Haiku and pic by Freddie Omm
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the brave new year wakes
all unconscious of her being
like a child star born
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on-screen, hopes and fears
of future years—young, unsung
–past all forgetting—
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puffed, angel-kissed face
unswiped the tears that time will
meanly bring to smudge
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her moist, smeary cheeks,
dimpled now, her first cry
a wave or blast of waking life
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washing over us
with some vague sense of our own
blazing potency
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—yet uncertain too
of fresh madnesses ahead,
the brave new year wakes.
*
**
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Freddie Omm, January 2022
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Note: This poem is the third section of a triptych of poems.
The others are: autumn blaze away (and next year be a blast) and new year’s eve, oudejaarsavond 2021.
The triptych starts with autumn (the left hand panel), then comes new year’s eve (central panel) then this one, the brave new year wakes (right hand panel.
The uncertainty with which we begin a new year—full of hope, yet aware that “madnesses” may yet transpire—is well captured in these lines.
Touching to see the new year birthing like a baby.
Let’s hope she grows up strong, healthy, sane and happy!
Thanks, James, but the year has already taken unfortunate twists which I wouldn’t wish on any baby that shares its birthday.
The year is born on-screen for many (how many of us live their lives on-screen!)
And humans born on-screen are child (or baby) stars. The star also evokes the star the Three Kimgs followed to find Jesus. The words pack a lot
In the penultimate stanza, though, I did notice where the words on the photo don’t match the ones in the text beneath it. Is that deliberate?
@Scarlett O—the birth of an onscreen star doesn’t depend on them literally being born onscreen—stars can be born at any age!
Bless you, Colin—Janet, Judy, Barbra and Gaga surely agree with you!
Thank you, Scarlett and yes, I wasn’t happy with the way I/‘d written the image of the year as a new-born—it was too vague—so I edited it, and the words on the photo are the first draft (I may adjust it later).
There’s a certain bathos in the ending of this poem in that it adumbrates potential “afresh madnesses” to come.
This was written shortly before the invasion of Ukraine, which has indeed plunged the world into a bucket of fresh madness and tragedy.
Let’s hope that some kind, caring spirit of time will soon wipe away the tears on her face that, back in January, were still:
“unswiped the tears that time will
meanly bring to smudge
*
her moist, smeary cheeks”
!