Facing Off the New Year

Published on by Laura Bloomsbury

the year ahead it opens filled
with miles of possibility
– the unhitched hiker

i
It is the cleanest, cleanest slate
a birthing from the lifeless past
buried here beneath the snow
just like the 'man of sun' withdrew
from lion hide a honeyed hive.1
And for such reason we rejoice
with fiery liquor in our bowels
and starburst skies to ape the night
that brings the dawn of each New Year

ii
Chronos, quicksilvered, runs its course, 
unbounded by a calendar
which makes our yearly revelry
mere capering Tomfoolery
a danse macabre for bygone days
like treading grapes gone sour with age.
You say this sounds like bitter cups
distilled from bloom of elapsed prime
-I'm sipping new in micro time!
  1. meaning of Samson’s name – see also the Samson riddle whereby he killed a lion with his bare hands and later found a swarm of bees and honey in its carcass. (Judges 14:14).
  2. Chronos – embodiment of time in Greek mythology
  3. Tomfoolery – playful foolish behaviour -from 14th century Jester Tom Fole
  4. see danse macabre

For my MTB prompt “New & Old in a Palinode” we are writing a poem of 2 verses that dialogue and retract/contradict each other, The New Year theme theme is inspired by a given choice of Epigraph, or one from our own poetry as in this case two lines of mine from an earlier poem.

40 thoughts on “Facing Off the New Year”

  2. The ‘unhitched hiker’ is a great springboard for a poem, Laura, and I love the lines:

    ‘And for such reason we rejoice
    with fiery liquor in our bowels
    and starburst skies to ape the night
    that brings the dawn of each New Year’

    and

    ‘a danse macabre for bygone days
    like treading grapes gone sour with age’.

  3. So beautifully composed, Laura. I love the allusion to Samson, that blood-soaked and bloodied warrior, seduced and seducer, finding honey that brightened his eyes like a new year is apt to do for ours. The “elapsed prime” of a Samson becomes “a danse macabre for bygone days
    like treading grapes gone sour with age,” yet here we are … “sipping new in micro time.”

  4. Even before seeing your notes I was very much enjoying your referencing…superb poetry, cutting, dancing around me…from bygone days indeed…..so well-worked, I noticed, with tight inner rhythm…a pleasure to read, v difficult to do…v nicely done, even if ‘nice’ is not the mood?

  5. Your nod to Chronos, sipping new in micro time, the capering tomfoolery …. I love your palinode!!!

  11. “slipping new in micron time” Luv that line

    Happy New Year

    much♡love

  12. Very beautifully written with both image and yes a rhythm flows through the lines. One to listen to as well as readable. I like this form and the potential for a different insight in the second section. For me how time is indifferent to when we think a new year begins and all our revelry becomes tomfoolery. Very clever as here in Puritan Britain 12 th Night was the means to stop the festivities and get back to work! In Spain it is the great feast of the Kings with presents, processions and more food with family!

  13. This should be read aloud. It has lovely cadence. Not to forget the refrences that make it so rich and the imagery that is so evocative. Beautiful, Laura.

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