Prost! Cheers! So this is the last night
up or awake at this time by choice
with intent to 3.15—till next year
—perhaps. The glass of red wine
toasts the present, the quiet of night
city engines humming low at a distance
and 31 not 30 days in September.
And toasts the past 30 days of this
endeavour to write (something, anything,
everything!) at fixed points in time,
a short course in creative discipline.
And the fish?  We shall no doubt
be finding big and small, unsuspected
treasures and disappointing efforts.
No matter what the haul, the game's
the thing, and you and you and you
who also sit and write each night with me,
like fifty ghostly hands that shadow mine,
fifty ghostly brains that criss-cross
in the maze of inspiration's ways
hands linked in a big global circle
of now master now master now master now!
And the future (slurp): every second
as well as day and hour, year and month
we take a piece of this with us
on our ways through the mundane forest
of work and money and worry
of death and birth and sorrow and joy
all grist to our mills and don't you
forget it, please—all our bad habits
will change if we try though it's all
material for study (shiver) a stone
in your shoe, stop, get it out
go your own way, find a new groove
which is really where you're forging ahead
on top of it all, bang on spot
always at the next word and chasing
them fantastic shapes that flee century
and outer space laughing as they beckon
you—us—to follow. So Prost! Cheers!
This is where we say goodbye and wish
one another well on our ways
till we meet again in the network
always and never like this again.
So can I open the presents now Mummy?

Vienna