September 21, 2010

• ElectricPoetry: The Deaths of My Parents

  

  ¶ I am posting two poems which I have previously posted. ”Summer’s End” has been posted five times. “No Stroke of Luck” has been posted four. They have only been presented together once, in 2005, for an FG post. Neither has been posted on this blog since 2007. These are incredibly personal poems which deal with my father’s and mother’s deaths and were difficult and emotionally draining to write. I hadn’t written a lot of poetry concerning my mother’s death in such detail as I do in the second poem here, “No Stroke of Luck”, until I wrote it in early 2005. Dad died at 54 when I was 21, and Mom passed away a couple of years later after a long stay in a nursing home following a bilateral stroke. (which completely paralyzes the victim.) Both pieces are rather long. The poetic reason why I call these “freeform elegies” is because a standard elegy is written in elegaic couplets, alternating dactylic hexameter and pentameter. I wrote these a little more than half year apart and cared only to express my emotion, which I had not really done concerning the subject matter, until that time, and didn’t want to have to think about form. MFN

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  “Summer’s End: A Freeform Elegy”
  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri 
  Saturday, August 14th, 2004 : 9:53 a.m. pdt

   

  A World’s Fair in Vancouver, the destination
  Out from four years hellish study and no degree
  A vacation with four friends, pile in the car
  Forget the petulant bookish atmosphere
  Rent in twain by Mother’s lapse into rigidity
  And Father’s nightly cries to heaven
  Forget these stifled cries, as young manhood
  Surges forward, get in the car,
  Forget forget forget but don’t forget
  To give out the phone numbers
  For the campgrounds along the way
  In case of emergency break free of fear
  And answer the phone.

  Tents and cookouts, sunset dinners
  In the shadow of Hearst’s castle
  Watching skittering squirrels run along the sand
  Forget the pains of suffering youth
  And the shards of agony suffered by my parents
  As the great journey begins for life
  A life with common bonds of friendship
  Free from the common bonds of wretchedness
  Born by my immediate progenitors
  Forget pain for happiness,
  And don’t forget to give out the phone numbers
  And don’t forget to be available,
  If circumstance holds true to terrible form

  Photographs of Golden Gates, with buddies
  Arms encircled round fellowship’s experience
  A long drive into the hilly terrain
  To the evening’s natural campground
  Where, irrespective of common colds received,
  A bounteous dinner of fried fish awaits
  Forget the malificent forebodings from home,
  And relish Nature’s permanence in the mountains
  Chilly, hilly, bright fire crackles
  Spewing embers heavenward, as the crumpled piece
  of paper with the phone number is straightened
  Miles away, and the number dialed.

  An early evening into the tent, as the common cold
  Obstructs enjoyment further of the evening’s delights.
  But the phone rings in the Parks Office
  At the foot of the hill, and the Ranger pilots his jeep
  Up to the camp, which is settling for the night.
  One of the four lifts the flap to my tent, and calls
  The phone has rung, and my brother and sister need me.

  Mother has been hospitalized for what seems like years,
  Although it has only been three, the same three in which
  College studies seemed so banal and so dictatorial,
  The same three in which Father has succumbed to two more
  Heart attacks to add to his list.
  Mother has been at Death’s door, and the phone numbers
  Have been left in case she passes
  while the vacation is in progress.
  Like the boy scout, I am properly prepared,
  And face the inevitable as the buddies drive
  Toward the Ranger’s shack at the foot of the hill.

  Vancouver suddenly seems far away,
  A playgound for more stable times,
  For frivolous and felicitous fancy, far away
  Far away.
  Far from any enlightened bright and cheerful time,
  A phone booth from hell opens it’s maw to engulf me.
  The four nervously pace around the booth, as I dial home.
  My brother is sudden and still, breathing the words
  Sickeningly subtle, and sorrowfully poignant,
  “Father is Dead”
  Not Mother, for whom we have planned
  So precisely, but the other parent, for whom life
  Has played it’s last dirty trick.
  Father, who prayed to the Almighty each night, that
  Mother’s paralysis would end, and peace be restored.
  Father, the rock, impervious to life’s shackled
  Resistance, calmly evincing life’s purposefulness
  And now robbed of it, by another of his
  Heart’s attacks.
  Father, for whom I never thought Death would call
  Is lying on his back in the Mortuary,
  And Brother calls me back home to the House of Pain.

  The buddies pitch in to purchase the plane fare,
  “I’ve never flown in a plane before”, I mutter,
  Another exciting life experience awaits,
  But thoughts are not in the fuselage or on the wing,
  But miles South on a slab in Whittier,
  With his eyes closed forever.
  And Mother, does she know, Does she grieve
  Behind her lifeless rigidity, and calm
  But tear stained countenance, is she pained?
  The flight rends me from my bucolic reverie
  Quickly depositing me back firmly
  In the House of Pain, where Brother and Sister
  Calmly, solidly, stoically, shake my hand
  Vancouver fades fast away,
  And plans have to be made, and a trip to Mother’s side
  And all semblance of familial permanence fades as well
  Into the misty mordant memories of youth and value.

  The Summer of 1974 wore long and greivous, unsettling,
  Starting with a joyous rapture, and ending with
  The shearing of familial peace and good will.
  Mother’s eyes glassy with hurt and questioning,
  She died that day during the visit for me,
  And like a spectre, I saw the life drain from those eyes,
  Green glassy mirrors no longer reflecting my soul
  Death came twice and I left forever

  The sting of perdurable ecstasy unravelled
  The unbid promise of Summer’s unreadable memories
  Lost in the occurrences of time’s plodding callowness
  Staining the soft white of existential illusion
  Death claimed one in purpose, and another in perception
  No more would vibrant vacation volley toward exhilaration
  In my malleable mind, as I grieve.

  But Summers end eventually, followed fast by the Fall,
  And Winter’s discontent and folly’s vehicle,
  Driving us into the insanity of purposeless abandon.
  Empty nights faded into fickle mornings,
  And in no time at all, Mother passed, as did the summer,
  Into oblivion, with a marker at her head, next to her husband.
  Together in peace, away from all worry,
  Peace and quiet at last

  I hardly ever think of Vancouver, and the Fair,
  In lasting agony, I grieve for Parents buried where
  In banks of hilly terrain, neath willows weeping
  So sad and sorrowed tears beneath my eyelids seeping
  Life is sudden, filled with joys and sorrows send
  Seasons pass, with poignant dreams of Summer’s end.

   

  “No Stroke of Luck”
  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
  March 9, 2005 4:02 p.m. pst

  
  I
  She wanted to “escape the Mexicans”
  No matter that Los Angeles was part of Mexico once
  No matter that most of the street signs were in Spanish
  As was the name of the town
  No matter that my siblings and I had made many friends
  (and a lot of Mexican descent) and really didn’t want to leave home
  No matter
  Dad deferred to Mom’s rants and uneasy nervousness
  Dad dialed the number of the real estate agent
  Dad secured a place in Glendora, far from “the Mexicans”
  And though the family felt ripped from existence in El Monte
  Torn from friendships and high school shenanigans
  I didn’t mind too much, as I graduated that year,
  And college life loomed fifty miles away the next semester.
  Sis and bro took it all badly, and emotions erupted
  Escalating erratic behaviors
  Eviscerating complacent dreamscapes
  And planting the family in unforseen circumstance

  The nightly dinners grew upsetting,
  But Dad deferred to Mom’s state of paranoia after all
  Sis and bro became rebels
  And I didn’t pay too much attention to it all
  When confronted with the brick walls of academe
  Which collected my attention spanning the new decade

  Mom was growing more agitated
  I’m sure Dad and my siblings noticed more than I
  And I, her “little genius” and most beloved
  grew farther from her, and this probably
  added to her insumountable troubling episodes
  But I hardly noticed
  Preferring to spend time at the library
  between school classes and worktime hours

  I would get home late at night,
  open my own door with my own key,
  and slip inside my own “apartment” within our home
  I would get up early and bathe,
  then climb in the car for the fifty mile drive to school
  before eight in the morning when class started.
  I didn’t see a lot of the buildup
  I didn’t pay attention to the wrenching dissimilarity
  of Mother’s actions.
  The slow nervous laughter of unforseen calamity
  didn’t pierce through my hedonistic armor
  The fast sure slipping into manic obsession
  didn’t register with me, but it did with my family

  Quarrels seemed to grow in number and intensity
  I would quarrel with my siblings,
  gaining chokeholds on bro in the kitchen
  I would quarrel with my Mother,
  Even as her nervous calamity grew larger
  as a black cloud of coincidental animosity
  And the night before she was struck down
  Was one of the nastiest quarrels in our household

  
  II
  That Christmas was the last of feigned happy times
  opening presents which presented a modicum of laughter
  and less tears than usual
  But come the spring, the evil sprung up again,
  Sis and bro were finally getting settled
  And high school daze descended upon them in Glendora.
  They were children, really, and the pleasant auras of
  new friendships and undiscovered lands
  occupied their misery and supplanted it entirely
  Like any older brother, I would greet their new friends,
  And make friends of my own, including sis’s best friend
  who became one of my girlfriends.

  The night of long knives in our household
  followed a trip to the medical center the day before
  I had driven Mom in for a checkup
  because she “didn’t feel right”
  After all, she seldom “felt right” in those last days
  leading to the stroke
  The doctor (after an interminable wait) gave her a
  clean bill of health
  “nervous problems”
  take two of these and call me in the morning

  I can’t remember the subject of the quarrel
  Only that there was one, pitting Mom against me
  And at 19 I felt I should finally “get my say”
  After all I didn’t need to be in the (new) family home
  I could be in a dorm at SC with my friends.
  I certainly didnt’ need the fifty mile drive.
  I felt we shouldn’t have moved anyway
  Just like everybody else (except Mom)
  I went to bed crying, and so did Mom,
  but we didn’t “make up”

  the stroke hit her the next morning,
  and Dad didn’t go into work, but took her to the hospital,
  which in essence she never left for another four years.

  
  III
  I found out when I got home from school in the evening
  We visited Mom in her room at Kaiser Permanente
  Slick floors and the ever present alcohol smell
  White robes and IV tubes
  the first stroke was not bilateral
  Only one side of her body was rigid
  Memory has clouded and I don’t know if she could speak
  that first night
  but in time she grew stronger, and she did come home
  for about a week sometime later

  until the bilateral stroke finished her sentence

  
  IV
  Time has not been kind to a memory I forgot years ago
  The particulars of bad news tend to filter fast
  as sands hurtling through an hourglass with a
  foot wide opening
  Days fade to weeks fade to months
  This was no stroke of luck,
  And it ended quick her pluck,
  Mom’s body took it’s toll, and the fee was very great

  With a bilateral, all muscles freeze
  There is no speech, nor would it seem recognition
  Nor did she appear as Mom to me anymore
  The family put up great facades for the nightly trips
  which seem to have lasted for years, but there were only two
  From nightly, to weekly, for sis, bro, and me
  But Dad kept the vigil, relating to unheard ears
  the events of the day.
  Nothing was normal, my grades began to suffer
  Dad kept having more of his heart attacks
  as the pressure burdened him so
  Mom was relegated from hospital to nursing home
  Money fled the bank accounts, both hers and Dad’s

  The smell always overwhelmed me during the visits
  And I can’t say I looked forward to them at all
  They were a hindrance in an otherwise full life at school
  And with friends, discovering booze, dope, rock and roll and
  sometime romance, the “other life” rarely made an appearance

  Two years of visits, and I needed a vacation
  A vacation from everything.
  Young people are filled with angst and ennui as a rule anyway
  And my situation seemed to fill me with insufferable agony
  So I left for a vacation in the Summer of 74
  And Dad, who never stopped his nightly trips
  Had his 13th and last heart attack when I was
  somewhere north of Frisco camping out.

  
  V
  Mom of course couldn’t attend the funeral,
  as she was hooked up to a dialysis machine
  The day was overcast even though it was the middle of summer
  when I, my sis, and my bro trekked to the nursing home
  to tell Mother the grief stricken news
  She couldn’t cry, but she did
  And something within me snapped shut,
  I made a terrible decision that day,
  One which I regret to this day,
  In fact, the only regret I harbor after living
  over a half century is this one.
  I never visited Mom again after that
  She lost not only her husband but her oldest son
  I felt as if she had been gone for two years,
  And for me, cutting the umbilical held finality
  Her eyes looked like dark marbles
  Her sweet dispostion had quietly melted
  somewhere between El Monte and Glendora
  She was a cipher, a cardboard facsimile
  She was not my Mother
  And I left that afternoon never to return

  
  VI
  I have called myself a poet,
  But poetry seldom tells the truth when the truth
  Cuts as deeply as this does now pondering the outcome
  I am sure as salvation that I have been forgiven
  By sweet Mother’s soul
  I am positive that I have nothing to worry about in perpetuity
  That I have not become an evil being because of my youthful
  naivete.
  Two more years and she finally passed away, softly, and with no troubles
  Her death certificate reads heart failure
  Her broken heart stopped beating at last.
  I didnt’ attend her funeral
  To me she was already dead

  
  VII
  Poetry spoke to me in the years following at times
  Yeilding petty purpose when confronted with the ills
  of my behaviors
  My suicidal urges at once escalated, and thanks to
  good friends, and counseling, and prayers to Jesus
  in time I was able to come to grips with the situation.

  In time my sis, my bro and I got back together,
  but only for a little while, before the family completely
  rent itself out of existence.
  I gave my sister away at her wedding.
  I made love to my brother’s female friend
  We split the furniture in the house three ways
  (I had to sell the house following my Father’s death when
  I was made executor of Mother’s estate at age 20
  so Mom could gain Medicare benefits to pay
  for her stay in the nursing home,
  which cost almost ten grand a month if memory serves.)

  Of course in time everything heals, including bad memories
  And I forgot Mother’s face and Father’s care.
  I slipped deeper into an alcohol and drug fueled abandonment
  which didn’t straighten out until well into the next decade.

  The decades passed,
  And here I am, still here, still writing, still upset
  But no matter what ever happens
  I cannot turn back the hands of time,
  And I cannot apologize for my inept decisions
  All I can say is I’m sorry, Mother, for escaping you
  As you tried to escape those “Mexicans” in El Monte
  You were my rock for many years, and when you
  started to crumble, I just couldn’t take it,
  And I fled
  I’ve been fleeing ever since
  I know I can never go back home
  because it doesn’t exist
  And will never exist anymore

  sorrow seldom soothes the savage hurt
  I cry with dry eyes
  and lift my voice to you in Heaven
  Where absolution sighs
  And let this be an altar to my ineptitude
  thirty years later.

  Posted: September 20, 2010 9:28 PM

  • 12:28 am
  • 21 Comments