Page 62 - New Year's cards

The Maven

By

Vulgar Maudlin Schmoe

New Year’s Eve and I was happy, while I whistled something snappy
Over preparations for a party planned ahead of midnight’s peal—
While I was the eggnog bringing, suddenly I heard a dinging,
As of someone roughly ringing, ringing hard with too much zeal.
“‘Tis some drunken guest,” I grumbled, “dinging hard with too
much zeal—
Now I’ll have to hear his spiel.”

So I did unlock the portal, greeting that untimely mortal:
Oy! An uninvited Maven of my college days—unreal!
Never giving me good wishes, nostrils twitching for hot dishes,
He soon found my bar and buffet, drank my booze and ate a meal—
Drank the very best of all my festal booze and ate a meal—
Then I had to hear his spiel.

“Why’d you go to all this trouble? Now I’ve got to burst your
bubble,”
Said he. “The truth will hurt, but you will thank me after I reveal:
Bathing in holiday bathos plasters over puerile pathos;
People desperate to drown their sorrow when that bell must peal,
Bottle up the fearful thought: that’s how the crack of doom would
peal—
But it’s really no big deal.”

“Stop,” I cried, “this party-pooping! Don’t you know how low
you’re stooping?
Sadness—even guilt—must not the plangent joy of this occasion
steal;
Time may be a magpie thieving lives and loves for which we’re
grieving,
But this celebration isn’t held so we won’t have to feel
Any of the nameless dread that those afraid of dying feel.”
Sneered the Maven: “No big deal.”