The end of the calendar year. Could 2011 have turned out different than it did? Could anyone have imagined any part of what happened at all? Tsunami in Japan. Arab Spring. Bin Laden. Occupy Wall Street. Penn State. The Last Space Shuttle. Not even Nostradamus could have guessed this year. And yet this time every year we take stock, look ahead, and set our sights on how we hope to shape the coming days.
And on a drive home from visiting in-laws this holiday season I began hearing the call-and-response that shaped up into the following poem.
here’s to fresh chances
budding romances
cosmetic enhancesfolderol
here’s to new diet plans
self-imposed smoking bans
chemically produced tansfolderol
here’s to being less critical
promises political
the life analyticalfolderol
here’s to better routines
sexy designer jeans
improved thinking machinesfolderol
folderol
folderolhere’s to renewed respect
to the lives that were wrecked
through financial neglectfolderol
here’s to good education
the hope of the nation
social obligationfolderol
all these new resolutions
tax-free contributions
and familial absolutions
with a single conclusionfolderol
I find it odd that when I’m actually feeling good and hopeful overall that the dark and cynical are what come out. It’s a little like when a really good movie leaves one without the vocabulary to express it but a really bad movie invites excess expression. No, wait, that doesn’t work here. Because if it were a good year I’d be cynical, but if it were a bad year I shouldn’t be able to truly express it? Was this a good year or a bad year? Now I don’t know. Okay, so I don’t realy know what’s going on here, besides the fact that I got to use such a fun word like folderol as a refrain.
Hey! It’s the last Poetry Friday of 2011! This final exercise in poetry sharing for the year is being hosted by the fabulous Julie Larios over at The Drift Record and I really do think you owe it to yourself to imbibe freely in poetic excess this weekend.
It really does make me laugh that you can write stuff like this – and that last one – whilst happy! And yet: such a great poem.
I shall mutter “folderol” in your honor tomorrow night.
Folderol – great word. I’m not sure cynicism is right for this, maybe realism? Shuck off the blinders and buckle down to simply do things for the merit of doing them.
Or maybe that’s this reader bringing some of his own folderol to poem.
Best. Response (to Resolutions). Ever.