The Poetry of 2021
ElectricPoetry
In 2021 I wrote 5 poems.
Here is my selection of poems from 2021. Again,not too many of them, but hopefully what is presented is original and illustrative of my mindset for the year.
"One Side of the Conversation"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
03/13/2021
8:45 am pdt
Hello, it's me, again.
Are you listening?
I've thanked you for listening throughout my history
Beginning in those days when my pen first met the parchment
I've spilled my thoughts
My fears
My truths
I've talked so much my voice became raspy and raw
But perhaps that's just because I'm a lot older
And age does strange things to the body
Thanks for listening.
Did I remember to listen to you?
Did I even give you time to respond?
I thought I did, over nearly seven decades
Bellowing bravely in the darkness
Explaining, exploring, excited and erratic.
Sometimes hurtful, sometimes narcissistic
Sometimes blustery, boastful, boring
Always human
Or so I thought.
Hello, are you there?
I never liked texting
I never liked chatting
I always liked talking
Discussing
Embracing other viewpoints
But was I really just extemporizing
Explicating, expressing without example
Blindly borrowing from my verbosity
And never hearing you
My mother called me genius
(possessed with delusions of grandeur)
People say all mothers feel that way
about their children
Forgive me, I don't know
Because Mother died young
And I never became a father
So I'm a bit full of myself I admit
Even now, as I age and start to forget things
But I'll never forget
That my soulmate,
(The You with whom I've been having
This One Sided Conversation)
Has never, and will probably never appear.
I stay alone,
(Don't like to say lonely)
Do I reach out too much?
Not enough?
I'm so used to my side of the conversation
The "we's" of this long existence coalesced,
Combined, recombined, and rejected.
Those other sides hung up the phone,
quieted and powered down,
Left me alone.
Those others weren't the "other one"
The "other half", the other side of the conversation
Those others, the we of I, are long forgotten
I've never forgotten you, although you
Possibly just don't exist.
Hello, it's me, again.
Thanks for listening.
"That 'Ol Lone Cypress and Me"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
04/29/2021
04:29 a.m. pdt
He's half the tree he used to be
The storms they finally took their toll
A quarter century perched on the rock
Alone but stalwart, braving wind and sea
If trees have souls, and I'm sure they do
Ancient wisdom flows through branch and bark
Charting the history of natural stamina
Showing humankind the truth of beauty too
The tree, he's just like you and I
Surrounded by others, yet standing alone
Whittled away by time and tide
Erect e'en if disabled, reaching toward sky
That 'Ol Lone Cypress has much to impart
And I will listen to his natural wisdom
That 'Ol Lone Cypress, stoic, sturdy, yet brittle
Breathes with life, alongside my heart
"Graduation Day"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
06/17/2021
06:06 a.m. pdt
Half a Century ago
In the little town of Rosemead
A young lad who looked a lot like me
(fifty years ago)
Marched to a podium
with Pomp and Circumstance
Looking forward to a future
which never happened
because life (and death)
intervened with a vengeance
He collected some parchment
(I think I still have it)
A school official flipped
the golden tassel on his graduation cap
(I lost that during a drunken
party at my place 10 years later)
The pomp petered out
The circumstance proved foreboding
The promise of a college
graduation
four years later
faded and was replaced by a
couple of (somewhat satisfying) careers
Yet through decades of
strife, celebration, false hopes
and steady somewhat fulfilling life
He (and I, his poetic biographer)
Charted uncharted territories
And basked in the glories of home
(even though home eventually
comprised of over 30 different
apartments)
Graduation Day
A benchmark which seemed
really important once
Is now just another passing
day in the history of
life and livelihood
At the end of this year
the young lad, now hopefully
less naive and more than wise,
will graduate from
over 30 years of employment
Looking back
Looking forward
Forever recording
the sheer existence of it all!
"Summer Sunsets"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
08/26/2021
5:45 p.m. pdt
When younger (much)
And summer sunsets numbered few
A few scant, sublime, sacred summers
They seemed to last forever
During those long slow summers of youth
I knew (my ancient soul knew)
That sometime soon summers would
mulitply, and summer sunsets would
Shimmer into memory
And sometime be forgotten
As youth aged to young manhood
And then to vibrant virile middle age
The summer sunsets seemed to
Be forever the same, and time
would stand still.
Many summer sunsets in the past
And many to look forward to in the future
Then Summer turned to Fall of life
As aged dry skinned wisdom
Arrived, and left those thousand summers
Stately and serenely in the past
The summer sunsets of now
Seem to be slower and more glorious
Because wisdom tells me
The amount of summer sunsets
Dwindle
As quickly as those
In the past seemed to last forever
"A Walk in the Clouds"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
12/06/2021
5:00 a.m. pst
Oh would we marvel at our walk through the clouds
Billowing, swallowing, sky shards and shrouds
Blue almost blinding our senses and minds
White wispy wonders oh the sightings we find
Imagine deep breathing, along with God's skies
Our breath and His Mighty storms passing whys
Destruction then peace, all is as it should be
And the clouds sail the sky as their sea
Some days are still, still some days are windy
Some times are shaken, some times fraught with fancy
We look to the dome overhead, solid blue
Then the clouds like large animals come into view
I walk in the clouds every chance that I may
I look up at ethereal overhead visions which stray
The ground moves but slowly, the skies move apace
Like a grand Artist's painting, with infinite space