New Year’s Peeve
I. Cassandra’s Countdown
The Eve arrives in sequin-spangled zing.
The clock ticks on as tipsy cities glitter
With beams of glee eclipsing sorrow’s glare
Till midnight kisses burn with bursts of spring
Abloom beyond abandoned dreams that litter
The gutter neath the rockets’ garish flare.
The New Year greets the dazzled on the street.
The Old Year withers at Cassandra’s feet—
An ashen husk, a grim and frigid thing,
A piteous cadaver licked with frost.
It conjures scenes of feckless revelling—
Of cups o’kindness drained and kinship lost.
Her heart knows of the thrill beginnings bring.
Her soul knows well what woeful endings cost.
II. Nothing New
Beneath the sun it’s much the same.
Things barely change from year to year.
Post Hogmanay the peeved proclaim:
Beneath the sun it’s still the same!
The whim of Father Time’s to blame.
He prompts the past to reappear
Beneath the sun. It’s such a shame
Things rarely change from year to year.
III. Apocalyptic Hiccups
A growl of thunder startles sooty skies.
A blast of smoke and brimstone mists the moon.
As skittish critters howl and fretters swoon,
A pooh-bah points at falling stars and cries:
Wolf! A wolf! A wolf with snarling eyes
Is prowling through the ash and wishes strewn
Across the firmament and very soon
The mud will boil, and roiling seas will rise!
The huddled hordes have heard it all before.
They watch imperiled snowflakes swirl and drift
To settle at the feet of seers who sift
Through doomsday hokum polar bears ignore—
Too busy with the baddie at their door.
The wolf’s arrived—a timely, toothsome gift.
Susan Jarvis Bryant is a poet originally from the U.K., now living on the Gulf Coast of Texas.
Ah, Cassandra, the famous Greek priestess of Troy known for her accurate prophesies of doom that Apollo cursed to not be believed thus condemning the unbelievers to a terrible fate. What an accurate insight for us all and fitting ending to the poem! Despite optimism for each New Year, your second poem is well designed to curb our enthusiasm along with the third poem that tells us the wolf may be at our door as the baddie we try to ignore. The swirling alliteration, as always with your writing is so intriguing as our mental tongues savor the flavor.
Roy, thank you very much, and a very Happy New Year to you! I hope it isn’t as grim as my Muse has hinted at.
Happy same-old-year, Susan! I love “Nothing New”. I’ve read Ecclesiastes so many times, and it never fails to fascinate me. There is, indeed, nothing new under the sun! Perhaps that’s why I’ve never been enthusiastic about New Year’s parties (in addition to having a hard time staying awake until midnight). And the irony in “Cassandra’s Countdown” is so well-expressed: it seems unbelievable that new year celebrations continue every year, as if no-one remembers that the new year becomes old and dies and is reviled, and in just the same the same amount of time as every other one always has!
Cynthia, you are a New-Year non-reveler after my own heart. I take great delight in ignoring all invitations and wallowing in my hard-earned wisdom. The grimmest view of the New Year means any joy sent my way is all the sweeter. I will raise an early cocoa toast to your sensibilities and head for bed as the moon rises. Cynthia, I am basking in your words – thank you!
Yes, it’s old: we know it’s Susan by the end of the 1st line. But it’s new, too–new smiles, new wonder at the powers of this word wizard. C’mon, would we want the whole of 2026 without Suan? What a revolting novelty that would be!
HAPPY New Year, all!
Julian, I just love your comment. Many thanks and a Happy New Year to you. I am over the moon this miserable cow of a poet would be missed. I’ll be back in 2026!
A nice trio of solidly substantial pessimism, linked with classical mythology (Cassandra), folktale (Father Time), and scripture (the Apocalypse). I’ve never liked New Year’s celebrations because they always seem so staged and forced and lacking in any real sense of change.
About Cassandra — the reason Apollo spat in her mouth and made all her prophecies unbelieved by anyone has to do with sex. Cassandra had promised Apollo to give her virginity to him, if he granted her the gift of true prophecy. After he gave her what she wanted, she blithely welshed on the deal, and refused to sleep with him. Since he couldn’t take back the gift of true prophecy, he spat in her mouth to make sure nobody ever believed what Cassandra would say. So I suppose one could argue that the reason we continue to imagine that the coming year will be better (in spite of Cassandra’s dismal prophecies) is because of a one-night-stand hookup that went wrong.
Joe, I am aching with laughter – a rare wonder for me on New Year’s Eve. If only Cassandra had whipped her kit off for the lascivious Apollo, planet Earth wouldn’t be in this miserable mess. This wasn’t my intended message – yours is much better and much funnier. Joe, a very Happy New Year to you with much gratitude for your sagacious and saucy eye.
The official beginning of the new year means nothing to me, other than that I’m a year older than I was the last time the year turned. Birthdays are even less a cause for celebration, but both are often occasion for somber cerebration. In the last line of the third poem we are nowise reminded of a tin of fruitcake, which, for some, would be worse than a wolf or, dare I say, a polar bear.
C.B., I’ve joined your club and I am proud to be a member. As for the tin of fruitcake – I have a burning urge to serve you an blazing bite of boozy-fruit Christmas pudding… the snarling tiger of all desserts!
One’s better off to try coping with these 3 foreboding pieces on New Years Day than Eve, Susan. Being teetotalers, it will now be a bit tougher for Connie and I to enjoy tonight’s celebration. Thanks a lot!!
Enviably well-penned – Happy New Year anyway
The English Queen of English mesmerizes us again!