Here the old year’s put out
There in black bin bags
Where gutters chuckle as tarmac weeps.
Wind plays its horsehair bow
Plaintively across
Strings singing with electricity,
Drawn between pylons.
To the east,
In the middle distance,
A cloud hangs,
Fog forms,
Smoke
Is still rising,
Rising beyond control,
Fanned by ill-winds,
Virtuoso performances
By ensembles of discord and those agents
Pitching
For commission.
Looking back, Janus resolves
Not to look forwards,
Not this time,
Not ever again
As he does every year end,
But, he will of course,
At the first pop of the first firework as first note
Of Auld Lang Syne
Solicits a first kiss for the first of the first.
And he smiles,
As if all those sponges soaked in alcohol
Really do wipe clean the slate,
Really do delete memory.
Cross forearms, join hands
All in a line,
All in a circle,
Raise your glasses,
Raise your voices,
With whiffs of smoke signalling resolutions
Already broken,
Begin (with gusto)
Slinging out the old year,
Singing in the new.
Dave
Alton
