Song for the New Year

It’s just another day, they say, the people who

Seem to forget that meaning is a game,

And games are therefore everything to those

Who live on meaning more than bread or air.

Let’s face it: we’re a superstitious breed.

Feel free to slaughter all the gods you want;

You’ll still find people praying – to themselves,

The Universe, or very pretty rocks.

So let’s all have a new year.  We need one.

We need to bury all the old mistakes,

And start again afresh, and even though

We’ll likely make the same mistakes again,

Let’s make them newly, with a new aplomb.

This world’s a mess, but we can make it tame,

If only in our small deluded ways,

If only for a moment, when champagne,

A falling ball, and gales of joyful noise,

Make us feel equal to those gods we slew,

Who after all are not so very dead,

But live inside us, in our private hearts,

With hope, delusion, and bright fresh new years.