New Year Cliché’d by D.R. James
January 1, 2017
That kind of title for one, to mark this particular año nuevo like that for another, to be going on in this vein yet another. Too metta? Meh: it’s all contradictory cringing: ashes outing a vicious victory: archetypal exile among the flood of smudged hours: barbarity, barrels of it: unity like underwater faces facing the eternal stones: novel remnants reaching their only sub-zero: rank antagonism anti-brave and shackled ardent to a cannon sprouted and ever-violating: a personal-as-political-pilgrimaged sacred labor to dismantle the sprawling urban-cowboy threat. Instead, to self-possess: still-woods light slanting certainly: light snow grounded like disbanding fondant: isolated leaves left dissed, connected, oscillating beiges: lines bearing on (comes the tardy turn!): “at this time last year next year: ziplocked thoughts extolling totems totally devoted to X.”
D. R. James has taught writing, literature, and peace-making at a small college for 33 years and lives in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. His latest of seven collections is If god were gentle (Dos Madres).