Happy New Year

Auld Lang Syne

by Robert Burns

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?

CHORUS:

For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely ye’ll be your pint-stoup!
and surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We twa hae run about the braes,
and pou’d the gowans fine;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,
sin’ auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We twa hae paidl’d in the burn,
frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
sin’ auld lang syne.

CHORUS

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere!
and gie’s a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll tak’ a right gude-willie waught,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

Happy Christmas

Ring Out, Wild Bells

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

 

Happy Christmas to all of you; may we all be – each in his own way – the change this world needs.

Journeys

I sit quietly,
in sync with the rhythm of raindrops
and the veil of solitude
that morning mist drapes over
an abandoned landscape.
All the while
savouring the bouts of excitement
and the tingly feeling
that anticipation sends
through my veins in tiny currents.

I pluck words
from the rusty railroad tracks
and the rain-laden clouds
that tell stories of
a life on the road
under foreign skies
and will finally fill
the empty pages of my life.

I discover belatedly,
I am more addicted to the suspense
and the promise of adventure
that the idea of a journey instils,
than to the actual departure.
So I keep waiting,
though I have lost count of the trains,
I have let come and go
for fear of where
they might actually take me.

© november child

in response to: Michelle Toussaint Photo-Fiction #68

photo credit: via pixdaus, author unknown

Discover

Chill-out

Lounge music now floods the room,
its slow groove and soft volume
a bit too lulling for my taste,
turning the brown leather couch
with its invitingly soft cushions
into a trap for tired minds.

We are saved from
falling into a happy delirium
by the smell of fresh coffee,
and the impatient hiss
of the Italian coffee machine
busily grinding the dark beans
for the addicted crowds.

Judging by the artful symbols
he is patiently sketching
onto cappuccino canvasses,
the barista surely is one of those
moody, starving art students,
my mother gravely warned me about.

His cats, carefully drawn
into the soft white foam,
are a marvel, so pretty,
you hesitate for a moment
of appreciation followed by regret
as your spoon collides
with the aromatic liquid.

© november child

photo credit: lostateminor.com

in response to: The Sunday Whirl Wordle #278 A Baker’s Dozen

couch/collide/grave/volume/cushion/groove/grind/card/now/machine/symbol/never/lounge

Moody

Displacement

A lot of abandoned pages
in this book,
interspersed with pages
where whole chapters
have simply vanished.

Fleeing from the desperation
they were written in.
Tired of being forced into
ever repeating dramas.

They escaped,
rearranging themselves
into happier tales,
someplace else,
for someone else.

© november child

photo credit:  wikipedia

Flee

Business As Usual

You’re dressed up again
in your corporate uniform.
Grey three-piece suit today,
striped tie, light blue shirt,
the upcoming board meeting
already on your mind.

Frowning slightly
you ignore breakfast
and hit the keyboard,
rechecking numbers,
last changes in your presentation,
predicting questions, preparing answers.

You’re hyping yourself
as if for a sports event.
Work has become another arena
where you go for the competition
with a killer instinct,
always aiming high, in for the win.

My thoughts have taken on
a momentum of their own,
spinning in their usual erratic circles
where all I can think of is,
you look damn sexy in a suit
and I’d really like to
make you late for work.

© november child

photo credit:  Craig Garner via unsplash.com

in response to: The Sunday Whirl Wordle # 277

By The Lake

On the bench by the lake
we pretend to watch the sunset.
In truth, we are waiting for the fairy folk
out on their evening stroll.

They are quite the busybodies,
bewitching nightingales’ songs,
touching up weeping willow leaves
where the green has faded a bit,
propping up trampled grass stalks,
and chasing irritated fire flies.

We must abide by their rules
and never look at them directly.
They avoid human attention,
our gazes being far too forward, too focused,
burning their delicate auras.

But if you take a peek at them
out of the corner of your eye,
they can not help being flattered
and will pose for you,
flaunting their iridescent glory,
if only for just a moment.

© november child

artwork: artist unknown

Abide

Protest

I think my protests have developed
a life of their own,
they’ve become quite quirky and eccentric.
Instead of concentrating on
famine, climate change and peace,
they have started to give me an attitude.

Today, when I ranted about
all the wrongs in this world,
they dared to give me this pitying look
and told me very airily

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Quoting Ghandi to me, can you believe it?

© november child

Protest

Sizzling

She leaks impatient magic
as she waves away your doubts
with an impetuous gesture
of her delicate hand,
her fast sun burning an additional
hole into your defences.

She sizzles with angry magic
as she punishes your resistance
by putting her hands
on those delicious hips,
her electrical storm travelling
down to the base of your spine.

She sparkles with wilful magic
as she manages to unhinge you
with one of her impish smiles,
her  intensity sending your shy mind
on an outrageous adventure.

And your foolish heart
is giddy with excitement – again.

© november child

photo credit: Baary via deviant art

in response to: Sumyanna writes – Prompt #8

Patience

Canvas is patient
accepting red hot anger
in violent splashes,
enduring my blues
in teary streaks,
beholding black despair
in quivering brush strokes,
always silent, always forgiving
to the emotional turmoil
until it’s all but vanished
under new layers of outbursts.

© november child

photo credit: renu parkhi via flickr

Vanish

Artificial

I feel like an outcast,
the only one
who hears the screeching of the brakes
and the closing of subway doors,
who smells the staleness of public transportation,
who sees them.

Their eyes glued to sacred phones,
tunnel vision for fear of missing
a chatter, tweet or post on the Net,
blocking the outside world
and any interaction with earphones.

Their faces eerily glowing in the artificial light,
blank masks captured by tiny, colourful screens,
the only apocalyptic event on this train
would be the loss of WiFi connection
or, worse even, a dead battery.

Their fingers wrapped around cups of coffee
like talons around prey,
while the other hand frantically scrolls,
uploads, reloads, downloads files,
and types messages to an invisible audience.

And as I watch the changing light patterns,
flipping back and forth between
grey landscapes and black tunnels flying by,
I am a bit disappointed that
of all the aliens who could have taken over the world,
we were invaded by a bitten into apple.

© november child

photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org

Sacred

The Sunday Whirl, Wordle 276

Breached

Stop redefining my boundaries
just to convince yourself
that you did not breach them.

Stop diminishing my pain
just to reassure yourself
that you did not hurt me.

Stop deconstructing my defenses
just to demonstrate
that they have been useless all along.

 

© november child

photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org

Construct

Echo

Your words still echo in my mind

your touch still echoes on my skin

I wait for them to subside
so I can remember
who I used to be

 

© november child

photo:  artist unknown

Echo