July 31, 2004

• I can't believe it's 6:00 p.m. already. I just woke up scant hours ago. (It was late, actually, at about 8am, but I didn't get out of the house till past 2pm, for lunch, and I haven't "done" anything except watch a little DVD action ("Hellboy", which I shall have to add to the "review" section. It's getting an 8 of 10 and is almost as good, maybe even as good as "Spiderman".) and reading blog entries. Since I got this Xanga site on Memorial Day, I have been so astounded at the "community aspect" of the site management. The program itself promotes interaction amongst the community, unlike Blogger. Blogger only recently began a "comments" feature, I believe, and I only just found out about it. My Blogger blogs have gone through so many changes in software for writing the dang things that I have had to tweak the code a few times. Now I only use this blog, and since I have, with the promise of interactivity built in, I have found the hit counter for AllThingsMike increase, and have added a few members of the Xanga community to my ElectricPoetry Group on Yahoo. I am also spending more time blogging. I used to go for days, weeks, or sometimes months at a time without adding anything to the Blogger Blogs. Sometimes my website would stay stagnant for weeks also. Today, since I am still "destroying my website" as I mentioned in yesterday's post,  I spent most of my online time "reading". It's easy to fall into "reading people" like books on Xanga. Here's a little something I wrote in 1976,

  
  

  

  
  

  Reading Me Like a Book

  
  

  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri, January 16 1976

  
  

   

  
  

  Could someone remove the tattered binding
  Staining my yellowed pages
  And read those words which once made sense
  But now seem like collective gibberish

  
  

  Oh, but for a moment ponder,
  And recite those faded memories
  And languish in the feelings of
  Old emotions

  
  

  Then read me- touch my skin
  And rattle off of how I'm deeply
  etched
  Of how the poetry sends thoughts
  to heaven
  And the world is only a resting
  place for my desires

  
  

  Write a book report about me
  Take it to school and get an A
  Because it was an easy novel to read
  Descriptions on every page
  Excitement in every chapter

  
  

  The skipped the parts that were
  really harrowing
  And relied on heavy tearjerkers
  about love and doubt

  
  

  It's all there on paper
  So read me like a book
  Because I've tried and failed.
  It's all in a foreign language
  The syntax is all wrong

  
  

  I've asked you to do this
  Because I've forgotten how.
  Look in my mirror an tell
  me what I see.
  Listen to my voice and tell
  me what I hear.
  Feel my heartbeat and tell
  me why my hands are outstretched

  
  

  Read my final chapters
  Because I am afraid

  
  

  Did the author understand what
  he had written?
  

  
  

  The amazing stories I read remind me of the promise of the internet back when I began AllThingsMike in the late 90s, back when the wild west of the world wide web was untamed, but when image manipulation and presentation was not easy and not even an option for most folks. Now youngsters, oldsters, and tweensters, men, women, and three headed sarahs alike are blogging, and laying their lives on the line on the page, with some rather interesting results. I think perhaps the author didn' know what he had written until now, and many authors are writing many stories, and I enjoy reading them all. From my ElectricPoetry Group Page: "I invite all poets and readers to come read me like a book, and add your own pages to our shared story of experience and inspiration. Your age does not matter. Only your willingness to love and feel love, and to rebound from your deepest depths with words. I love to write, and I love to read. These are two of the sweetest things one of us can share with the other. "

  
  

  Amen. Now I think I'll bo back to "HellBoy" a helluva grand comic book movie. Ron Pearlman IS Hellboy.

  • 9:24 pm
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