October 24, 2009

• ElectricPoetry: A Selection from the Aughts

  

  "IFONLY Is Not A Word"
  Poetry for Regina by Michael F. Nyiri
  Written this first day of Spring, March 20, 2000 at 9:15a.m. mst

  
  If only we had met in the flesh those many years ago,
  But we did not.
  And spilt milk spoils if not wiped away.
  If only the world had stopped in it's orbit and let us connect earlier
  But it did not.
  And if worlds cannot spin, then the gravity of the situation fails,
  And everything flies off into the Universe,
  There is nothing left to stay.

  If only perfection could have been reached earlier
  Then perhaps past regrets would be forgotten.
  But IFONLY is just not a word.
  And thinking this way is absurd.
  I count the blessings on the one hand, and forget the past apace,
  There is no fault in wondring', but the present shows your face.
  And your face is wondrous in it's beauty, and the careworn tide of time,
  IFONLY is certainly not in my vocabulary,
  And brittle memory can be forever erased.

  I sit in your tower, awaiting your return,
  And then I am off to what in an earlier time I might have called "home"
  Knowing full well, that "home" is not a place that exists yet,
  As sure as IFONLY is not a word.
  "Home" is a future destination.
  I would want that future to reside in the present.
  And "home" will be a present for us presently.
  Thinking about what might have been in the past is useless,
  As useless as writing those words which do not exist.
  When those words are spoken, then nothing makes sense.
  I will forget those useless words and think only of you.
  I am grateful that we meet now in eternity,
  And home is where our hearts will play forever.

   

  "Full Moon On Hallowe'en Night"
  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
  Wednesday, October 31st, 2001 5:25 p.m. pst
  (poetry on Hallowe'en night)

  
  Amidst the horrorific feelings that the world is feeling now
  On a Hallowe'en night, where the full moon shines bright
  I am locked in a struggle between the heart and mind
  For comprehension of the meaning
  What is right?
  What can I find?

  I am rational, and ready for the answers that I seek
  Who answers clearly now, and who can wonder how
  This feeling that I'm feeling is wrong, and so unclear
  I'm helpless, hurt, and angry
  Have we dealt the final blow?
  Is humanity doomed to despair?

  It will all come out in the wash, I will proclaim
  It has to be all right, we will prevail into the night
  But something tells me friends it is the beginning of the end
  I've read it since inception
  Proclamations bourne of second sight
  And disparate messages to send

  But as the neighbor's kids are screaming as they always do
  On a Hallowe'en night, whern the full moon shines bright
  Under a haze of suspicion and deep regret
  It doesn't really matter
  Who knows if anything's all right
  And someday hasn't happened yet.

  (short, sweet, sad, solid, another poor excuse for poetry from a conflicted soul.)

   

  "poetryblog1"
  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
  may 5th, 2002 7:45 a.m. pst

  
  changing
  changing
  changing cars changing computers changing living space
  changing everything these days
  thjought even about changing jobs
  change comes with the season, the daybreak, the passing of time
  and time's joke gets less funny as the years pass by
  time's joke?
  i just turned forty nine.
  FORTY NINE
  one year shy of one half of a century
  as one who embraces a universal pantheistic mindset
  i can
  understand the concept of geologic time
  living one half of one hundred years tends
  to give a person a very interesting concept of time
  the joke is that we die
  we CEASE
  to
  exist
  and it can happen quicker than a person can hit send on a

   

  "Dancing Through The Night"
  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri 
  October 22, 2004 : 6:33 a.m. pdt

  
  I can scarcely surmise that when I glimpsed deep in your eyes,
  Gave my heart a stirring hiccup, as I pick up lost regrets.
  In the glory of the morning, as the sun awakes a-dawning
  I remember autumn flurries, no feigned worries, whiles, or frets.

  It is highly circumstantial, but your presence was substantial
  As I rarely countered mem'ry, gath'ring every thought in mind
  You were sighing surely simple, as the sun glanced off your dimple
  And my love bespoke pure passion, 'twas the fashion, curtly, kind.

  We danced for golden hours upon the mellow moonlight bowers,
  Twirling tight terpsichories, bright billowing ecstasies across the floor
  Even though it was a dream for sure, elation draped your form so pure
  It couldn't end, no, right away, to feel you sway through Heaven's door

  If pleasant purloined thoughts gave forth a feeling can't be caught
  And your presence, efferevescence, a Golden slyph sifts through the night
  I can say I half remember you, as memory's tricks shine through the dew
  And surrender to this mem'ry, the tide to stem we make it right.

  I can scarcely recall that when I answered your call
  My tender heart a beating, thus repeating of my love
  In the glory of your beauty, wine and words and wanton duty,
  Beckoning the call from Adam's fall, a steadfast warning from above

   

  
  "It's Elemental"
  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
  November 25th, 2005 10:45 a.m. pst

  
  Air
  The air surrounds us, filling the atmosphere around the globe on which we live.
  We breathe the air.
  It lifts our lungs, and permeates us with the sacred breath of life
  The air is filled with life
  Bacteria which helps to combat other
  more insidious forms
  Sometimes these more harmful forms overrule
  and scatter death through the air
  Life, death, the cycle neverending
  The air brings us weather patterns
  Patterns which speak to us with their
  regularity and permanence
  Until the next sudden storm
  teaches us that our very existence
  can be extinguished
  by the
  very
  air
  that
  we
  breathe

  Earth
  The earth expands before us, giving us a place to live
  and imbuing us with sustenance and nourishment
  We till the earth
  We plant our food, the very provender of our lifestyle
  We feast, and grow, and multiply
  The spirit of the earth grows and moves,
  Changing ever so slowly as to be imperceptable
  And we scatter to the ends of the earth
  Sometimes the earth is more suddenly active
  and cracks and crevices appear and
  swallow the very life
  that
  exists
  by it's
  canyons
  and
  on it's
  fields

  Water
  Water flows around the earth,
  Slaking our thirst and pouring
  into our bodies, extending our survival
  interacting with our very molecules
  a substance of which we are made
  and which makes us drink heartily
  We base our transportation
  and our economy on water
  the waterwheels of society
  turn faster and faster
  Rain falls from the sky
  and fills us
  Yet these rains can
  flood our earth and drown
  our progeny and possibility
  The very water
  which sustains us
  can
  serve
  to quench our
  life as well
  as thirst

  Fire
  Fire warms and comforts us
  And energy is consumed and exhumed
  by it's fickle embers
  Fire, captured and kindled
  unleashes great burning desires
  and causes our cold winters
  to become more bearable
  Fire tamed and tortured
  helps mold our very cities and
  give us unparalleled growth
  as people
  Sometimes fire burns out of control
  and no amount of water can
  end it's marching fury
  Carried on the wind and
  settling on the land
  it burns everything in it's path
  The very warmth
  that comforts
  causes burning
  calamity
  and
  death

  Although man may sometimes seem judgemental
  Air, earth, fire, and water stay wildly elemental

  ---

  BEHIND THE POETRY: This is a selection of poems from the Aughts. Sorry, no new poetry this time. "IFONLY is Not A Word" is the only poem I've written "timestamped" in another time zone, the Mountain zone, and was written for Regina on the first day of Spring 2000 while I was visiting her in Albuquerque. This is a love poem written in a bit of a different way. There is rhyme in the poem, but it's not immediately apparent. "Full Moon On Halowe'en Night" was written a month after 9/11, in 2001, and a lot of the frightening feelings of that day are mirrored in the poem. "poetryblog1" is another in a long line of "computer dreams" poems I began in the mid 80s. The "joke" in the poem is that it isn't finished. As I joke about death being so quick, the last line "hit send on a" (computer key) is unfinished, as if death took the writer before he could "finish" the "poetryblog" by submitting the post. The next poem, from 2004, one of over 60 poems I wrote that glorious year, is an attempt to mimic the rhythms of songwriter Cole Porter. The poem is written in ABCB rhyme, but  includes AA internal rhyme as well, in each line, giving the poem a lyrical feel. The last selection, "It's Elemental" emphasizes my ongoing comparisons between geology and humankind, and in it I describe how the elements can both help and hinder mankind.  MFN/ppf

  Posted: October 22, 2009 7:14 AM

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