HAPPY NEW YEAR!

My friends, to usher out old, gloomy, discouraging 2017 and welcome a year which we hope will bring better times, our staff decided to gather together a posey of New Year's poems for you, to wish you health, happiness and a brand new year of poetry. We hope your holidays were wonderful, filled with family joy, and we look forward to another year of sharing poems with you.

Optimism

I am thankful and filled with joy

one year ends another begins.

Thus has it been since time began

so will it be until time's end.

I ring out the old and in the new

celebrate rebirth of my soul

along with beginning of new year.

I set aside my past mistakes

January brings a fresh slate.

New year, I will welcome you.

Sherry: Thank you, Mary, for starting us off on such a positive note. And for your years of dedicated service to the poets of Poets United. 

Another January First: a sestina

Another January first, keep them coming:

I awoke early from my spiritual retreat

walking slowly toward breakfast after the bell,

past crumpled dark luminaries and frost ready

to melt, and I was in step with other seniors

some speaking, some silent with worshipful intent.

We woke early at our religious retreat

after a feast night with music, ringing the bells—

senior citizens waiting to hear God, ready

for earth's midnight.  We've gathered together, senior

moments on hold, radios turned off, so intent

on this December thirty first. Keep them coming.

We walked slowly toward breakfast after the bell

hoping to find even breakfast changed and ready

for anything but the same cereals seniors

eat daily.  But, I asked comrades, what if—intent

as we are on change—we miss the joy of coming

to familiar comforts with no need to retreat?

We look around, we dark luminaries, ready

to glow as suns in training, stars of the senior

class, ready to graduate, to commence, intent

on lighting the wicks of insight!  Keep them coming.

Today is not just a day—today ends retreat.

Finally this morning we know, so, ring the bell.

Let no one say we are over-the-hill seniors

depressed by cereal and eggs.  We are intent

on being heard in congress and we are coming

in droves to plant ourselves on the paths.  Since retreat,

we grow strong, bold again with a liberty bell

in our voices, soul riding on backbones, ready.

New Year’s Eve and day worship renew our intent

to move as God leads us and so we are coming

to walk on the wild side after this brief retreat.

We're full of enthusiasm this morning. Bells,

we eat granola and go to meeting ready

to leave retirement, graduating seniors.

January first's coming again.  No retreat.

Listen to the bells peal and send us out, ready

to love as only seniors can, with great intent. 

Sherry: This poem inspires me to do just that, "to love as only seniors can, with great intent." I can feel the strength and resolve, the activism, in "we are coming to walk on the wild side." I love this poem, Susan.

January Moments

In my dark garden
wind chimes clang faintly, I breathe
the smell of the sea.

Steamy nights
on this tree-thick hill;
my grey cat
sits silent
on the top step, keeping guard
while we toss in heat.

Like my cats
the plants are very still
this hot morning.

The heat revs up
as the morning brightens.
What time today
will humid rains kick in?
Summer at full throttle.

Downpour.
At last a bud
on the rosebush.

Quiet –
the rain pauses
waiting.

Trying to come up with a poem for the new year, and uninspired, I looked through several years of micropoetry written in January, selected one from each year (with a bit of tweaking to some, on seeing them anew) and found that they could be read as a sequence. 

Sherry: And they made a beautiful poem, Rosemary. Thank you.

A New Year Candy Song

I’ll candy crush my heart

to sweeten you all

in this gloomy world-

I’ll chocolate bomb the hearts

of the bitter monsters

of this nightly world-

I’ll blossom blast those tongue

that lives on harangue

brewing out of this shadowy world-

with my striped-candy dream

and wrapped-candy breath

I’ll sugar crush-

soda crush-

jelly crush-

flower crush-

this fiendish world…..

                    

My note: I do not wish to grieve to death in the first month of the year as it’s a hell of a month for me. January will always be an abyss of sorrow to me. And I couldn’t also avoid the darkness that this world is passing through at present, courtesy of our politicos. So I decided to make a sweet explosion with my words. 

This poem might be the result of my being a candy crush saga game addict :) Hope this new year finds you in much happiness and lots of amazing words.  

Sherry: We will walk with you through January, Sumana. Every step of the way. Thank you for the sweet wishes in this poem.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

As the old bedraggled,

disappointing year skulks away,

may you approach the new,

shining with possibility,

your eyes wide with wonder

like a Christmas child.

May you open the package 
of each day,

gift-wrapped in sunrise colours,

to find something in it

of beauty, of laughter, of affection,

of gratitude, of Hope.

May the old year sing out the tears,

the   disillusion, the events

that broke our hearts,

and show us a new day,

tinged golden with the promise

of better times ahead.
May 2018 unravel its weeks and months
full of community, of working together
in the cause of social justice, 
and of healing and restoring
this suffering planet.

We wish you hearts filled

with possibility and promise.

We wish you times at home

with loved ones close by,

faces shining in the firelight.

We wish you flights of poetry

to make your heart soar,

and dogs with thumping tails

inside your front door

to greet you as you enter.

Most of all,

as the new year dawns

and we bid farewell

to the darkness of 2017,

we wish you happy hearts.

We wish you Love.

source

Thank you, Mary, Rosemary, Susan and Sumana for starting us off on a happy note. We hope all of you enjoyed this posey of poems. Do come back and see who we talk to next. A hint: it is a long-time member of Poets United, and you will enjoy catching up with her.