May 16, 2012

  • ElectricPoetry: A new poem and an old one

    ElectricPoetry Banner 30

    "Assessment Again"
    Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
    May 13th, 2012, 1:18 p.m. pdt (begin)
    May 14th, 2012, 6:42 a.m. pdt (conclude)


     
    The longer we inhabit our world
    The more hours, days, years clocked into our personal odometer
    The shorter our attention span
    The leaner our understanding
    The more we make attempts to catch up
    The horizon just keeps receding in the distance

    Memories so ancient
    Purpose so isolated
    Advice and lessons remorph into questions and mistakes
    As years creep unheeded into calendar existence
    Wisdom shines her lamp on the balding head of melancholy
    And laughs because we're forgetting what advice wisdom brings
    and only ask questions in return

    We don't want to make any more stupid mistakes
    Life wasn't going to be easy, we knew that
    But at least something was supposed to get easier,
    Wasn't it?

    Moreso the questions disappear yet remain,
    like an overused metaphor 
    Elegaic diatribes, intelligent assessments
    Simply txt on the touchscreen of life
    I wish I could remember when I became disposable
    Culturally inadequate
    Unable to communicate
    Choked to perfection
    by a world I didn't create
    and hardly understood

    Did the inhabitants change?
    Or just multiply till they ceased to make sense?
    Did memory stay intact?
    Or did it slightly slip into shallower waters
    now evaporating

    No wonder wisdom maintains that at some point
    It's easier to close one's eyes and accept the inevitable
    I've been pondering the end since the beginning
    Typing the same thoughts into eternity
    And reading those same thoughts
    written by the scribes of lost memories past
    penned as they too
    approached the assessments of purposeless ponderings

    The cycle certainly ceases in serentity
    And on the other side of the door we'll perceive our perfection
    As I will terminally write, and as those before me wrote so long ago
    When their infinities stretched father than the horizon
    and before the sun sank forever into metaphor's ocean

     

    "The Cane But Touches the Cement"
    Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
    1971 (18 years old)


    Wrinkled old white-haired rumple-suited
    Man standing on the streetcorner
    Waiting for a bus.
    His tie is tied wrong.
    His glasses are crooked.
    He's a streetlamp by the roadside
    A blade of grass on a hill
    A tree in the forest
    A spectre
    Yet he's alive
        And no one knows it.

    Looking out at a world he's seen age.
    Who knows what goes on in his head?
    Where did his life go so quickly
    For men to reason he's
        Just part of the scenery?

    And he is -
    Simply a hitching post
    For eyes to rest on but a moment
    Then fleetingly move to another subject.

    The bus comes and he disappears forever.

    Posted: May 14, 2012 6:45 AM

    BEHIND THE POETRY:  Hmmmm. Literature on Xanga. Up for a day. No comments. (1 recommend, thank you James) Oh well. I hadn't penned a BTP this morning, so this will be an attempt to "update the timestamp" and add the commentary. These poems, the first written this morning, and the second written when I was in high school, could be thought of as "bookends" to a life. Well, this life certainly isn't over. As I approach my sixth decade on Earth (and 8th year on Xanga) I am almost at the point in time where the old man in Cane But Touches the Cement was when I thought about him. Is he me? I don't ride public transportation on my daily commute, but I have on numerous occasions, most recently from the Long Beach bus terminal to work after I got off the Catalina Express following my "birthday vacation."

    When I think of Xanga these days, it's more as a "place" where opinionated bloggers can enjoy a good row every other day or so. In the old days (ahem, 2005 or thereabouts) there were some really talented and individual bloggers in the Xangasphere. Some of us old timers have been around for eight or more years. (My 8th Xangaversary arrives come Memorial Day, about three weeks from right now. ) I'm not one of the real "old timers" who still "show up" or have been silently and methodically updating their Xangas with nary a comment since 2001! I still think of myself as a relative "newbie". "Xangalegend" was applied to me around 2007 or so, and I'm satisfied with the moniker, and use it often.

    If anyone were to wonder why I don't post here on Xanga more often, I guess it would be because I really don't use the computer to display my work anymore, simply because most of my work is compiled already right here on the blog and on www.allthingsmike.com. New work STILL gets posted. I'll be posting more photos from Avalon/Catalina Island. There's a short story in the works. And the entry above contains a brand new poem I just wrote. When I do post "literature" and see no comments here, and compare literature with the kinds of "front page entries" which get lots of attention nowadays, then I (return to begin to) bemoan the state of Xanga today. (I'm still pretty literate too, even in my (young) old age!)

    I will eventually, I guess, turn into one of those Xangans, who plug away at their blogs, if not regularly, then at least semi regularly, with the same brio and wherewithal as they have maintained over their history as Xangans.

    And at some point, I'll possibly turn into the old man whose cane but touches the cement, boarding the last bus.

    At least I know 15 or 20 folks I didn't "know" in real life will possibly remember me. Unlike the old man, my suit is rarely rumpled. But I look out at a world I've seen age, and sometimes it seems as if it hasn't aged well.  MFN/PPF 6:08pm

Comments (86)

  • Great poems. I really like them both.

  • thanks for sharing. the first sounds like it was written by a younger man and the second sounds like it was written by an older man, so they seem flipped. 

     hey I was wondering do socialists ever get involved in American politics? I don't remember you ever commenting on one of my political blogs (that doesn't mean you didn't, if you do it's rare).

    but if you don't, you as a socialist I mean, well why not?

  • these are great...I like them...the first one I can relate to...Smile

  • The "bookend poems" are brilliant! At my age, I can identify with "the more hours . . . the shorter our attention span." I first began Xanga blogging in July, 2005. Yes, there have been changes. Many of those who blogged here then no longer do so. Some sites, I no longer read. One in particular served up too much drama & infighting. I can very well do w/o such. I have a long list of subscriptions, subscribers, but few of those read or comment on my site. Therefore, when time is short for me, I give priority to those who read me & comment. That cuts down on the time I spend on Xanga. I don't post very often myself.  I don't imagine you in a rumpled suit. Hope your weekend has been a good one. ~~Blessings 'n Cheers

  • Gee I missed the solar eclipse the Amgen Bike tour and the plane that landed at the local DMV here at Glendale. Well I guess I better subscribe to you because you do pop up occassionally here at xanga.

  • Awesome poetry, Mike.

    Sigh.  Age brings wisdom.  At the same time, it brings infirmity.

    Fortunately, I've been able to focus on the positives, ever since I hit my 40s.  Whatever age I am, it's the best age to be.  Life gets better and better, mainly because I've learned to accept that I can't do all of the things I used to do.

    When we dress to go out, I get constantly neatened up and color-coordinated by Barbara.  I say to her, my lifelong ambition was to reach my 70s so that I could wear anything I wanted, and she always says back to me, "Not as long as you're going out with ME."

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