NEW YEAR

New Year is nigh, just three pints away,
What’s new about another twelve hour day?
Just a little step closer to making your way
To splashing about in the ether.
Well wishes and happy and ‘go mbeirimid beo’
A new path to follow, a new way to go.
New resolutions, to melt as the snow
In the gateway manned by Saint Peter. 

This is man’s way of measuring life

With calendar, clock, sun-dial and strife
And regular noon bell of angelus wife
Calling him home to the dinner.
And we thank the ‘Great Nothing’ for seeing another
And think of the old man and suffering mother
Remember the twin, the gone-away brother,
And the priest who was scarcely a sinner.
 
Tomorrow is different, all perfect and new.
We’ll visit the graveyard surrounded by yew
And promise all that which we’re certain to do
All proper and perfect, all pure.
The next day we’ll falter and stumble and doubt,
The old year in and the new year out,
Resolutions me arse, what’s that all about?
An annual load load of manure!