Happy New Year

My Grouchy Goodnight to 2008
By Ruel Johnson (With apologies to Pauker and Praed)


Good night to the year Y2K8
It has finally come to an end.
I could probably quite safely state
Mine has followed the general trend –
Some bad shit, some good shit, but over
All not irredeemably mucked up;
Mostly me trying my ass to stay sober,
Between drinking to forget I’m fucked up.

Not by everything, just mostly the marriage,
And all my relationships since.
Miscarriage after goddamn miscarriage;
Each time I think about my sex life, I wince.
Oh, I have had my moments of beauty,
And those of sheer ecstasy too –
It’s just that they didn’t involve any cutie,
Just my hand and “Dirty Debutantes 2”.

Goodnight to all my dear friends on Facebook,
All six hundred and ninety seven of you;
I would be as lying as any lawyer or crook,
To say you’re all people I knew.
Like who the fuck would Imran Khan be?
Or Kamal Ramkarran or Gino Persaud?
Does Kwesi Anthony Isles know me?
Do I know Lisa Ahmad?

“Justin Helton’ sounds like part of a lame pun
“ Knock Knock.” “Who’s there?” “Justin Helton.”
“Just say it, I swear this’ll be a good one.”
“’K, Justin Who? " "Just in Hell, tonight, craving some sun.”
I know, of course, Maria and Nazima –
Always on my damn status updates.
For two horny young women, it would seem a
A bit better to have more on their plates.

Goodnight, dear Guyana, the water
Keeps rising to cover us all
More ably than a certain man’s daughter,
Would cover…it-rhymes-with-“my wall”.
Dear Minister of Agriculture,
My good friend Robert Persaud,
Douchfour’s forced aquaculture,
Is making your constituency mad.

Good night, the Café Oasis,
And (on South Road) Oasis Too.
The coffee from so many places:
Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Peru.
Good night to Windies, ‘my table’,
Where I imbibe my good coke and rum,
And drink and write till I’m unable
To drown out the ambient hum.

Goodnight to my ex (yes I “went there”),
My own former bright shining star –
It seems that you were specially sent here,
To – okay, that would be going too far.
I’ll save my damning to tarnation,
To avoid any more strife.
Just that in my next incarnation,
I won’t be having a wife.

Good night to this craft of writing,
It’s lovely but at times such a louse,
And moody, and bitchy, and spiting –
In fact, not too far from a spouse.
Goodnight, for now, to my Fictions,
Filled with “truth”, I am told, to mock you;
May it become one of your future addictions –
And if not then, honestly, fuck you.

Good night to the year Y2K8,
I wish all my friends all the best,
May I manage to remain sedate,
May I get far more women undressed.
May I grow richer and stronger,
And may my life be filled with reward,
And while “it” doesn’t need to be longer,
Dear God, may it always stay hard.
May I eventually find a true love,
With a pleasure place tasty and tight,
Or, if not, then a convenient screw, love –
Goodnight to this sweet year, good night.