“Why”
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
9/17/13 6:00 am pdt

When faced with the question of why
I am prompted to answer why not?
We’re naive until we’re enlightened
Possibility is all that we’ve got

I am personal lonesome but willing
To talk and to reason without quarrel
But I’m old, and forgotten, nattering
Hiding nuts, a grey garrulous squirrel

I ponder humanity’s questions
And I suffer for humanity’s fate
Have the wheels of questioning stopped?
Sometimes I think it’s too late

Why not halt before rash actions harm us?
Why not reason instead of rampage?
Why not seek to get help cause it’s out here?
E’en as it seems we’re in a dark age

It’s the young who are killing their elders
It’s the young who don’t know what to do
Will I hide in my tree with my nut hordes?
Until I’m felled by projectiles too?

There are millions of options and answers
But why won’t the troubled listen?
Why not discussion instead of destruction
As fresh blood seems always to glisten?

When faced with the question of why
I am prompted to answer why not?
I shed tears for humanity yet again and again
But those tears are not all that I’ve got

Please hear me, oh troublesome youth
Please listen to jabbered discourse
I may be old and in the way
But perhaps long ago I followed your course

I’ve been angry and pushed to the limit
I have thought about ending this life
Enlightenment tells me that’s just wrong
Why not pause before beginning this strife?

It’s never too late until it is, friends
Cries the squirrel from up in his tree
I pray it’s not too late for humanity
I hope it’s not too late for you or for me.

“War Time All The Time”
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
11/6/09 9:38a.m. pst

What are we always fighting for?
Why do we have to go to war?

If wishes were horses, then soldiers would ride
shedding their helmets, no arms by their side

The brave join to guard us, to stand tall and proud
They don’t want to harm, but to shout freedom loud

Why can’t discussion replace fighting words
Why can’t our leaders keep watch o’er their herds
What are we always fighting for?
Why do we have to go to war?

If soldiers weren’t needed, then peace would reign nigh
We’d all love our brethren, and no one would die

The senseless is useless always for all time
People are angry, this is such a crime

Why can’t we tolerate those who don’t agree
What does this say about us throughout history?
What are we always fighting for?
Why do we have to go to war?

If war were abolished by worldwide decree
Then innocent people like you and like me

would not need to ask questions, about death and life
and suddenly hope would replace deadly strife

Why can’t we love instead of hate
But maybe this just isn’t humankind’s fate
What are we always fighting for?
Why do we have to go to war?

VIII “Social Networking Menace”
(part of the Cycle of Abuse)
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
10/05/09 6:15 a.m. pdt

Only fourteen
and frightened constantly
Father left when he was seven
Mother drinks, and seldom comes home
Sis and bro are little, and get in the way
Sitter is no help, always texting
Only fourteen
and upset at the world

Video world awaits after school
(on those days when he attends)
He’s king of the old PS2
Grand Theft Auto, Final Fantasy, Ultimate Ninja, Mortal Kombat
Lost in places where he kills his fright
Where upsetting images
replace upsetting times

Mother is yelling about something
Always yelling, or passed out
in front of the TV
The video screen in his room is blank
The PS2 is old stuff
He’s bored, and mad, and pissed off
Sis and bro are making noise
Mother is yelling
Got to get out of here

Family PC is in the den,
sitting unused for a while
Internet access is active
and Sitter sometimes uses it
(when she’s not texting)
Halo can be played on the PC
but it stalls a lot, and it’s old
Only fourteen
but internet savvy, and primed for
a dog to kick online

Internet world awaits after school
(on those days when he attends)
He trolls the social networks
As xKillerx or slicemup or whatareyoustaringat
He’s not afraid anymore
hating, and hacking, and trolling, and berating
spamming, and commenting, spreading vitriol
Nobody’s safe
Not the writers, nor the commentators
The musicians, the instigators,
They’re all fodder for his
stifled imagination
and spiteful online ways

Nobody knows his age
Nobody knows his pain
Everybody hates his rage
Everybody hates his disdain

He’s the ultimateninja452
hacking into the peaceful lives of all
on the network
His profile pic is scary
And his comments are known
throughout cyberspace
He’s feared, and loathed
and he loves it

Only fourteen
and already a
menace to online society
Years pass
in an abusive world
where he is king
Mother finally stops yelling
and maybe passes out for good
Sis and bro are taken away
somewhere, but he hardly cares
When the plug is pulled
he goes out the door
and into the dark night
of happenstance

“Peace A Chance”
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
1970 (16 years old)

March for a flower
Blossoming in a pasture
Shoot for a bluebird
Flying through the trees
Stop for an hour
Admiring the mink’s fur
Speak for a true word
Bending troubled knees

Where do the bullets go
Streaming through the stale air
Why do the people die
Falling in the mud
Listen to the wind blow
Turn to them who care
America under sky
Where our fathers trod

Why are there enemies
Why is there war
Why is there garbage
Why strife above
Why not intimacies
Why not care
Why not a new age
Why not love

BEHIND THE POETRY: It seems like I’ve been writing about peace, troubled people, and asking the same questions since I began writing poetry. My latest, simply titled “Why” was inspired by the carnage in the Washington D.C. Navy yard yesterday. A line from the news feeds really stood out to me. The shooter was in his early 30s, and his victims were in their late 40s to early 70s. He possibly didn’t care who he killed. He was young, angry, and simply careless. My initial thoughts, as always are directed to the terrible demons which must have haunted him, and must haunt any human being who dares to play God’s Executioner, spreading his own fire and brimstone across the sullen path of human destruction. I would hope someday I can simply stop writing these kinds of poems, which for me, attempt to make sense of the senseless, until perhaps I too, and you, and you, are felled in our lifetime’s tracks by the stray bullets coming from some troubled felllow human’s rage and anger. Michael F. Nyiri, poet, philosopher, fool

Saturday, September 7th I had a busy busy photography expedition along the beach in Orange County. I drove to Dana Point in the morning, and began taking photos of the “Elephant Parade” of art elephants, as I displayed in my September 8th entry here on Xanga, and which are the subject of my massive Elephant Parade themed folder on Flickr.   Later on in the day, I shot some “tall ships” at the Tall Ships Festival which was going on that weekend. I’d been to the Tall Ships Festival before, in 2007, and shot video aboard some of the two and three masted sailing ships. By the time I was finished photographing nearly all of the 37 art elephants displayed in different places around the town of Dana Point, I got some shots of the tall ships sailing in the harbor.

I posted a paragraph from the literature from the Elephant Walk art campaign in my previous post on the subject. Here is a representation of Mosha, the little asian elephant who had to be fitted with the very first elephant prosthesis when her right front leg was taken off by a land mine. Mosha stood on the corner of Dana Point Harbor Blvd. and Golden Lantern Blvd, and welcomes visitors to the harbor.

“There’s Still Hope” by Chris Hoy is backed by “Meditation” by Utain Wongjai in the Lantern Bay park above the intersection. It was getting to be late afternoon by this time, and I was pretty hungry, not to mention thirsty.

An elephant dressed as a London Bobby is a “half size” art installation in the lobby of the Laguna Cliffs Marriot hotel.

“Ma Lii” by Chris Chun is looking across Dana Point Harbor Blvd, with the sun low in the sky behind her.

She’s looking right across the street from Jimmy’s Famous American Tavern and Restaurant, where I decided to have lunch. I found out that this restaurant has only been open a short time. I had a light vegetarian pasta dish, since it was a pretty hot day, and topped it off with not one, but two “El Diablo” margaritas, which were spiked with serrano peppers. Hot and cold at the same time. I usually don’t drink that much in the afternoon, but I wasn’t driving anywhere. At the Visitor’s Center in front of the restaurant, I found that the shuttle bus I took to get to the harbor ran till 9pm. Still had a lot of time to catch up with the Tall Ships Festival farther down the harbor walk.

I showed a photo of the Brig Pilgrim tall ship replica in the last PhotoPost. Here, on the next pier over, is an elephant statue. It’s called “Gentle Guardian” by Johanna Enriquez. I ended up photographing all but three of the 37 art elephants. There was one called “Mellowphant” (wearing headphones and listening to music) in the Ocean Institute (the building seen between the ship’s masts) but it was closed for the day when I got this far down the harbor walk. The Tall Ships were out in the open sea. Festival goers can wander around the decks of the Brig Pilgrim plus five other tall ships moored at this dock in the morning, then “book passage” on the vessels in the afternoon.

Earlier in the day, I’d photographed the tall ships in the harbor before they set out to sea. (One seems to be heading out in the center of the photo.) The smoke to the right is provided by one of the cannons. When out in the open sea, the ships engage in mock battles.

Joining the tourists and festival goers were quite a few pirates. Here a group of them watch the ships sail from the beach. This photo almost looks “vintage” from the late 1880s. (Or at least that was my intent anyway.)

I got 14 “likes” just for this particular photo on Facebook when I posted my photos direct from the media card into Facebook while looking at them for the first time last weekend. As the tall ships passed the beach, I used both standard, wide angle, and telephoto lenses to record their majesty. This shot used a telephoto lens. I’m not using a tripod either. I steadied the camera on various rocks and outcroppings and on my knee!

This was actually an earlier shot than the one before, showing the ship turning.  A pelican looks on.

The three masted schooner with the red sails doesn’t really look like it’s from the 1800s. It’s not a replica ship like the others however. It was built in 1941 and is called “The American Pride”. It’s actually the oldest ship of the tall ships in the festival!

As the sun began to sink into the western sky, the tall ships return to harbor. I shot this with a twilight filter to get the darker tones and blue of the water in the harbor.

And here is the sun hovering in the clouds above Dana Point itself, also shot with a filter. The sky wasn’t as dark as is shown in the photo. It’s getting on 7pm.

One of the tall ships returns, furling it’s sails. Perhaps I’ll actually pay the 50 bucks and go onboard one of these sailing vessels in an upcoming year, to get some shots “at sea”.

Since it was getting late, and I didn’t want to drive into the sun’s glare, I opted to wait until it set. Here I got a shot of the yellow disc as it disappears into the pacific.

The elephants watch the sunset along with me. Next PhotoPost I present, sometime this week, will be a selection of shots taken at the Los Angeles County Fair, which I attended yesterday. Summer is almost over, it’s hot as heck in the southland, and I’ve got a little spending money and lots of great opportunities to take photo expeditions before fall arrives. As I post this, I don’t have the Tall Ships collection of photos on my Flickr account yet. But when they get there, you will be able to find them in my Photostream HERE. 

I haven’t watched a lot of televised “news” since the night of September 11, 2001, twelve years ago, when possibly the most horrible event in our collective remembered history, the morning “bombing” of the World Trade Center Towers in New York City by terrorists using our own airplanes as “bombs” was turned into “the show” by the time the 6:30pm newscast aired.

I’d only been “on the internet” for a couple of years in September 2001. I created one of my very first “composite artworks”, called “Passage to Heaven 9.11.01″ to counter the innumerable instances of seeing the same terrible images of the planes crashing into the towers, which the media seemed to bombard the public, almost like “bombs”, seemingly in order to stoke the anger and ire of a confused and wounded populace.

All of humankind were in shock and a collective grief covered the landscape. Not only in America, but all over the world. The act was not only “unthinkable” but nobody was sure of who the perpetrators were at the time, and yet, the media already seemed to have a “plan of attack”. Even before then president George Bush proposed sending troops into Iraq and Afghanistan, so “someone” could “pay” for this heinous crime against humanity, it seemed that the news anchors were essentially “declaring” some sort of “war on terrorism.”

In a reasoned essay I wrote at the time, on a long gone website community in cyberspace, I “declared” that I would not watch televised news programs again. And I’ve “stuck to my guns” and now am content to read the  raw news feeds from Reuters and AP, plus subscribe to news websites such as The L.A. Times and Al Jareeza.

America sent bombs and troops into Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. still has a presence in both countries, although our current president Barack Obama  has ordered withdrawals from both countries.

In another long forgotten essay I wrote on my Xanga blog around 2008, I talked about my fears that at some point the United States would make some kind of attempt to send troops and bombs into the civil wartorn country of Syria.

Last week, after reading about Senator John Kerry’s remarks and the president’s response, on the internet, from news feeds, and not from televised news media, which adds “editorial content” to news as part of the “show”, I was horrified and aghast. Kerry’s presidential bid in 2004 was based on his opposition to the Iraq war. President Obama got my vote partially because he vowed to pull American troops out of the Middle East.

Now both were turning into seeming warmongers, ready to storm hell bent for Syria, possibly killing more young people, and possibly racking up civilian collateral damage, and igniting yet another Middle East powderkeg.

If one were to sample some of the media’s response, it would seem that if Obama DIDN’T “bomb” Syria, in “retaliation” for the gas attacks which killed another 1000 civilians, ordered by Syrian President Assad, then his “ratings” would go down, and he would lose clout in his second term.

WTF?

I thought perhaps I was the only one on the planet who thought this was ridiculous. Was the “bomb” in O”bomb”a going to be dropped on Syrian soil, soiling another possible decade or two with war?

Earlier this week, a surprise response from President Putin of Russia, spurred by an offhand comment by Kerry, seems to have stopped Obama from harsh actions. Putin will attempt to corral Assad’s chemical weapons stockpile under International law. Obama at least said last week he would ask Congress for support for military action. (The first time a sitting president has made this kind of move. As “commander in chief” of the armed forces, the president can declare war and send in troops. An aside: the last president to actually “declare war” was Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1942 after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. )

In Obama’s televised speech last night, I only wanted to hear one thing. And I’m glad I did.

The United States is not going to begin the 12th memorial of the attacks on the World Trade Center by attacking Syria. I’m glad of this. I think more Americans than not are also glad. Yes, chemical weapons are terrible, horrible, and ghastly. If not for the fact that Obama had mentioned in an earlier speech that using chemical weapons was a “red line” which shouldn’t be crossed, my thoughts are that the terror and war which has blanketed the civil strife in Syria for much of the last decade or so, escalated in 2010, has also been terrible, horrible, and ghastly.

On this memorial day, remembering the over 3000 souls which passed to “heaven” after the World Trade Center attacks, let’s stop and ponder how much more damage humanity can stand. Let’s think for a moment how rash ‘retaliations’ are possibly more damaging in the long run. Let’s hope and pray that perhaps more presidents and leaders both civil, military, and religious, will make an attempt to come together instead of push each other apart.

We all have different thoughts, opinions, and beliefs. But we share something called “humanity”. Let’s share some kind of understanding that our quarrels and misunderstandings are killing us all, bit by bit, soul by soul.

I’m glad more bombs aren’t being dropped, and hope that humankind can, at some point, listen to the Voice of Reason.

I took an “elephant walk” in Dana Point, California on Saturday. “Elephant Parade” is a city-wide, open-air art exhibition featuring 37 life-size Asian baby elephant statues painted and decorated by renowned artists, dignitaries and celebrities. This amazing art installation covers pretty much the entire seaside city of Dana Point, and, armed with a map showing where to “find the elephants” around town, instead of taking a walk as usual around the mobile home estates, my Saturday walk was an “elephant walk” with camera in tow, to (figuratively, and photographically) shoot these amazing art pieces.

From the Elephant Walk website: “Asian elephants are on the verge of extinction, and the commitment for their preservation started with special elephant known as Mosha. After stepping on an abandoned land mine, Mosha was fit with the world¹s first-ever prosthesis for a baby elephant. Her powerful strides inspired father and son duo, Mike and Marc Spits, to create Elephant Parade®in 2006. As a socially-conscious business enterprise, Elephant Parade has since rapidly grown from a grassroots movement into a global crusade combining a powerful mix of corporate, celebrity and community support. Through the sale of merchandise and auction of the original art pieces, the exhibition has raised over $6 million dollars to help support the world¹s most majestic land mammals and raise global awareness of issues affecting their dramatic plight.”

I drove along Pacific Coast Highway from the South Bay down the coast to Dana Point at around 10 in the morning. Usually I like to get on the road a lot earlier, but I’d stayed up pretty late Friday night, and didn’t get out of bed till 8am or so. I armed myself with a map of where to find each of the elephant artworks. The first few were located at an upscale resort hotel right as you get into town. A valet took my car keys, and I went into the lobby with my camera looking for elephants. Here is “Golden Poppies” by Jeff Carillo, located in a lobby extension at the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort.

The St. Regis Monarch is a pretty ritzy hotel, up on a hill overlooking the ocean in the distance. The restroom I visited was larger than my living room, and some suites are larger than my home! I shudder to think what it must cost to stay overnight at this place. Here is a view out the window of the bar.

“Odysseus” by Chad Attie, is a white elephant with a little diorama which can be viewed in the circle. It’s politely sitting at the top of a staircase at the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort. By the way, like the “old Xanga” you can click on the image, and see the full size photo appear. (If not in a separate window, then just backclick after viewing.) I’m having to manually code this entry to get it to look like one of my regular photoposts, and it’s taking a bit of time. This might mean that I won’t post 25 photos today, but 10 or 15 today and more tomorrow.

Before even beginning my walk around Dana Point I visited the installations at the St. Regis and here at the Ritz Carlton hotel and resort. A couple of small elephants guard the entrance to the hotel.

The brochure stated that the elephant art pieces were “life size”. They certainly aren’t the size of real elephants. They are baby elephant sized. Since 2006, many world cities have hosted the “parade” and in some display places in Dana Point (the first time this art installation has been presented in America) there are “half size” replicas of some of the other elephants.

“Black Taj” by Mira Gulati, and “Valentina the Elephant” by Holly Branson, look right at home on this patch of grass next to the valet parking lot on the grounds of the St. Regis hotel. Black Taj looks regal, a true “Asian Elephant”. Valentina is from outer space. She’s an astronaut elephant.

“Chakra Bro” is by Chor Boogie. “Jasmine” was painted by Khloe Kardashian. These guys are sitting next to Dana Strand Beach. This is where the shuttle for the Tall Ships Festival left from. I got a parking place, and took the shuttle bus from here to the harbor to continue my “elephant walk.” I came back here later in the evening to shoot the sunset, which was quite glorious.

Dana Point is named for Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1815-1882) a lawyer and politician who gained fame for his memoir “Two Years Before the Mast.” I read the “Classics Illustrated” comic as a child, then the actual book while in high school. My love of the sea and of tall ships was stoked by reading the memoir. Here the elephant “Zia Skye” by Laura Inkster-Gabor, stands in front of the statue of Dana at the end of the Harbor bridge.

I’m always pretty informational in these PhotoPosts, so I’ll mention that the ship Dana served on which prompted his “Two Years” memoir is the Brig Pilgrim. The Ocean Institute at Dana Point has a full size working replica of the Brig Pilgrim anchored in the harbor, and here it is.

“Triumph of Liberty” by Sonia Mirzaei, suns himself on the sand next to the Harbor opening. He looks comfortable as all get out just strolling along the beachfront.

“Punkaphant” is looking out to sea. He was adorned by Andre Mirapolsky. He and the other elephants started their “Elephant Walk” here at Doheny State Beach a couple of weeks ago, and are now all around town. Makes for some great photo opportunities. I even have elephants on the cover header on my Flickr photostream!

This wild and woody elephant statue was modified and created by Alan Nowell. It’s called “California Surpher”. This one is at the top of Lantern Bay Park at the entrance to the Laguna Cliffs Marriot Hotel and Spa. It mimics the classic “woody” displayed at the turnaround in front of the lobby of the hotel.

And here is a shot of the woody itself, a 1940 Ford.

“I Brought My Own Snorkel” by Wyland sits on the lawn in front of the Laguna Cliffs Marriot.

Here’s a close up of “I Brought My Own Snorkel”.

Longtime readers know I’m a BIG fan of cartoon chanteuse Betty Boop. Fleischer Studios had an artwork of Betty astride a baby elephant for this installation.

Here she is again. (Ready for her closeup, Mr. Mike.)

Is it an elephant or a whale? This is “Sea The Point” by artist Laura Seeley, in the same courtyard as Betty’s elephant.

“One Hundred Flowers” painted by Li BingBing and Henry Li, is simple and simply beautiful. She looks out on the Dana Point Harbor.

I’ve got lots more elephants to showcase. I wanted to see if I could photograph all 37 of the art elephants around Dana Point, but time constraints, sore feet, and the fact that I was also in town to photograph some of the three masted schooners in the Tall Ships festival precluded me from getting every elephant on parade. There will be at least one other elephant themed photopost coming up. Hope you’ve enjoyed your “elephant walk” with me.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
MY ELEPHANT WALK FLICKR SET
DANA POINT OFFICIAL WEBSITE
ELEPHANT PARADE SITE
RICHARD HENRY DANA,JR on Wikipedia

9/8/13. Until such time as Xanga gets their act together and allows me the simple act of adding a header image to my blog, this “post” will serve as the header and link information for WhenWordsCollide. I cannot turn off the comments, so there is no need to add any. The posts appear in order below this. Michael F. Nyiri, poet, philosopher, fool

WhenWordsCollide is part of the AllThingsMike Universe. Below are some pertinent links:

MY FACEBOOK
MY FLICKR photo sets
MY YOUTUBE channel

I’ll have to figure all this out at a later time. I’m back at work right now after jury duty, on which I spent four days on a trial. I was even the jury foreman! (First time on three juries.)

So far without doing a lot of research.

What’s a “quickpress”?

What’s “get shortlink”?

“Categories” must be like “tags.” I already had a very seriously cross indexed blog archive. Do I have to do this all over again manually?

My whole collection of photos from my latest Photopost aren’t showing up. (Possibly those images still haven’t been “migrated”.)

I have to “approve” comments. I hope I’ll be able to “add subscribers and friends” to a master list so I don’t have to ‘approve’ each comment I get from someone I already know.

Seems to be lots of spammers already, but I can send their comments to a “spam folder” before they show up on my blog.

I’ll have to find out how to “customize” my own theme, so my site and blog look similar. I hope I can import my own HTML. (Probably not javascript, Xanga stopped that long ago. But flash and standard links should still be able to be inserted into a sidebar.)

The ability to “get in” or “sign in” seems to be iffy right now. Sometimes the blogs will “show up”. Sometimes the “Xanga 2.0 is coming” screen appears.

Why can’t I recommend entries anymore? (I possibly have to “turn this on” on my own blog? So far I haven’t been able to find any blogs on which I can “recommend” or “like” even. That’s a damn shame. I didn’t do it all the time, but I “like” the opportunity to “like” something. LOL.

Well, gotta get to work.

The main page of Xanga (www.xanga.com) (I don’t know if that will show up as a link, I’m not going to “tell” it to be a link in HTML just to see if the program “recognizes” links, like on FB for instance.) shows where to go to log in and gives some instructions on what to do, so perhaps some of my questions may be answered there. I do hope I will at least be able to “allow” all comments from friends/subscribers without having to “approve” each one, and that I can “acknowledge” by “recommendation” or “like” (we don’t need “boost or stars” again, please) an individual entry on someone’s blog. I even think WordPress allows “likes” of some kind.

Well that’s it for my first Xanga 2.0 post. Not even an image. And the “title” is the first thing I ever wrote in a blog back in 2002, and also the first thing we always used to say into the microphone back in “radio class” or whatever it was called back in High School.

I guess Xanga 2.0 IS on, and I look forward to moving the furniture around so I’m a bit more comfortable!

Michael F. Nyiri, poet, philosopher, fool
(oh, neat, a word count. Now how do I ‘post’ the entry, eh? Answer: Blue “publish” button to the right.)