Steve_Bamlett_blog

The eve of this New Year, again, danger
Flows fluid, booze's fast flux in venous
Vain channels, popping in the throat and then
The flood follows. Scars of dependent blood
From 'kiddies' too, fallen near that flawed tree.
Hogmanay wishes for that newer thing
Bound, as they know, to be nothing newer 
Than  subsequent pain, just that bit older 
Than is the sap of frustrated futures
Pushing up through hollow tunnels until
It purples into a bruise.
                                                 For the sake
Of Auld Lang Syne, they will sing, into bitter
Beers that help the pain to flow unseen down
Into that sunless sea where echoes of
Ancestral wars do beat against the bounds 
Of its inward capture, and scar the flesh
That makes its walls so thick and makes skins freeze
Into that rigour it calls strength of will.
Let's think no ill of those who still, yet still,
Want the stillness of a new Year to beat,
Like that heart that pulses on the flow,  back 
The sense of failure that each year again
Will prove in persistence to be true gain
Of such glorious losses, we fain to
Name realism, and to increase wisdom.

There is no intended slight to Burns who relished the hand of many a ‘trusty fiere’ who let him down. That whisky should be a ‘cup of kindness’ though is the biggest lie in the Scots language, and would be in English when the poem is Englished. Alcohol is not your friend and is not ‘trusty’. Yet it more than anything is what the magical thinking of being in a new Year depends. Nevertheless, relish Burns’ words: and take ‘a right gude-willy waught, / for auld lang syne’. Never has good will been made so ironic. Believe me, if Burns thought it might sound ‘rude’, he meant it, as well as the literal Scots usage.

But that ALCOHOL KILLS (and not only its partaker) while it deludes is the only truth about it.

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

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

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

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

With all my love

But do not think the event of New Year is real – the only thing that can be the agent of change is you, working with true and ‘trusty fieres’, as does Ali Smith with Jackie Kay in the preceding link.

Steven xxxxxxx