Mar. 5, 1973 11:30 a.m. Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri

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Now

Now I'm thinking of names
Emma - Mary Jo - Ron
Dean
	Donna
Danstephanie / 
People		me
These are the shadows on the world
Climbing through the black
Which they betray themselves to be.

Now I'm thinking Vanderpool
If ever a group of people seemed 
At once so close yet ever so far away
These people are they

Now I say Ron and Dean
	And of course Mary Jo
And Joe and Jim and a CharterOakHighJacket
And fun in the park
And laughing
	And Mary Jo waiting
For Ron to come back while writing
letters saying she is independent
And me
Trying to hold onto a last thread of love
While Emma falls
Into a vast pit of parental guidance
And confusion

Now I'm thinking about my brother
And a girl named Stephanie
And printless love letters and laughing faces
And dark livingrooms and empty greenrooms
And feelings I'll never be told about

Now I'm thinking of hospitals
White washed walls and nurses
And IV's and tracheotomies
And pain
And beds where people die

Now I'm thinking about friends
Buck and Klein and a lot more
Ole's people
	a girl named Kathy
another named Donna
And a guy with blond hair.

I'm thinking of what I mean
Sitting here writing poetry
Explaining nothing
Conveying nothing
Are these for people like Paula to read
And people like Daniel to criticize
Do people read me?
Or am I criticized?
Or am I alone in a world of cardboard
paste-ups?

A hamburger at MacDonald's
A test in English class
A smash up on the Pasadena Freeway
A trip to Snow Valley

Does life end in death?
Or love?
Or memories?
Or emotions?
Where am I going?

1973

copyright 1999-2005 by Michael F. Nyiri
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