August 18, 2004

• The House of Pain: Redux. It’s difficult to sit up straight, and to type. I’ve told the guys at work, including my boss, that I have been having difficulty with my left arm lately, which seems to “go to sleep” all the time. Since Alex, our chief testing technician, retired about 3/4 of a year ago, I have been testing all the panels, including “torquing” tests which involve using a screwdriver or socket and wrench to tighten, and re-tighten, each bolt and screw in each panel, where a wire is inserted, to insure that no wire comes “loose” causing short circuits and problems. I used to build the panels, but this was over 10 years ago, and, as a “tweenior” at 51, not yet a senior, but not a spring chicken either, I live with day to day “aches and pains”. Late afternoon yesterday I began to get back pain in my left shoulder, and it persisted through the drive home. Last night, my left arm went numb, and the pain got so great, I couldn’t sit up or walk around without pain shooting through my upper body. I was in agony most of the night, and positioned myself on my la-z-boy after smearing my upper torso with Sports Ice in such a position that if I didn’t move, the pain went away. I did sleep soundly, but had to smear myself with the Sports Ice each time I woke up, to relieve the pain. The only “painkillers” in the house are aspirin, and I took a few of them. I believe I’m calling my doctor today and setting up an appointment, possibly urgent care if the pain persists all morning. I contemplated not even going in to work this morning, but one of the salesman told me he is accompanying his father in to the hospital this am where his dad is going to possibly have a leg amputated, so there won’t be anyone to answer phone calls. I also have five panels to test today, and dread what this is going to do to my left arm. I am reminded of my father’s condition in the years before his death in 1974. He was crushed by a runaway forklift and couldn’t walk for nearly a year, but he eventually was able to walk, and returned to his job as a warehouse manager. I refuse to believe this is “serious”, and will buy some Ibuprofen today, and try to forget the pain.

  
  

  This morning I am going to post a couple of the poems I transcribed over the weekend. I finally found out what was “wrong” with the Dreamweaver program, it was failing to send pages to my server because I didn’t have the firewall over-ride button selected, so now everything is working fine. I concentrated on finishing the output for 1974, since my latest poem,  “Summer’s End: A Freeform Elegy” is about my dad’s death in 74, yet I didn’t mention this fact in any of my poetry of the time when in grief. Hopefully my own pain will go away sometime today. I lived with my leg pain for many years before I had to have my hip replacement at 40, so I can weather this storm of pain for a while. I just hope there isn’t anything “really” wrong with me. Anyway, here are a couple of poems from 1974. I was 21 years old the year I lost my father.

  
  

  “Depression V”

  
  

  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri

  
  

  June 7th 1974

  
  

  When I’m feeling like the poetry’s all gone
  I like to sit down at my desk and remember
  when words spilled out like letters from a
  can of alphabet soup –
  When people would read and say, “God,
  I know what you mean,” and I’d think
  to myself that I wasn’t the lonliest
  person on Earth.
  When all the music sounded sweet and
  sadness didn’t necessarily mean depression.
  When life was simplistic and I didn’t
  know how you can lose your mind with
  alcohol and marijuana.
  When I dream at night I think of
  crazy things which have no relevance
  to life –
  When I go to work or school I find
  that friendship seems to be so artificial
  and I think at times that people
  do not mean anything to each other
  at all.
  
  I breathe my philosophies to everyone
  else and hope they can live better,
  yet when I leave I find the
  juices flow so swiftly from me
  and I feel like falling asleep
  and never waking up.
  
  What we used to call poetry comes so
  hard to me now. I seem to have so
  many thousands of emotions in me,
  yet they claw my brain and can’t get out.
  
  At one time I felt tears,
  and I knew what happiness was
  and how a friend could feel it
  
  Now I stand back (still telling people
  how they should react to love) but
  I myself am not relishing the
  benefits of my own philosophies.
  
  No longer shall I dwell on paper images
  And no longer shall I believe in
  plastic philosophies and dogeared bibles
  
  I shall know how it is to feel
  my existence someday.

  “Miles Lost In Transit”

  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
  November 9th 1974

  I
  
  Escaping unheralded into the realm
  
  Of lying emotions and forgotten realities
  
  Seething with passion as if reborn:
  
  Yet noticing nothing new
  
  And experiencing nothing exciting
  
  While transposing anxieties into
  
  Hopeful dreams –
  
  While yearning for that new meaning
  
  Of Life –
  
  While crossing the barrriers of
  
  Inescapable truths –
  
  One searches for words to
  
  Convey his meaning.
  Caught up – insoluble, in the world
  
  Of Humanized Paper-Dolls
  
  Reciting piano-rolled wisdoms
  
  And humming old tunes…
  
  Exercising individuality when
  
  Other halves are never together
  
  And razorblades and fast cars
  
  Glint noiselessly in the sun.
  
  Trying like hell to proclaim
  
  Freedom while escaping
  
  Platonic relationships which
  
  Never felt of emotion.
  Hating to turn back,
  
  And yet wishing that home
  
  Were around the corner again.
  II
  
  The nonrhyming heptameters
  
  Proclaiming true freedom
  
  From questioning and drudgery,
  
  For these am I aiming,
  
  Yet consistently I find that
  
  These freedoms are yet facades
  
  For truly repressed minds –
  
  Who yearn, like I, but who
  
  Never fulfull,
  
  Except in idle dreams.
  And idleness storming the
  
  Nebula of our existence -
  
  Manufacturing words out of
  
  Unintelligible monlsyllabic utterings
  
  And tearing the mind open
  
  With wind reaping cold, icy
  
  Factions of thought -
  
  I die each time it happens -
  
  And I find my escapes
  
  Inevitably turn back to
  
  The harshness of truth.
  III
  
  The questions which, unheeded,
  
  Return one by one,
  
  Then rush, in a cavalcade
  
  Through my very being –
  
  These will be active
  
  Even as the world will be
  
  passive.
  And they will turn the most
  
  Concise poem into a torrent
  
  Of words.
  When a visage can shine through
  
  The darkness of the mind
  
  Aided by the myriads of thoughts
  
  Which pierce the head into
  
  Oblivion,
  
  	I can remember
  
  	And in these thoughts relax
  
  	Until such time as a
  
  	Thought
  
  	Or a motion
  
  Or a deed of a word or a noise
  
  Snaps me into reality again.
  Then the visages are faded blurs
  
  And all passages of escape
  
  are closed.
  Lying emotions, which reconcile
  
  But for an instant…
  
  Forgotten realities which change
  
  The face of life only in the mind
  
  One can only hope to be reborn
  
  And awaken into a world of
  
  True Feeling.
  IV
  
  But the truth of the situation
  
  And the outweighing of the reason
  
  Will dictate nothing new
  And nothing exciting was
  
  Experienced
  
  At all.

  • 8:36 am
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