Pop

The big wheel’s gone
around again -
another new year’s eve
to spend
with tuxes, ties and white balloons,
the ticking clock where
midnight looms;

I wish that I could be
impressed
with all the sequined party dress
es, champagne flowing,
deli trays,
hangovers built
to last for days;
Festive? Well, yes, I suppose,
I’ve seen the tournament
of rose and
bowl games and
counting down,
Dick Clark, Times Square,
the ball
come
down……

and then another
newer year.
Hope and Promise?
Surely,
dear,
and all the sunshine you can stand.
Forgive me, please,
but as the band
burps a boozy Auld Lang Syne
I’d just as soon
be just as fine
were it to pass as quietly
as starlight bouncing
off the sea.

Not much changes year to year
except a number
there and here.


On it spins,
indifferent
to how our days and months are spent.
The governments, both just and cruel,
lumber and proclaim
their rule while in the deepest
darkest dim of all the armored hearts
of men
any change
that may
begin
keeps no date
or time
or place.

It simply looks into
its face and deems
itself in silent
steel resolve;
to now,
to here,
to turn -
evolve.

All we need to drink and dance
is something close to
half a chance
and why not seize some grand
events to shore up shaky confidence
and new years? As good a time as any is
to believe one can keep promises
that otherwise one cannot keep.

When midnight comes
I will not sleep.

I will kiss and wish all well
to party horns and fire bells.

But in my own
reticent heart
where hope is born and
pieced from parts
of broken plans,
expired dreams,
and tiny glints from
flashlight beams,

a welcome
eyelash wish may light;
not of the new,
but of the right.