Say good-by to the old year;
Say hello to the new.
Let go of the past and try to recast
A new and exciting you.
Say good riddance to all of your worries;
Start out fresh and clean.
Strive to find peace of mind
In TWENTY SEVENTEEN.

The past year was a messy one
With floods in the Midwest.
Then the ruler of North Korea,
Who has to be possessed
And thumbs his nose at the world and is
Always involved in a tussle,
Exploded a hydrogen bomb, thus
Flexing his little muscle.
LGBT and voting rights
Were both under attack.
Horrible massacres occurred
In Pakistan and Iraq.
In Syria and Afghanistan
Massacres happened as well.
And Jerusalem and Saudi Arabia
Both had a taste of hell.

Record-breaking blizzards made
The East cold and wet.
Scaring the world, the Zika virus
Continued to be a threat.
The water in Flint, Michigan,
Was an ongoing crisis.
Ancient ruins in the Middle East
Were STILL being bombed by ISIS.
The Clinton e-mail "scandal" grew
To ridiculous proportions.
More and more states were killing
Women's rights to abortions.
President Erdogan in Turkey
Cracked down on the press.
In the South China Sea, China
Was causing a lot of distress.

Britain voted to leave the EU.
Obama went to Japan
And visited Hiroshima--
A long-overdue plan.
Russia hacked U.S. computers
And boasted of certain connections,
Making us wonder how much control
We have over elections.
Summer record-breaking heat
Baked many states,
While the media bombarded us
With presidential debates.
The Summer Olympics took place this year
In lovely Rio, but mercy!
It's always hard to pull that off
Without some controversy.

This year we lost some famous people--
Too many to list.
Bowie, Ali, Leonard Cohen
And others will be missed.
(By the way, if memories here
Tend to focus on bad things,
Just remember that life is full
Of both happy and sad things.)
The economy has made improvements;
Unemployment is down.
Some businesses, they say,
Are really going to town.
Many people want to know
How much Donald Trump earns;
The billionaire still refuses
To show us his tax returns!

Fires raged in California.
In Oklahoma the land
Shook from fracking quakes, which
Are getting out of hand.
Protesters demonstrated
Together at Standing Rock
The oil pipeline coming their way.
They gathered round the clock.
Hurricane Mathew slammed hard
Into our eastern coast.
But Glenn Beck's conversion was
What shocked us the most,
Next to the presidential election,
That is. What a surprise!
And to think the unthinkable happened
Right before our eyes!

But say good-by to the old year;
Say hello to the new.
Let go of the past and try to recast
A new and exciting you.
Say good riddance to all of your worries;
Start out fresh and clean.
Strive to find peace of mind
In TWENTY SEVENTEEN.

- by Bob B (12-28-16)