John L. Stanizzi
New Year’s Eve 2016
…and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
—Gerard Manley Hopkins
Fire-pit on the last day of the year,
same intensity as yesterday’s fire,
the heat, the flames in a luminous spire,
so there is nothing more for me to fear.
Smoke into black December’s sky a smear
through thoughts of pain and the next crossfire;
fire-pit on the last day of the year,
same intensity as yesterday’s fire.
So what’s the metaphor I’m seeking here—
—the crackling of wood is a prophet choir
singing staccato hymns, those hopeful prayers
that, in spite of diminishing, still flare?
Fire-pit on the last day of the year,
same intensity as yesterday’s fire.
John L. Stanizzi is the author of the poetry collections Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, Hallalujah Time!, and High Tide-Ebb Tide. His work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, American Life in Poetry, The Cortland Review, New York Quarterly, Tar River, and others journals. He teaches literature at Manchester Community College in Connecticut. His newest book, Sundowning, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. He lives in Coventry with his wife, Carol.
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