January 11, 2007

• ElectricPoetry Post

  

   

  "Song About A Man I Know"
  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
  1971 (17 years old)

  
  Lovers little stranger
  Sitting by the roadside
  Hoping all his dreams come true
  .Making up his fantasies
  Wallowing in worries
  Not much more can turn him blue.

  Lover's little stranger waits
  He knows he's just a little late
  He tries so hard to understand his fate.

  Lover's little stranger
  Sitting by the roadside
  Flashing back his life of old.
  Making ups his fantasies
  Wallowing in worries
  Not much more can make him bold.

  Tried but true's too good for him
  His heart is strong but not his whim
  He spends his time alone all feeling grim.

  Lover's little stranger
  Standing up so rightly
  Trying hard to make a start.
  Throwing away fantasies
  Still he stands with worries
  Not much more stands in his heart.

  Lover's little stranger cries
  He waits a while then dabs his eyes
  He lives with all his hows and whys.

  Lover's little stranger
  Sitting by the roadside
  Waiting for good luck to break.
  Making up his fantasies
  Wallowing in worries
  Not much more can stranger take.

   

  
  "Where can we find the love poems? anymore"
  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
  December 13, 1977 11 a.m.

  
  I've scaled the tallest peaks of yore,
  And crawled till Sol had lost her rays
  I conquered armies by the score
  All I'm left with are my cliches.
  The moment's meditations
  Expand past finite time
  I lose recurring visions
  No one to solve this crime

  In speculative, romantic years gone by
  I cherished dear my inclination
  And now, I fear, I breathe a sigh
  I'm left with no infatuation.
  I once wrote long ago
  "Hey love, don't pass me by."
  Where does all this romance go?
  I wonder as I cry.

  I wandered through the forests vast
  And suffered pains of unrequite
  I've accomplished much in poems past
  Now there's no gallantry left in sight
  I wrote so long ago
  "Love, talk with me a while."
  I guess she's gone forever
  I feebly attempt a smile.

   

  "Untitled"
  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
  December 27, 1982 5:10 p.m

  
  A bright beacon of hope shines off the
  shimmering shrinkwrap adorning a new
  package of lined but unworded writing
  paper.

  A new year, replete with with same
  beacon, always shines into my head
  with the urge to write, & let that
  writing contain Urgent messages to
  The world at large.

  By & by I have questioned myself while
  deluding my existence and knowing
  how I could rise above my anxieties.

  I might have accomplished this.

  If the accomplishment can be borne
  into the written word then a
  true accomplishment will have been made.

  Let's see now.........
     where to begin.

   

  "The Breath of Life"
  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
  January 11, 2007 6:43 a.m. pst

  
  We breathe,
  first encompassing a cry,
  somewhat belabored
  and finally full,
  a measure for measure
  the bellows of being
  the soft inhale and exhale of subsistance

  So it goes
  from the first year to the last,
  heaving the chest with life
  regulating the air
  permitting our minds to cogitate and reason
  allowing our hearts to love with each beat
  inhale
  exhale
  through wakefulness
  and repose

  The body eventually
  degenerates,
  ignoring the mind's consternation
  rebuffing the heart's caring nature
  and breath becomes brittle,
  belaboring more,
  becoming hoarse
  expectorating
  wheezing
  winding down

  So it goes
  as the final curtains are drawn
  and the valedictory is prepared
  the breath of existence slows
  with a subtle shallowness
  until,
  without respect for heart or mind,
  the cessation arrives
  and we inhale the final breath
  from the surface of terra firma

  Our body is prepared
  for internment in that same earth
  from which we breathed so bounteously

  Inhalation, the breath of life
  Exhalation, the elixer of expiration
  So it goes
  So it goes
  So it goes

  ---

  BEHIND THE POETRY: "Song About a Man I Know" from my senior year in high school, is a song, and is in actuality a thinly veiled "suicide poem", which is not so evident, but the last line: "Not much more can stranger take" is the clue. "Where can we find the love poems? anymore", from 1977, was written during one of those long stretches when I was alone, craving a relationship, and coming to the conclusion that no matter how many poems I wrote, true love would never find me. It is still one of my own favorite pieces, even though I was 24 when I wrote it. My favorite line is "All I'm left with are my cliches". The poem references another poem, "Rushing on By", from 1971. The word "unrequite" in the second line of the third stanza, is made up, and does not exist. I added "Untitled" from 1982 because it's the new year, and this was written about the promise of the new year and of composing the new year's poetry. Although I have not written my "Poem for the New Year 2007" yet, which will be one in a series of poems begun back in 1974, "The Breath of Life" is my first poem written this year, and was composed in about a half hour this morning. My roommate is about ready to go through his third round of chemotherapy. And I recently read an archived entry on Susan's (thereluctantsinger) site, mentioning a man she knew who was dying of cancer, and I had asked her for an update. Her current entry told me the gentleman had just passed into infinity, and reading this news on her post inspired the wriitng of the poem. MFN 
  

  • 10:38 am
  • 15 Comments