"Photogenic Fallacies & Mixed-Up Minds" 1974: poetry by Michael F. Nyiri

My theories always disappear
I can't remember how to act sometimes
Right now I remember many things
Which people say to me.

In and out of phantasmagoria
Float little green philosophies
And embodiments of sedate people
Lying on the grass.

I can sense their presences,
Rich and full, complaining.
Telling me my life needs their fulfillment.

Then I search for answers
As I've done since my inception,
And I find unopened doors
But they are always tightly locked

As I reach out to people - 
Almost always I reach out and then
Extended hands melt quietly
Into unsolvable repressions.

How am I, an insignificant
Cinder in the universe,
To fathom each unquenchable thought
As it slithers through the coffin of my mind.

For though I say I'm open,
And let's face it, don't we all,
I find I'm not as easy to
Release even to myself
As I thought I was to others.

I can find my spectre staring 
As I know she always does and
Yet I can't remember now how
To cross the street and be with her.

Days are but inventions
And pictures in brown wallets
Serve to conjure up a vison
Of a lovely life worth living

Then the windows shut on giving
And reality is here - 
Harsh and mental anquish turn my
Soul towards God and heaven
And, as upward bend my eyes
My mind is even boggled still - 

Inspiration and bad poems
Tell me nothing, nor do people
All they say is what themselves 
They want to hear.

My coalition with the forces of reality
It shudders as I comb the
Sunken prisons of the world for
One to care

Yes, It seems to me that as I 
Fight the love that boils within
Me, I can feel the heat turn
Off when others back away in fear.

Many times I've thought of Kathy - 
Many times of Emma - 
But, oh, how many times do I 
Tell all, including myself,
That that wasn't love at all.

Only through lost emotions
And those people dying
Do I remember my right to be here
And my experience these last months -

But, oh, is hell on earth
When yet again I wonder
What the truth of life is
And my intentions are turned down 
By life itself.

My sweet mother understood
But no one else ever did
And as I sit in front of walls
Throwing poems to the dust at my feet
I'll think of my new feelings
And still say
"They aren't real yet"
And still though friends will chide me,.
I will cry - "I'm not in love."
This is not happening - 
Because I know
And I proclaim it so - 
That if I try to turn her handle
Her door will be locked also.

And I'm not ready for the
next act yet.