Poem of the Week

New Year’s Eve 1945

Eventually the pendulum swings back, like a scythe

Or sword of Damocles, and all we can do is duck;

Then Old Time, ancient Chronos in the myth,

Has his revenge.  Or otherwise some little shmuck

Dressed up in a puzzi suit, crawls out of birth,

While on the square the lights light up, struck

As the New Year crowds exhale and kiss the earth,

As once a sailor did a nurse with pluck:

The end of war, the end of rationing—

“Bubble gum’s back in the little glass bowls and for a penny

You can chew your way to heaven,” the kids all sing,

The older one’s remembering.  And Jack Benny

Paused so long when asked his money or his life,

An old man’s dilemma.  I was too young to slice

The Gordian Knot that day when the war ended,

And everyone said it was a time of renewal, an eon

Or an age all over again.  Then the century ended

And I am older than all of them, the living and the dead,

Waiting for the blade to fall, in the pit.  Help me, Rochester,

What should I answer?  Time’s Square lights up again

This year but I won’t be there to hear Auld Lang Syne,

Whisked away silently by the Eternal Jester.