SUNSET COMMENT ON THE NEW YEAR

by George Held

29 December 2016

It’s one of those glorious sunsets,
Like an ad for New Mexico, that makes
You feel blessed to be alive even as
Authoritarianism leaks over the horizon –
Orange and gold flames with a purple core
Over New Jersey without the seasonal
Obstruction of leaves on the trees –
What might it presage, what tacit
Message doth it bring, this dynamic neon
Peach Melba of a twilit sky? Not the Orange
Man risen from New York City towers
To loom Kong-like over even the sunset,
The sky, the compliant Universe,
The galactic figure of our tabloid
Imaginations?
And now the fire in the sky
Deepens like a Roman omen, the night
Rushes in to drape dark auguries
About the perishing republic, and we brace
For the inevitable inauguration, the sunset
A mere glowing ember in the charred evening.

George Held, a frequent contributor to TheNewVerse.News, has received ten Pushcart nominations, including ones for both poetry and fiction in 2016. His new poetry chapbook is Phased II (Poets Wear Prada, 2016).