January 5: Making Promises, Evie Shockley, "on new year's eve"

It's a strange tradition, making promises to change on January 1st of every year.  I am going to exercise more.  Eat healthier.  Spend more time with my family.  Spend less money.  Quit smoking.  The list is endless, and, of course, by January 2nd, most of those promises have already been broken.

As I've said in previous posts, I gave up on New Year's resolutions a long time ago.  A resolution is simply an opportunity to make yourself feel terrible.

So I usually make promises to myself that I know I will never be able to keep. 

This year, Saint Marty plans to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. 

on new year's eve

by:  Evie Shockley

       we make midnight a maquette of the year:

frostlight glinting off snow to solemnize

       the vows we offer to ourselves in near

silence: the competition shimmerwise

 

       of champagne and chandeliers to attract

laughter and cheers: the glow from the fireplace

       reflecting the burning intra-red pact

between beloveds: we cosset the space

 

       of a fey hour, anxious gods molding our

hoped-for adams with this temporal clay:

       each of us edacious for shining or

rash enough to think sacrifice will stay

 

       this fugacious time: while stillness suspends

vitality in balance, as passions

       struggle with passions for sway, the mind wends

towards what’s to come: a callithump of fashions,

 

       ersatz smiles, crowded days: a bloodless cut

that severs soul from bone: a long aching

       quiet in which we will hear nothing but

the clean crack of our promises breaking.