Number Poems for Free
by Nicholas Gordon

Number poems, number poetry, suitable for birthdays, free for any personal or non-commercial purpose. All poems: copyright by Nicholas Gordon.

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The Watergate Tapes:
A Dramatization
of Taped Conversations
at the Nixon
White House

Cruise to
Nowhere
Tales

One Is Perfection, yet Far from Perfected

Seven Is an Age of Right and Wrong

Seven! Seven! Not Eleven!

Eight Years Old! A Happy Time

Nine-Year-Olds Have Dreams That Dance and Sing

Eleven Embraces Each Breathtaking Day

Eleven Is the Very Best Age to Be

There Is Much Pleasure in the Love of Learning (12)

There Is No Happiness Without Love (12)

Time for Parents Tends to Go Too Fast (12)

To Be Thirteen Is to Be, Well, a Teen

Facts Are Less Reliable than Dreams (14)

Fashion for Yourself a Perfect Mirror (14)

Fifteen's Neither Child nor Adult

Fie on These Earthlings (15)

For You Life Ought to Be a Silver Dancer (15)

For You There'll Always Be the Gift of Beauty (15)

Sing of Dreams, Those Blueprints of the Future (16)

So Far Away, yet We Are Near (16)

Sweet Sixteens Are Harbingers of Grace

Seventeen Is Such a Lovely Age

Society Is You and Me (17)

Nineteen Is a Moment for Reflection

Need Is Not the Mother of Invention (19)

No More Favors, Please! (19)

Twenty Is a Bud That's Finally Flowered

Time Diminishes What We Require (21)

To Know Another, One Must Be Insane (21)

Tough and Lovely (21)

Twenty-Two Worries About Earth

Tell Me More, My Love, How Much You Love Me (22)

The Face Is a Mask over a Mirror (22)

Tonight There Are No Stars (22)

Truth Is Just the Opposite of Sense (23)

The Center Stage Is Empty (24)

The Chance of Happiness Equals the Risk of Pain (24)

The Sun Was Salmon on Water (24)

The World's a Notebook Full of Scenes and Stories (24)

Today's an Ocean Which You Sail Forever (24)

Twenty-Five Has Come into Her Own

Twenty-Five Remembers When the World

The Former Lord of Jersey Stitches Pants (25)

The Los Angeles of 1958 (25)

The Point of Life Is that There Is No Point (25)

There Is a Beauty in the Color Brown (25)

There's Beauty in the Barest Breath of Sunshine (25)

To Daydream Is to Stir the Pot of Hope (25)

There Are Walls Beyond Satisfaction (26)

Twenty-Six Is Undeterred by Being

Twenty-Six Reserves the Right to Change

Twenty-Seven's Not a Time for Scheming

The Story Says: Steal the Magic Jewels (27)

The Thought Electric Wings Across the Shallows (27)

There Is No Better Time of Life than Now (27)

To Be Happy, One Must Know the Rules (27)

To Be in Full Bloom Is Not Always Easy (27)

Twenty-Eight's a Rose in Perfect Bloom

The Child Was Merely Accidental (28)

Time Has a Way of Making Life Precious (28)

The First True Sign of Love Is Anger (29)

The Mountains Aren't Near Enough to Heaven (29)

There Is No Moment When One's Youth Is Over (29)

Truth Is a Passion Uncontrolled by Sense (29)

There Is No Darkness in You (30)

The Earth Does Not Regret Its Times of Mourning (31)

The Thirties: When Dreams Crash Against the Shore (31)

Those Who Can Help Those Who Need It Most (31)

To Create a World Requires Passion (31)

To Find All Cause Within the Present Being (31)

Truth Is Rarely an Expression of Love (31)

The Blank Page Beckons like a Holy Book(32)

Thirty-Two Guards Well a Sacred Place

There Are for Giving Many Rationales (32)

Tough to Know You're in Your Prime (32)

The Mountains Seem as Distant as the Years (33)

The Road to Hope Leads Through Delayed Despair (33)

The Sun Is Filtered Through a Canopy (33)

Time Is Not a River but a Sea (33)

To Imagine What a Better World Might Be (33)

Thirty-Four Sings Softly in the Moonlight

Thirty-Four's Devoted to a Dream

Tell the World How Lovely Is the Earth (34)

The World Is Brought to Beauty Heart by Heart (34)

Time Speeds Up as One Grows Older (34)

Thirty-Five Has All the Joy He Needs

The Only Hope for Happiness (35)

There You Are, Smack in the Middle of Life (35)

Thirty-Six Is an Island in a River

Thirty-Six Knows Well by Now His Goal

Thirty-Six Sings Well the Song of Life

The Point of Playing Roles Is Demolishing Walls (36)

Time Passes like a Stream in Which One Stands (36)

Time Teaches Us to Love, if We Would Learn (36)

To Be Consumed by Something More than Beauty (36)

Thirty-Seven Is Immersed in Beauty

Thirty-Seven Savors His Obsessions

Therapists Find Fortune in Misfortune (37)

Time Passes like Music (37)

To Be Sure, There Aren't Many Happy Seahorses (37)

Thirty-Eight Has No Fear of the Future

Thirty-Eight Is in the Prime of Life

Thirty-Eight Is More than Just a Number

Thirty-Eight Is Running for Her Life

The Way to Look at Life Is Upside Down (38)

There Is Beauty at the Heart of Business (38)

There Is No Garden Guaranteed to Bloom (38)

Treat Yourself to All the Best of Life (38)

Thirty-Nine Is Often Full of Wonder

Talk Is a Phobic Reaction (39)

The Ocean that We Live on Has No Shore (39)

The Pleasures of Your Life Are Overwhelming (39)

There Are No Words to Say How Much I Love You (39)

There Is No Better Mentor than a Cat (39)

There Is No Treasure Greater than Your Love (39)

To Tell the Truth, I Cannot Tell Your Age (39)

There Are Good Things About Being Forty

Fear Not the Fairest Fortunes of Your Heart (40)

For Someone Who Devotes His Life to Trees (40)

For Vegans, There Are Blessings from the Future (40)

For You, May Every Moment Sing (40)

For You This Birthday Ought to Be a Sun (40)

For You This Birthday Ought to Be a Sun2 (40)

Forty-One Does Well What Few Can Do

Forty-One Finds Grace in Every Moment

Forty-One Is Filled with Precious Longing

Forty-One Lingers in the Moment

Forty-One Must Cross Her Swollen Streams

Forty-One Still Sometimes Spreads Her Wings

Find Your Wilderness Within Your Heart (41)

For Every Disappointment There's a Dream (41)

For the Lucky Ones, Life Is Full of Love (41)

Forests Are a Glimpse of Permanence (41)

Forests Can Be Rooted in a Soul (41)

Forgive Me if I Come into Your Bed (41)

From Desert to Forest, from Sun to Shade (41)

Future Selves Must Wait, Apart (41)

Forty-Two Surrenders to Desire

Farmers Ought Not Cut Against the Grain (42)

Flutes Are Doubled by the Violins (42)

For Ancient Trees Weeping Once a Year (42)

Forever Is a Fantasy of Time (42)

Forever Is Not Merely Time Unending (42)

Fortune Comes Embellished with Small Print (42)

Frailty, Thy Name's No Longer Woman (42)

Friends Can Share What None Can Have Alone (42)

Family Is a Gift Few Can Afford (43)

Forty-Three Finds Happiness in Being

Forty-Three Has Been Well Served by Fortune

For You the Earth Must Be a Greener Green (43)

Fruit Abounds Amid the Press of Labor (43)

Family Is a Rescue Squad in Waiting (44)

For What Does One Live, But for Goodness and Beauty (44)

Fractures Rarely Heal Right on Their Own (44)

Forty-Five Is Wiser than Before

Forty-Five Walks Along the Shore

Fire Comes in Many Hopes and Sizes (45)

For You, Who Does Such Good, There Should Be Joy (45)

Forty-Six Has Much to Celebrate

For You There Will Be Always Gifts of Beauty (46)

For You, Who Does Such Good, There Is a Heaven (46)

Forever Is like Getting Off a Train (46)

Fruit Is but a Fraction of the Tree (46)

Future Selves Are Built on Past Mistakes (46)

Forty-Seven Listens to Her Music

Face the Fact that You Are Still a Child (47)

Find Your Perfect Mentor in a Tree (47)

For Every Rose There Is a Separate Spring (47)

Fortune Is like Music Minus One (47)

Freedom Doesn't Come from Being Free (47)

Facts Are Never Simply What Is True (48)

Fly upon Imaginary Wings (48)

For You, Life Has Its Own Internal Music (48)

For You the Earth Shall Bring Forth Greater Glory (48)

Fulfillment Is a Song That One Must Sing (48)

Forty-Nine Is on the Edge of Fifty

Fortune Comes and Goes; Love Abides (49)

Fortune Is More Fortunate Within (49)

Fortune's in the Eye of the Beholder (49)

Freedom Isn't Simply: Do Your Will (49)

Fifty Can Be Taken Well in Stride

Fifty Is a Moment for Reflection

Fifty Is a Time of Hope and Healing

Fifty's Full of Life and Well-Tuned Vigor

Face the Passing Years as Though a Painting (50)

Fifty Years a Sojourner, Uncertain Guest (50)

Fifty Years, and You Remain a Child (50)

For a Mother, a Daughter, a Teacher, and a Friend (50)

For Some Life Is Too Full, and Overflows (50)

For Those Who Would Make Life a Thing of Beauty (50)

For You It's Been a Steep and Sometimes Tortured (50)

For You There Can Be No Regret (50)

For Your Fiftieth Birthday Let Us Sing

Fifty-One Is Entering the Fall

Fate Is Oft the Filament of Passion (51)

For All the Years I've Wandered Through My Life (51)

Fortune Is a Patchwork (51)

Factor In the Fickleness of Fortune (52)

For Every Moment You're Immersed in Beauty (52)

Fifty-Three Remains an Open Field

Fifty-Three, Well Armed with Expertise

Fashion Finds No Favor in Your Heart (53)

Feelings Are Not Easily Counterfeited (53)

Fortune Often Will Return the Favor (53)

Forever Is a Metaphor for Now (54)

Fortune Leaves No Reason for Regret (54)

Fulfillment Is Entirely Up to You (54)

Fate Is a Consortium (55)

For You There Is No Greater Good than Beauty (55)

Fifty-Six Devotes Himself to Beauty

Forget that You Are Much Esteemed and Loved (56)

Flowers Flourish in Their Proper Clime (56)

Fifty-Seven's Not Afraid of Silence

Fear Might Well Be Likened to a Wall (57)

For What Have You Arrived upon This Shore (57)

Fifty-Eight Comes Often to the Table

Fifty-Eight Has Fields That Now Lie Fallow

Fifty-Eight Still Finds Delight in Learning

Fantasy Starts Running Out of Room (58)

For Those Who Love (58)

Fortune Comes in Many Shapes and Guises (58)

Fifty-Nine Takes Pleasure in Exposing

Find Yourself a Purpose and a Goal (59)

Fortune Is the Child of Will and Chance (59)

Sail On, O Ship of Dreams, into the Evening (60)

Silence at the Center of the Soul (60)

Sing, My Loved One! Sing of All the Glory (60)

Sixty Years Is Cause Enough to Sing

Sixty-One Still Sings of Love and Dreams

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day (61)

Shall There Be a Moment After All (61)

Sing of the Eternal Moment (62)

Sixty-Three Is Finished for the Evening

Sixty-Three Suspends Her Animation

Sing of Who and Where and What You Are (63)

Solitude Is Never Yours Alone (63)

Savor the Sweet Taste of Simply Being (64)

Sing a Song of Sweet but Silent Beauty (64)

Sing as Though a Choir of Angels Near (64)

Some Would Have the Courage of Their Dreams (64)

Sixty-Five Suspends Her Animation

Sing of All the Goodness You've Been Granted (65)

So May You Know the Pleasures of Your State (65)

Souls Seem to Stay the Same; the Body Ages (65)

Sixty-Six Is Now in Full Career

Sing of the New Morning of Your Life (66)

Some Find It Quite Sufficient to Endure (66)

Some Find Their Identity in Courage (66)

Sing of Love and Love-Sustaining Passion (67)

Sixty-Seven's in Her Golden Years

Sixty-Eight Sings Silently of Light

Sing of Passions Greater than the Self (68)

So May One Do Good That Does No Good (68)

Sing of Gardeners, Who Nurture Beauty (69)

Souls Are Sovereign in Their Own Domain (69)

Sing for All the Years You Have Been Granted (70)

Sing of Lasting Love, the Gift of Eden (70)

Some Pass Silently Across the Stage (70)

Salvation Is a Song That One Can Sing (71)

Sing of the Sweet Sunlight of the Soul (71)

Shake Up the World! It Could Use Some Shaking (72)

Silence Never Was a Long-Term Option (72)

Seventy-Three Is Always at the Ready

Seventy-Three Refocuses on Love

Seventy-Three Suspends Her Animation

Sing of Life That, Though It Has an End (73)

Sing Me an Old-Age Lullaby (74)

Single Life Is Hard for Those Who've Shared (75)

So Many Times I've Watched My Time Go By (75)

Seventy-Six Has Sown the Sacred Seed

Sing of the Grassroots Politics of Love (77)

Sole Proprietor and Only Inmate (77)

Songs Lend Thought the Persuasive Force of Beauty (77)

Sing of the Sweet Urge to Capture Beauty (78)