November 6, 1977 Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri


Poem for the New Year 1978

The dreams we held so dear
Were real once, this I swear
I could look ahead and see
What the future held for me.
I would don my graduation robes
And reach out for diplomas.
But in six short years
I lost my hopes
With crazy times and blackout comas.

Downfall - there, It's a tough word
to write. I don't like to
think about it - I don't like to
talk about it.
I bravely face the next panels
In our comic-strip of reality
But I can't read the whitewashed
Balloons beyond the next line.

Downfall - here we go again.
It isn't an end to those long-ago
Hopes
That we so gravely wish'd
Would happen...No
It was the farthest thing 
From our mind.

But maybe it was all so easy then
A problem was whether or not 
You'd be able to make it to
The FOOTBALL GAME
Not whether or not
You knew where your next meal came from

Before the Poetry stopped
Before I ceased to function.
Causes?
Reasons?

In my CHRISTIANITY period, I
Remember I said I was losing the
Problems, and so I was losing the
urge to be problematical in poetry.

This, of course, is not true.

What is the truth - 
			HA
			truth -
Searching, always searching
	the escapable truths,
They were always disappearing
Around the next corner.
	And I would trip on the sidewalk

They're all gone now, those truths.

Where is the program?
I can't tell the players.
The intermission is almost over.
And it was played for laughs.

Now those hopes we once held so dear
Disappear as quickly as the seventh beer.
They just disappear.
Then there is no fear
And I shed a tear.

And wait for Act Three.
If this is a comedy it 
Has a happy ending - 
It has to.

1977

copyright 1999-2004 by Michael F. Nyiri
ElectricPoetry
AllThingsMike