Thursday,
May 28, 1981 11:05 a.m.
poetry for fools 
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
The Apartment
The building stands, pipes leaking
brown stained blood.
A dowdy mother in housecoat trudges to the washroom
Three-year-olders cavort on the stairs, in the
courtyard, out by the trashbins- satisfying needs
for friendship with pasty faced elves.
The same little games are played even as the
three-year-olders grow up and move away.
The building breathes. doors open and the fortunate
sons tread off to work-the others
toil in their predictability moving around
the courtyard visiting manufactured
neighbors-telling stories-how's the weather.
The afternoon advances-sun hangs bright
over pretty divorced women sunning themselves
while the elves get dirty behind the philodendrons.
2:30 As the World Turns All My Restless
Children into a monotonous hum on the 13"
black and white television sets standing on
top of 12 year old 25" consoles that will
never work again.
4&5&6o'clock the drones return from work
and the stereo wars begin. In the
summer its as if life is back from the
dead...in the winter the lives resume
from behind closed doors
Over the years the gunshots and yelling
and fights and policemen and questions
about whos sleeping with who subside
into a crazy quilt of boring samenesses.
People move from apartment to apartment
like litte backgammon markers trying to find
the home quadrant.
There's a school behind the building and a
market across the street. These people
never have to leave if they don't want to.
Some of us find we lost the inclination long ago.
Life goes on. New landlords come and go.
Old parties become legends. When you least
expect it an apartment becomes vacated
and then someone "moves in" who might
have bearings on your own existence.
The elves play on.
The televisions continue spouting their
advertisements and I sit here watching
the brown stained water seep from
under the toilet's broken gasket.
Exactly like blood.
copyright 1999-2004 by Michael F. Nyiri
ElectricPoetry
AllThingsMike