The Midnight that Few Sleep

Mist hangs on the mountains, swallowing grapes

at the gated cave of time, one for each toll until midnight

bells ring, begin island to island, amid life coins stamped and softened.

Cool morning fog rolls early on horseback from the underworld,

cloven in goldridge muddy hoofprints releasing the goat,

gone in an alluvial wisp devoured by a copper monkey.

We each have a cardstock from the other side,

fermenting under tea leaf steep, toast, and bubbles.

Faithful as the geyser that feeds the baths, the palomino

blackwing of firelight resolutions stops chasing happy.

Water laps at the nautilus, crisp air circles the domed sky on return burn,

smudged tissue smells of sulfur and smoky graphite,

on elfen paper that once wrapped grapefruit, pears, and clementines

like old years that never keep their sorrows or pains of conscience,

they bleed into every new year forward. Erase before rotten!

Floating lighted lantern wishes on rice paper mark the dark sky,

try to define time burning skyward to be lost in the ashes,

try to ward off evil eating caviar and black eyes,

try not to eat the coin in vasilopita,

first piece to Saint Basil second to the swallows.

Try to swing fireballs in the streets,

dance with the bears, jump seven waves with the goddess of the sea,

it is hope that will set us free, it is the found joy in the little ‘to be’.

Another New Year will come dropping it’s crystal ball, banging it's gong,

hope awakens in the few that sleep through that old world of wrong.

Sweetness found in the transcendence of self achieving purpose without fear,

consume the twelve grapes then seek the GOOD year,

Amor fati, amor fati, amor fati...

absorb the beatific meaning deliquesced in the air,

around societies neck hangs a silver locket with a lock of his hair.