The Ruff Fukr Competition

"Were it possible, a vast number of human beings would likely relive    
at least one day in their lives --    
each being utterly ignorant of the consequences."    
-- a Rationally Ethical poet not among the vast number    
    
*      
     
My New Year's resolution this year, like the year before,    
I fear is but to pose the question most shall likely bore,        
to wit -- Had I the choice, would I relive my antic life --        
encompassing the vow to bow before my faultless wife,        
yet two world wars, the Holocaust, the dropping of the bomb,        
the morn I aced the alphabet and sang it with aplomb,        
Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf, Afghanistan, Iraq,       
the hour I mastered telling time to read the Doomsday Clock,        
still 9/11, Sandy Hook, El Paso, Columbine,        
the eve I grasped my dad and mommy loved to 69,       
the European heat waves, Haiti earthquake, China drought,        
Katrina -- "Mine Eternal Love" till endless fallings-out --        
the Challenger, Chernobyl, plus the Boston Marathon,        
the sec I knew no high school dolls with goof balls get it on,        
Coronavirus, HIV and AIDS, the Asian flu,        
the year I learned to write the 1 percent an IOU,        
and each night I forget I have dementia in the brain --        
till full recalling every dawn my loved ones died in pain?    
     
*    
     
a dedication of Respect    
for    
the value of boundless Pain    
continuous    
     
a revolving helios rhyme menippean satire on    
the popular, sentimental, romanticized notion of    
human life    
     
january, 2023 -- yet countless romantics still fancying      
happy new years