Say tomorrow doesn’t come.

Say the moon becomes an icy pit.

Say the sweet-gum tree is petrified.

Say the sun’s a foul black tire fire.

Say the owl’s eyes are pinpricks.

Say the raccoon’s a hot tar stain.

Say the shirt’s plastic ditch-litter.

Say the kitchen’s a cow’s corpse.

Say we never get to see it: bright

future, stuck like a bum star, never

coming close, never dazzling.

Say we never meet her. Never him.

Say we spend our last moments staring

at each other, hands knotted together,

clutching the dog, watching the sky burn.

Say, It doesn’t matter. Say, That would be

enough. Say you’d still want this: us alive,

right here, feeling lucky.

-Ada Limon

The horse’s pain never imagines a house beyond the storm. Its mirrored breath forms a force that dies without noise. The ice in a sickened room is not salt. Its perfume pours a rain that deletes the tacit skin.

-Eric Baus

Blossoms of babies

Blinking their stories

Come soft

On the dusk and the babble;

Little red gamblers,

Handfuls that slept in the dust.

Summers of rain,

Winters of drift,

Tell of the years;

And they go back

Who came soft—

Back to the sod,

To silence and dust;

Gray gamblers,

Handfuls again.

—Carl Sandburg

My glass is filled, my pipe is lit,

My den is all a cosy glow;

And snug before the fire  Isit,

And wait to feel the old year go.

I dedicate to solemn thought

Amid my too-unthinking days,

This sober moment, sadly fraught

With much of blame, with little praise.

Old Year! upon the Stage of Time

You stand to bow your last adieu;

A moment, and the prompter’s chime

Will ring the curtain down on you.

Your mien is sad, your step is slow;

You falter as a Sage in pain;

Yet turn, Old Year, before you go,

And face your audience again.

That sphinx-like face, remote austere,

Let us all read, whate’er the cost:

O Maiden! why that bitter tear?

Is it for dear one you have lost?

Is it for fond illusion gone?

For trust lover proved untrue?

O sweet girl-face, so sad, so wan

What hath the Old Year meant to you?

And you, O neighbour on my right

So sleek, so prosperously clad!

What see you in that aged wight

That makes our smile so gay and glad?

What opportunity unmissed?

What golden gain, what pride of place?

What splendid hope? O Optimist!

What read you in that withered face?

And You, deep shrinking in the gloom,

What find you in that filmy gaze?

What menace of tragic doom?

What dark, condemning yesterdays?

What urge to crime, what evil done?

What cold, confronting shape of fear?

O haggard, haunted, hidden One

What see you in the dying year?

And so from face to face I filt,

The countless eyes that stare and stare;

Some are approbation lit,

And some are shadowed with despair.

Some show a smile and some a frown;

Some joy and hope, some pain and woe:

Enough! Oh, ring the curtain down!

Old weary year! It’s time to go.

My pipe is out, my glass is dry;

My fire almost ashes too;

But once again, before you go,

And I prepare to meet the New:

Old Year! a parting word that’s true,

For we’ve been comrades, you and I —

I thank God for each day of you;

There! bless you now! Old Year, good-bye!

-Robert W. Service

as we got closer to Michigan Central Station

and you pulled over, across from the

Victorian falling apart further with ever gust

of Canadian wind, despite the graffiti on its side reminding us all,

“it’s okay,” you asked if I wanted to

get out and take a picture of this

great city gone

to ruin just

like that.

i said no.

the car was just

fine and didn’t the guidebook

say to stay in the car.

no windows, a skeleton of

the Champion City, the air circling

the left-over ticket stubs back

to the cities they came from and went to

like you, back to New York City,

the city you can’t beat down even

without the Spirit of Iron Fist

and now they’re all calling me

to join them in the silence. they

can feel

the lonely, everywhere.

they could hear my trains

last whistle

as you boarded

for home.

your life is your life

don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.

be on the watch.

there are ways out.

there is a light somewhere.

it may not be much light but

it beats the darkness.

be on the watch.

the gods will offer you chances.

know them.

take them.

you can’t beat death but

you can beat death in life, sometimes.

and the more often you learn to do it,

the more light there will be.

your life is your life.

know it while you have it.

you are marvelous

the gods wait to delight

in you.

—Charles Bukowski