December Poetry Challenge A: 24 for '24

[29wordsforsnow]

Everything comes to an end, eventually, so here it is, your final monthly challenge in 2024: Make two dirty dozens. 24 lines they must be, a reference to the 24 challenges we held this year.

If you like, comment in here. You may borrow single lines freely from past challenges - of course, praise the original author - make it an alphabetic countdown without the odd letters, a complex haiku octet regarding the four seasons and each transition, a double sonnet with a few lines missing...whatever makes me count all fingers, toes, eyebrows and nostrils.

 

[Tzara]

Evanescence

Things end. Love, youth, life,
eventually even the universe. Still,
I miss her presence. I miss her poems,

their language elegant and cultured
as her accent. That this loss is natural
provides no comfort.

But then all I've known is her poems.
Her Bhujangasana, her
Ardha Uttanasana,

the climbing vine of her chair pose
simply imagined, even fetishized,
as if desire alone could somehow

forge flesh from idea.
How she would gently hold
a brush swept across mulberry paper,

how her slim fingers
might there shape a stem, a leaf—
that caress

does not live in my memory,
however much I might wish it did.
So I must cherish

the fading vision of her words,
even as they evaporate
like fresh dew from an immaculate lawn.

 

[Angeline]

Evanescence

Things end. Love, youth, life,
eventually even the universe. Still,
I miss her presence. I miss her poems,

...

This is lovely, Tzara. I think I know who the poem is about and I miss her too,. She's a very talented poet, beautiful inside and out.

 

[Angeline]

12 Desultory and Holiday-ish Couplets

Holly jolly hold up! What's that you said?
There is surely no reindeer named Fuckhead?!

How about that Feast of Seven Fishes?
All that seafood but even more dishes.

I once won a wrapping paper contest--
Used batteries and a light-up Elvis.

Yes it was shameless resorting to schlock.
(i don't much care plus I love a good shock.)

You know nothing much rhymes with Hanukah.
Yarmulke? Harmonica? Cholera?

The best part of Hanukah is latkes
With eight nights of gifts expect some chotchkes

Here's winter: snow is covering the ground
Which means Persephone is not around.

New-fallen snow is a gift from above.
It paints the trees, fits my world like a glove.

My love chose the very best Christmas trees,
Tall and fragrant, made a room smell like peace

I've saved baubles that remind me of you,
That Charlie Brown one, the coffee mug too

You knew how to put Christmas in my soul
How these sweet memories still keep me whole!

Merry Christmas; Happy Hanukah too.
Whatever you wish I hope it comes true.