings Are Precisely Everyday
• Brace Yourself for Love, for It Is Coming
• Bullies Like to Pulverize Their Pain
• Candice
• Change Comes Slowly, like a Dawn
• Charity Begins Where Interest Ends
• Charity Is like an Unsung Anthem
• Charity Should Make the Giver Sing
• Cheating Is a Crime Against Oneself
• Chelse
• Choice Is Just a Ripple
• Clear Away the Cobwebs of Convention
• Cynicism Comes from Self-Disgust
• Daniel Is a Word in Our Life Story
• Diba
• Dorothy
• Dreams Are Not for Ravishers
• Enduring Does Not Lead to Happiness
• Enduring Passions Are What Change the World
• Even as You Sacrifice Yourself
• Even in the Best of Times
• Even Though Passions Are Common as Rain
• Evil Has No Easy Explanation
• Fate Is a Consortium
• Fearing for My Sanity
• Fifty-Eight Comes Often to the Table
• Find Yourself a Purpose and a Goal
• For What Have You Arrived upon This Shore
• Fortune Comes Embellished with Small Print
• Fortune Comes in Many Shapes and Guises
• Fortune Is a Favor to Be Earned
• Fortune Is a Patchwork
• Fortune Is the Child of Will and Chance
• Fortune Often Will Return the Favor
• Forty-Four4
• Forty-Three Has Been Well Served by Fortune
• Freedom Doesn't Come from Being Free
• Freedom Is Imprisoned in the Flesh
• Freedom Is the Power to Commit
• Freedom Is the Power to Will One's Fate
• Freedom Isn't Simply: Do Your Will
• Fulfillment Is Entirely Up to You
• Future Selves Are Built on Past Mistakes
• Giving Gives Far More than We Intend
• Giving Is a Placid Kind of River
• Good and Honest People Can Do Evil
• Greed Grips Every Heart, No Less than Lust
• Gretchen
• Habit Is the Hand that Shapes the Heart
• Happiness Breaches, Bursting from the Deep
• Happiness Comes Wholly from the Heart
• Happiness Comes Wholly from Within
• Happiness Has Much to Recommend It
• Happiness Is like a Sun
• Happiness Is Much like Brushing Teeth
• Happiness Is Often Background Music
• Happiness Is Something That One Settles for
• Happiness Is Wholly in One's Power
• Happiness Remains the Drug of Choice
• Happy New Year! To Those Who Will Have None
• Harpies Are but Angels Who Are Harried
• Hatred Has No Color, Creed, or Race
• Have a Tiny Tidbit of Despair
• Heaven Has No Clue to Happiness
• Hell Does Not Admit Those Who Are Loved
• Hell Is Not a Prison, but a Room
• Here Among the Savages
• Holding Hands, We've Walked Through Many Years
• Holidays Do Not Bring Happiness
• Holocausts Are Sui Generis
• Hopes Last Longer than Their Realization
• How Can Hope Become a Way of Life
• How Might One Be Happy but by Loving
• I Wear My Mask for You
• If Life Could Be a Court and We Be Tried
• In Heaven I Met Karl Marx
• Indeed, from Whom or What Are Rights Derived
• Jayden Has the Recipe for Joy
• Jaydon Has the Recipe for Joy
• Justin Walks Along His Own Thin Line
• Kayla
• Labor Is Identity
• Love Engenders Love
• Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They
• Maybe More than Love Was Needed
• Maybe No One Wholly Leaves the Womb
• Maybe One Must End the War Within
• Never Do What You Resent
• Often the Absence of Angels Seems Eerie
• Peace Is Just a Brief Time Out from Killing
• Perhaps This Is No Time for Telling Tales
• Perhaps You Think that, Yes, You Are an Island
• Proverbs for Legislators
• Proverbs on Beauty and Goodness (also under Aesthetics)
• Proverbs on Good and Evil
• Proverbs on Happiness
• Proverbs on Ideological Idealism
• Proverbs on Ideology
• Proverbs on Justice and Love
• Proverbs on Love
• Proverbs on the State
• Proverbs on Trust
• Reason Can Be Quite Unreasonable
• Reason Says, of Course, that There's No Book
• Remember as You Scour Your Soul for Sin
• Remember the Utility of Shame
• Remorse Is Not a Synonym for Shame
• Revenge Is Often Taken in the Mind
• Revel in Your Righteousness
• Rights Are Not Equivalent to Freedom
• Sacrifice Is Always of the Self
• Searching for Significance
• Selfishness and Selflessness
• Seventy-Three Is Always at the Ready
• Seymour
• Show Me All the Bounty of Your Giving
• Sing of the Sweet Sunlight of the Soul
• Sixty-One Still Sings of Love and Dreams
• Sixty-Seven2
• So May One Do Good That Does No Good
• So Shall the Singer Serve the Song
• Society Is You and Me
• Souls Are Sovereign in Their Own Domain
• Stand Up for Justice, but Always Do It Justly
• Tashina Is a Cry of Liberation
• Taylor
• The Greatest Satisfaction Comes
• The Only Hope for Happiness
• The Problem Isn't Simply One of Rules
• The Roots of Hatred
• The Sun Is Filtered Through a Canopy
• There Are for Giving Many Rationales
• There Are Those Who Prey on Discontent
• There Is No Armor We Can Wear
• There Is No Hope for Those Who Hope Too Much
• There Is No Jail for the Soul
• There Is No Joy That Does Not Sing of Longing
• There Is No Substitute for Gratitude
• There Is No Virtue in Consistency
• Thirty-Eight Has No Fear of the Future
• Thirty-Five7
• Thirty-Four3
• Thirty-Six Sings Well the Song of Life
• Thirty-Three5
• Time Passes like Music
• To Be Happy, One Must Know the Rules
• To Live Is to Be Prey
• Twenty-Two Worries About Earth
• Would You Know the Tally of Your Time
• Yearning Is a Function of Atonement
• You Are Now Poised to Kill, Perhaps to Die
• You Cannot Get Away from Being Plural
• You Live in the World You Choose
• You Pray Not for Yourself Alone but All
• You Wish to Live a Long and Healthy Life
• You Wrap Your Mind Around the Consequence

Metaphysics

• Aaron
• Accidents Are Rarely Accidental
• All Creatures Live Their Lives in Ecstasy
• Be Comfortable with Doubt, with Death, with Darkness
• Bees Swarm Along the Fragile Edge of Darkness
• Because All Things Are Made of Light
• Before Chaos, There Was Perfect Light
• Before Earth, Water, and Air Is Fire
• Before Us Is Nothing, Neither Future nor Past
• Being and Becoming Are Creations
• Being in Eternity and Time
• Being Is a Point, Without Dimension
• Being Is an Unrequited Passion
• Best Believe in Miracles
• Beyond the Many Mouths
• Blessed Are Those both In and Out of Time
• Blessed Are Those Who Can Embrace the Darkness
• Blessed Are Those Who Dwell in Utter Darkness
• Blessings Are Not Only of the Light
• Blithe Fingers Know the Psalms of Adoration
• Break upon the Cold, White Sands of Darkness
• But Darkness Reveals What We Cannot See
• By Day Each Soul Must Walk Within Its Shadow
• Cyberspace, Silent Space
• Darkness Is the Glowing Field of Light
• Destinée Finds Destiny Appealing
• Eighty-Three
• Eighty-Two Lives by a Waterfall
• Elizabeth
• Even in the Depths of Longing
• Even So, One's Time Seems Endless
• Eventually, Memories Settle Down
• Every Moment Is a Resurrection
• Evidence Is Rarely Evident
• Felice
• Fifty-One Is Entering the Fall
• Fifty-Nine
• Fly upon Imaginary Wings
• For Every Rose There Is a Separate Spring
• Forever Is a Fantasy of Time
• Forever Is like Getting Off a Train
• Forever Is Not Merely Time Unending
• Forever Is the Strangest Thing
• Forever Remains Folded into Time
• Forty-Eight3
• Forty-One Finds Grace in Every Moment
• Forty-Six Has Much to Celebrate
• Forty-Three
• Frequently One Finds a Little Sunshine
• Gisela
• Happiness Is Neither Here nor There
• Hear, O Spirits! The World, the World Is One
• Holiness Is Everywhere Around You
• How Might Light Have Come from Nothing
• Just Being Who One Is, Is Paradise
• Lilith
• Living in Eternity
• Longing Is the True Eternal Light
• Maybe Every Moment's Meant to Be
• Maybe There's a Reason for It All
• Metaphysical Proverbs
• Moments Aren't All There Is to Time
• Moreover, Though You May Be Accidental
• My Name Is Vidya Niketan
• No Better Time than Now Can Be Imagined
• On Being
• On Things of Least Significance
• Once a Paladin
• Paradise Does Not Admit of Seasons
• Paradise Is Rarely Paradise
• Proverbs on Consciousness
• Proverbs on Faith
• Proverbs on the Soul
• Shadows Aren't Visible at Night
• Silence at the Center of the Soul
• Sixty-Three Suspends Her Animation
• Solitude Is Never Yours Alone
• Some People Are a Ship, and Some a Hearth
• Stillness Is a Quality of Mind
• The Being of Being is Being
• The Child Was Merely Accidental
• The Earth Does Not Regret Its Times of Mourning
• The Gift of Being Cannot Be a Given
• The Meaning of Eternity
• The Mountains Aren't Near Enough to Heaven
• The Ocean that We Live on Has No Shore
• The Previous Forecasts Are the Current Needs
• The Universe Is One of Many
• The Wave Without Becomes a Wave Within
• The Wind the River Roils Well
• There Is No Greater Miracle than This
• Thirty-Eight Is More than Just a Number
• Time Has No Open Channel to Despair
• Time Is Not a River but a Sea
• Time Passes like a Stream in Which One Stands
• Time Speeds Up as One Grows Older
• To Find All Cause Within the Present Being
• Today's an Ocean Which You Sail Forever
• Twenty-Six Is Undeterred by Being
• Veronica's an Image of the Truth
• We Don't Have to See Ourselves
• You Think You Can Just Dive into the Sky
• Zechariah

Wisdom

• A Life in Six Movements
• A Tree Is a Gigantic Hand
• Adages of Age
• Adele
• Allen Is an Absolute Delight
• Appearance and Reality
• At Odds of the Night My Sister Irene and I
• Barreling Along, I Stopped Awhile
• Bless the Darkness, Bless the Light
• Can One Ever See What Lies Beyond
• Catch the Wind
• Chasing the Horizon
• Chris's Death, like Everyone's
• Christopher
• Congratulations on Your New Domain
• Dylan
• Each Truth Is like a Scrim Across the Darkness
• Eighty2
• Eleven Embraces Each Breathtaking Day
• Epiphanies Come and Go
• Face the Passing Years as Though a Painting
• Fashion for Yourself a Perfect Mirror
• Felicia Feels the Deepest Happiness
• Fifty-Five2
• Fifty-Seven's Not Afraid of Silence
• Fools Desire Flesh; the Wise Love Souls
• For Ancient Trees Weeping Once a Year
• For Every Disappointment There's a Dream
• For the Lucky Ones, Life Is Full of Love
• For Those Who Love, Things Tend to Matter More
• For You the Earth Shall Bring Forth Greater Glory
• Forget that You Are Much Esteemed and Loved
• Fortune Is like Music Minus One
• Fortune Leaves No Reason for Regret
• Fortune's in the Eye of the Beholder
• Forty-Five5
• Forty-Five Is Wiser than Before
• Forty-Seven3
• Forty-Three3
• Forty-Three Finds Happiness in Being
• Forty-Two Surrenders to Desire
• Fulfillment Is a Song That One Must Sing
• Generations Are like Streams
• Gold Is Not the Only Buried Treasure
• Grace
• Here Among the Cabbages
• Hinder Not the Happiness
• How Might One Find the Strength to Will One's Fate
• How Strange, the Way Life Comes upon the Moment
• How Will I Know Which Way to Go
• Home Is the Habit That Dwells in Habitation
• Home Is Where One Feels a Certain Grace
• I Am a Lonely Wanderer
• I Know I Cannot Satisfy the Sun
• Let Your Love Lie Easy on Your Heart
• Lewis Is a Symphony of Pleasures
• Life Can Be Quite Ravenous
• Life Is Beautiful, My Child
• Long May You Labor at Something You Love
• Lorraine
• Love Redeems the Passions of the Moment
• Lust Is No More Physical than Love
• Make Not Much of What You're Missing
• Make Your Heart an Earthly Paradise
• Make Your Passions Fit Your Pleasures
• May We Learn to Undergo Your Love
• Maybe There Is Nothing More than Sunshine
• Maybe There Is Solace in the Sunshine
• Maybe Time Is like a Snowdrift
• Meditation Is an Empty Room
• Merely Being Is a Miracle
• Mirror Proverbs
• Need Is Nothing More than Strong Desire
• Nessen Sings a Solitary Song
• Patience Is a Sign of Inner Peace
• Peace Is the Gift of What Nobody Sees
• Perhaps You Think You Never Will Recover
• Proverbs on Acceptance
• Reconcile Yourself to Self
• Robert Is a Light unto His Friends
• Said Is "Dr. Happy"
• Satisfaction, like the Sea, is Tidal
• Savor the Sweet Taste of Simply Being
• Seasons Come and Go; the Love Remains
• Seasons of Sunshine, Seasons of Rain
• Self Becomes Less Self the More Self-Served
• Sing of All the Goodness You've Been Granted
• Sing of Who and Where and What You Are
• Singing at the Center of Your Soul
• Sixty-Eight Sings Silently of Light
• So May You Know the Pleasures of Your State
• Some Are Picked for Pleasure, Some for Pain
• Some Sing Silently, Which Is All Right
• Swati Is a Star in Her Own Sky
• Tears Restore Hydraulically Our Balance
• The Bond of Love Is Not Desire, but Need
• The Point Is What You Have, Not What You Don't
• The Road Ahead Is like the Road Behind
• The Road to Hope Leads Through Delayed Despair
• The Story Says: Steal the Magic Jewels
• The Sun Shines Everywhere
• The Sun Was Salmon on Water
• The Things We Least Imagine Are What Happen
• The Triumph of the Victor
• The Universe Is like a Symphony
• The World Is One Gigantic Jam Session
• There Are Times the Sea Is Sullen Rage
• There Are Times when Life Yields Little Pleasure
• There Is a Garden in My Heart
• There Is No Better Time of Life than Now
• There Is No Garden Guaranteed to Bloom
• There Is No Hope Without the Help of Grief
• There Is No Point in Being Merely Clever
• There Is No Substitute for Lifelong Longing
• Thirty-Eight Is in the Prime of Life
• Thirty-Seven5
• Thirty-Three
• Though Mountains May Seem Far More Solid than Seas
• Tides Return the Favors They Have Taken
• Time Has a Way of Making Life Precious
• Time Tends to Make the Biggest Problems Small
• Treat Yourself Each Day to Love and Kindness
• Treat Yourself to All the Best of Life
• Ultimately, Everyone Is Single
• What We Dream of Turns to Dust
• When I Was Young, I Thought that I Would Be
• You Find but Little Solace in Success
• You Had the Gift of Happiness
• Zachary Lets Go a Long-Held Longing

Please direct all email correspondence to [email protected].
Please direct all correspondence by mail to
Nicholas Gordon, P.O. Box 3043, Fort Lee, NJ 07024.

Poems for Free

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