A Shifting Of Numbers Poem by Chima Ononogbu

Old year becomes new,
New year becomes old,
The circle goes on and on
Like a globe revolving

On a gyre of time.
At midnight, I heard the Church bells yelp,
And yelp, at their loudest,
To the perturbation of sweet sleeping birds

And a ruffling of still seas,
To herald a new year
Upon the soil of time,
Upon the whiskers of consciousness.

Fireworks painted the sky in rainbows;
By the chin kissed the wind at the crossing
To a new dawn, a new year,
A new sky, a new earth, a new everything!

Is it really new? From my knowingness,
The new withers at sunrise, then,
A utopia of sour cocktails soars at sunset,
Hearts become stones entombed in shadows.

But what's new? A shifting of numbers?
O new year, have you come as a dove?
Or as a viper with twin blades of venoms?
There's no knowing. What's new? I ask still.

O you poets of the sacred order of poetry,
Spin me a yarn; from your tongues of mystery
Prophesy if it comes with a new wine
Of the fragrance of roses, or a soft skin as heaven.

Let your ink spill out its taste, a melody or a dirge.
Though a new breeze blows,
Silently I watch to uncover
Whether it's really new or a shifting of numbers.