New Year's Day

  Here is the first new poem.  I have a feeling that this blog may end up more of a private record than a public document since I have no idea how anyone is going to find it. Still, I will pretend I have some readers and include the usual disclaimer.  Since I will be writing a lot of new poems, many of them will be first drafts or dead ends- not polished final products.  (Anne Lamott talks about giving yourself permission to write shitty first drafts. I've given myself that permission but will not burden any possible readers with random jottings. These will have gotten past the quick note in my journal phase. )  Feel free to let me know how the poems here could be improved- or put out of their misery.  Enough apologizing.  Here's the poem (or poems?).

                                                                        

                                                  New Year’s

                                                  1.

                        The young stay up later and later;

                        the old get up earlier and earlier.

                        Once a year they meet at midnight,

                        telling each other what they have forgotten

                        or what they need to know.

                                                2.

                        We reminisce to hold on to the past

                        or drink to let it go,

                        plan how the future will be different

                        or promise it will remain the same.

                        That illuminated ball is always

                        descending, but we only notice it

                        tonight when we turn to kiss

                        a spouse or a stranger with nothing

                        but now, now, now on our lips.

                                                3.

                        Eat less, exercise more.

                        Stop to smell the roses.

                        Write that novel.

                        Some pounds are shed,

                        only to return like the prodigal,

                         welcomed with the fatted calf.

                        Most roses have little fragrance.

                        And instead of a novel,

                        three short poems.