Patriotic Wording Ideas with Poems

There are over 1500 poems at Poems for Free, many written for special occasions, which you are free to use for any personal or non-commercial purpose. Please also feel free to modify them (such as changing names, hair or eye color, sex or number) to suit your needs.

All poems: copyright by Nicholas Gordon.

Identity Requires Memory

Identity requires memory.
No less than people, nations must recall
Days past, lest they wander witlessly,
Erased each moment, guided by the wind,
Pushed by lusts no wisdom can forestall.
Events are choices one cannot rescind,
Nor can forgetting consequence forego.
Despite one’s wish, the past is not behind:
Even now, the heroes work their will,
Not needing us, nor tamed by what we know.
Contain your cavils, then, and snide thoughts still,
Even as we celebrate our story,
Demanding all the clarity and skill
A scholar can sustain in heart and mind,
Yielding what for now is history.

Innocence Is like an Open Door

Innocence is like an open door:
Not safe, but requisite to being free.
Darlings of our rhetoric, we wonder,
Evil as the rest but for our words.
Perhaps we are insatiable for more,
Each dreaming of what pleasures there might be,
Needing, in the passion of our plunder,
Delights that drive the destinies of Kurds.
Even so, the freedom we are for
Now stands for all a common legacy,
Called forth by masters tearing worlds asunder,
Embraced by slaves consumed with righteous hunger,
Destined to undo those whom it serves.
All innocents must venture out to sea,
Yearning for an ever-distant shore.

July 4th Is a Day for Barbeques

July 4th is a day for barbeques
Underneath an unforgiving sun;
Later, fireworks, perhaps the news,
Yawns, some love, and then the day is done.
For most it is a day for celebration
Of something so familiar that its grace,
Unnoticed as a routine revelation,
Remains interred in its accustomed place.
This sweet neglect of what sustains a life
Has all the confidence of man and wife.

Just Words Declared Our Freedom Long Ago

Just words declared our freedom long ago,
Untouched by time, untenanted by will,
Leaning to the winds that eastward blow,
Yearning for their independence still.
There was no truth in them, not even then,
Harbingers of hope long since betrayed,
Ever the disguise of gentlemen,
Fashion for a yearly masquerade.
O judge them harshly, for they are but lies,
Unworthy of the dream that gave them birth!
Regard not their pretensions, but their ties
To those who would be lords upon the earth,
Hard souls as ever mouthing freedom's cries.

To the Founding Fathers

Your light still lingers in our distant morning,
A star that we perceive across the void.
We chart our passage by your words, still burning
Long after your bright core has been destroyed.
No longer do we speak of "natural" rights,
Nor can we think that Reason guides our will.
We've been through far too many gruesome nights
To hope we have reduced our lust to kill.
Yet hope remains the engine of our fire,
Hope that someday all of us will be
Happy in the least that we require:
Well-fed, well-housed, safe, secure, and free.
This dream we still pursue. Though darkness come,
Your wisdom, hope, and courage through us run.