In 2020 I wrote 6 poems.

I like to think I'm "young at heart" and since I don't have children I sometimes feel ageless and timeless, but truth be told, I turned 67 in 2020 and I've written "the same poem with different words" so often and lived so many of the same emotions over and over that writing them down each and every year just seems like repeating myself at this stage.

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So I won't complain about these six poems. When I feel like writing something, I do so. Hopefully it's artistic and heartfelt. Hopefully it will stand as a solid part of my legacy.

 

"Leap Sunrise"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri

02/29/2020
8:21 am pst

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Some time before humankind awakened, and for some time after humankind sleeps the last sleep
The sand, sun, sky, and sea creates it's scene
Seen only by the Godhead, the AllFather, the Cosmos
And even now, only seen by some of humankind who awaken in time
Some of the time
All of the time the secrets of Universal Consciousness are revealed
All of the time myriad minions and motions fueled by geology, cosmic forces, creation and destruction
Serve to shock and awe with beauty almost unfathomable
Down in the fathoms of cosmic recollection, even those who cannot see all, will in time and with the eradication of humanly existence see into and outside of all beauty
Heaven, Universe, Cosmic Consciousness

And that will happen to all, in time
But in this time, this moment, this wondrous existence
I am awake, and watching, absorbing, enjoying the beauty
Of Creation
All around me
During Leap Sunrise, which only occurs every four years,
And later at Leap Sunset, leaping into the unknown of yet another day.

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"It's Not Just Going Through the Motions"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
03/29/2020

12:53 p.m. pdt

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Dreams seem stranger somehow
Awaken to the birdsong as usual
Routine tells the mind how to put
Action into motion
The seeming same motions
But with entirely different emotions
As we get through the morning

The birds and I
Going through our motions
While humanity does the same thing
Behind the door next door
And the one over from that
And the ones across the street
And across town
And all over the world

Going through the same motions
Taking a shower
Eating a quick breakfast
Turning on the computer
And connecting with humanity
But then checking different pages
Case counts and rising death totals
The slow shrinking of humanity
And we, I, the world doesn't want to think 
That anything is different,
That is, those who aren't sick
But are not really sane, if we ever were
Because the same, sane actions
Are tempered by new, insane reactions

It's not just going through the motions
It's relishing optimism and hope
Remember how those who miss calamity
Feel safe
Remember how those who suffer calamity
Try to look on the bright side 
Remember as the motions turn again
Indoors, as time goes on
And uncertainty,  mass uncertainty
Global Universal Unreasoned Uncertainty
Closes in and frightens the bravest souls
And bothers the stoic and turns the tide
And at the end of another day
The lights will dim
And with hope I, we, the world 
Will face another day
And in time, as across time
As in times past, when calamity
Unseen, unheard, unknown
Passes
And it will, in time
Then the motions will be special
Not going through the motions is stifling
And I won't be stifled and I pray you won't as well

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"67 And Counting"
(2020 Birthday poem)
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
04/30/2020
8:22 p.m. pdt

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Born on Beltane at 5:00 A.M. in 1953
A "green baby" bursting to grow
But born of a morning
in pain and trauma and terror
Born into a world
without any answers
But containing myriad questions

And never afraid of asking
And always willing to voice with passion
And give voice to the word
And word to the voice

53 years of writing poetry

Poetry wrote itself at first
This vessel was merely the conduit
This mind was merely one with the Universal mind
A voice for all the voices
Someone who could give voice to what
Universal thought was thinking

As the years passed, the poetry
Seemed to have all been written
After thousands of words left my mind
And only the Birthday Poem and
The New Year's Poem
were nearly the only poems which survived
being written in the last few years

This year, the 67th of this life,
The year I pay all my debts
The year I prepare for retirement
from 49 years of toil and work
The year I've looked forward from
For many of the years of the past
The year I would begin to travel the great globe
I'd planned to write the ultimate
New Year's and New Decade's poem

And I never got around to giving that voice

This year...
I never wrote
And then an unseen virus
Took the world hostage
And my unwritten words froze in my psyche

This year...
Wasn't what I'd predicted
Wasn't what the world had predicted
Wasn't supposed to happen in this way

Fear, anxiety, troubling terrible thought
Serves to erase my positive energy
Serves to erase all positive energy
Serves to eradicate humanity along with his foibles

This year...
Wasn't that year I'd seen in my thoughtsight
Wasn't that year anyone else had seen in theirs
Wasn't supposed to happen in this way

I will still celebrate...at a social distance
I may be more stoic than thrilled
I may be more reasoned than recklessly riotous
But I haven't been recklessly riotous
for many of these 67 years anyway

I will take inventory
I will pray for an end to the year that wasn't
And hope for a better birthday next year
And the year after that

I didn't think I had anything to say anymore
But I can't think straight
And I can't reason nor rhyme
But at least I still breathe
Carefully
Purposefully
In health and prosperity

At a distance
And yet, still connected
Universally
As I have always believed
With those who still breathe
And with those whose breath has stilled
 

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"Sunday Morning"

Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
07/15/2020

5:25 a.m. pdt

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It seems a world is not at stake
When Only God's awake
Human troubles haven't risen with the sun yet
Mankind ignores his sin
It's the moments mankind lives in
He risks the chance and always makes the bet

It seems so calm and pretty
When Only God's awake
Before the strife and quarrels come into play
Mankind sleeps through sense
Through history and hence
God turns His cheek and always lets him stay

Mankind, you and me and such
We've ruined everything we touch
Let's for a moment ponder where we've gone
God has pity, pure, whole sadness
Let's awake with wondrous gladness
And think 'fore sad mistakes rise with the next sun

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"Thanksgiving Prayer 2020"
(Gratitude during the plague year)
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
11/26/2020

4:25 p.m. pst

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This annum arrived already anticipatory
At it's genesis, looking forward two years till retirement
Always writing about aging, but rarely looking in the mirror,
And as one who never sired progeny, feeling forever young 
At it's genesis, only good feelings and good graces
Then a few months passed and everything changed

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Everything changed, not only for me, but for everyone
A history student, even at my age, always aware of 
"plagues and thinnings" throughout history, in the past
Now faced with the strangest plague in history
The disease strikes, waits, takes it's time
And figures out different ways to torment it's victims
Some sicken, some die, some spread and some 
never know they've been touched

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This annus mirabilis to annus horribilis in an instant
And the terror never let up
Still exists, muddying humanity's perceptions
Proving mortality doesn't have a date stamp
Doing as it will: a viral scourge
That some, even as they succumb, will not believe exists

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Pandemic in a world filled with information
which has splintered and specialized, with blinders on
I once wrote "truth and prevarication exist side by side in cyberspace"
And this year nobody could tell which was which 
Yet could always find somebody with an answer 
No matter how harebrained the scurrilous seemed to some
They were embraced by just as many
By mid year, the disease was feared by some 
And denied by just as many
In country after country around a world of people 
living in the year of living dangerously

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Anxious now, with nerve-wracking uncertainty,
Yet still the obsessive compulsive optimist
Still the bipolar believer in beneficence
Still hanging on to the belief that humanity is saved
Sane, commonsensical and kind
The Reaper reclines in his rapture, spinning viral vengeance
Laughing
Yet
Still
I give thanks
I am grateful that even when some may fail, I remain strong
Even when some seem wrong, I believe in right
I may not have family, but I've been finding cameraderie 
With those who are left in my orbit
I may not have many friends, but I've been finding friendship
if only on Facebook and internet worlds with wonderful folks who are as real 
as if I could touch them

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I may not write as much as in the past
I may sometimes write drivel such as this in attempts to understand
In attempts to find sanity insanity incarcerated inside illusions

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Thank you to God and The Cosmos
Thank you for my health, in this the year of living dangerously
My sixty seventh on the planet, I've been healthier than ever
Thank you for my situation, I'm content, and happy

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Still I shudder for humanity, as I have for a few generations now
Still I experience these wars against pain, against sense, against life
And I live on, grateful and garrulous, giving and grasping for hope

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It exists, and I'm thankful for that, for hope

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"I Cry at Christmas"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
12/23/2020

3:15 p.m. pst
 

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Happenstance connections in cyberspace
Gracious comments, stunning care
Thoughts and thank yous, hastily, humanly harbored
A year unlike any other,
Unable to catalog or decipher
Feelings of dread and uncertainly
seem to dissipate when allowances are made

A snapshot of a moment's tender beauty
Skyrockets into some kind of viral trajectory
While another viral trajectory,
Feared by some and ignored by others
Keeps working on it's own 
To own the lives it takes

And the life I have is not taken for granted
It's been a long constructive life
Even if it only holds memories of loved ones
And family members long gone
I have bypassed the scourge of viral evil
And replaced it with viral cyber gratitude

When introduced to that internet of dreams
In the long ago
My passion and artistic soul cried for a release
Photographs, poetry, sober essays dealing with Life,
Death, Love and the Comedy of Tragedy
Searching for that viral moment
Trading the Great American Novel 
For a moment with a meme

Never has this aging wordsmith, 
This artist with a lens on worldly beauty
This poet, philosopher, foolhardy fellow
Been more at home than on his websites,
Repositories for Universal and Personal 
Thoughts, feelings, and musings

Even if the muse never showed herself at the door

Never has this lover of love found same
Never has this life found true fulfillment
Even as the meme of the moment is
"Liked" filed away in memory and fogotten

Yet I am golden, glad, grandiloquent, garrulous 
Easy with a smile (e'en behind a blue mask)
Everybody knows me
As I wave goodbye and close the door alone

I ache for humanity (as always)
A tenderness can be found in futility
Sometimes I sense remorse in remoteness
Yearning in aloofness
Truth in prevarication

Thank everybody, thank God, thank you
I cry at Christmas every year
But as the snowman melts,
The springtime arrives again

Perhaps someday the "likes" will be replaced by 
Creative conversation and shared remembrance
Perhaps
Someday