New Year Muddled Catawampus

This New Year’s morning;

There’s nothing good or bad, just

Us human beings.

~ Shiki

[Englished by Phillip Whidden who suggests this title for it:  “Myopic”]

The poet says that New Year’s Day provides

Him neither good nor bad, just humans.  What

The _____?  What else are humans but besides

Both bad and good?  In fact they are a glut

Of good and bad.  He wasn’t thinking, was

He?  Observations of his sort are not

Worth writing, not worth shaved off drinker’s fuzz

From sack of testicles when he is fraught

With drunkenness.  And when he wakes up with

A hulking hangover, who wants to be

Around that human mess?  The New Year’s myth

Is worse than lies.  It is absurdity.

  A poet should control his verse.  Instead

    He wrote stupidity.  He lost his head.