pretty shirt

The mithril shirt the Mouth of Sauron bore
was plainly Frodo's, on whom they all dote
Evoking stories heard here long before,
of Jacob's favorite's many-colored coat.
"Bad artists borrow what great artists steal"
At least that's what I've read Picasso taught.
He knew the innovation's no less real
for all that some components could be bought.
All MiddleEarth awaited Tolkien's pen
to share what he had glimpsed thus far alone
The War and coming of the Age of Men
as Frodo helped put Strider on his throne.

Old elements are there to tease apart
but juxtaposing them's a minstrel's art.

old debts

The heir of Isildur called back the host
Who'd turned their coats an Age of Man before.
The Dark Lord's minions fled before such ghosts
belatedly reporting to wage war.
This Shadow Army came with sword and spear
but never got to demonstrate they'd bite.
Their enemies that didn't die of fear
cast down their arms and ran away in fright.
The ships of Umbar bore them all aboard
to turn the tide when everything looked grim.
When Dernhelm's thrust unstrung the Morgul lord

few save the Hobbit spared an eye for "him".

For those who long ago had broken faith

the call to serve's atonement for a wraith.

themes

Twin packs of suitors, bookends to the tale;
one woos her cousin, one sought Helen's hand.
At court in Ithaka, they're doomed to fail
Penelope's true love has come to land.
The oath that linked the first pack launched a war
Ten years of strife and camping in the mud.
This second crew are bound for something more;
they'll seal their brotherhood in mingled blood.
The twain tied with Odysseus' thread
our bard grants him alone enduring joy.
Achilles, shining bright, is ten years dead
before he hugs his wife and strapping boy.
One hero's epic if the reader'll look
spans twenty years in Homer's double book.

patterns

Laomedon was fool enough to cheat
the gods who'd built his city's fabled wall.
He died before the story was complete;
Astyanax would see Troy's epic fall.
The timeframe of the gods seems long to Man
who wants to see cause lockstep with effects.
It took blind Homer to portray the plan
How grueling War ensues from hot-blood Sex.
Fair Aphrodite knows she's Ares' twin
allied against the fractious Argive host.
but Pallas and her Ithakan still win;
Our bard knows Wisdom counts, and counts the most.
No education's worth the time it took
if it can't grant a classic a fair look.

beauty

Immortal Thetis must be just as young
today as when that golden apple spurred
three goddesses of whom such paeans are sung
to squabble for a trifle so absurd.
The mooncalf brother Hector would berate
who tends the flocks, 'cause that's all that he can
is no way fitted to adjudicate
which one deserves the fondest praise of Man.
Blind Homer knows which goddess he would choose
whose cultured conversation keep him hot
to whom Athenians still offer dues
but Paris voted for the Cypriot.
Still Thetis grieves; Achilles' death still hurts
and Zeus won't leave off sniffing at her skirts.

emmisary

Age-long, the balrog fell and Gandalf clung
in mortal combat under MiddleEarth.
An epic too few minstrels would have sung,
out of proportion to the subject's worth.
Sent back to do Iluvatar's behest,
reborn, a wizard greater than before,
distracting Sauron from the Hobbits' quest,
flamboyant general of the sham war.
Faux-elf, who wields the greatest Elvish ring
diverting Mordor from the Free World's bet,
wise midwife to the Fourth Age and its King
lured armies far from Frodo and his threat.
In Moria, he fell to rise again
This subtle author of the Age of Men.

senile disinhibition II

With passing time, Trump's flailings get more wild;
each lie more garish than what came before.
As disinhibited as any child,
but he's empowered to make peace, or war.
The Montenegrin minister's a gent
who shrugged to be so rudely shoved aside.
A Texan would have decked our president;
three courts in five would find him justified.
The world awaits the signal from Mike Pence
that he concedes it's gone on long enough.
To make the case for Trump's incompetence
with what he's done of late, won't be too tough.
But Pence's mis-placed tribal loyalty
condemned he world to Trump's senility.

transactional

Contagion's broadcast on his every breath
but nothing comes between Trump and his crowd.
He pays the few who're not afraid of Death
a bonus if they're energized and loud.
Aspiring actors eager for a role
inflate the rallies Trumpty's ego needs.
Each paycheck costs another piece of soul
and--this year--bears the risk of lung disease.
The dexamethasone that made him bloat
has disinhibited the lying jerk.
He raids the Treasury to buy a vote;
he's facing prison if this doesn't work.
Thought processes beneath that orange rug
are even stranger on this steroid drug.

polypharmacy

Before the Lasix masked his swollen throat,
Trump's let us glimpse his Orange totem toad.
The dexamethasone that made him bloat
did nothing to reduce his viral load.
Like Typhoid Mary's famous peach ice cream,
his rallies pump contagion through the crowd.
Without a mask, they're in your face to scream;
it's weirdly intimate, and way too loud.

The cure he's touting doesn't yet exist; 

he's selling snake-oil to the credulous.

In character, he doesn't give a shit

what outcome may befall the rest of us.

The clown who boasts he'll never touch a drink

is running on more drugs than you may think.

 

steroidal mania

On steroids, Trump sounds utterly deranged
beyond his trickle-down idiocy.
Sane audiences gotta find it strange
he rants that rivers flow into the sea,
and babies get delivered at full-term
expecting voters should be horrified.
On dexamethasone, he's quite infirm
His handlers ought to keep him gagged, inside.
And as they wean him off, his mood will crash
his staff will have to fabricate his tweets
in imitation of his verbal hash,
in sentences and thoughts, both incomplete.
The critics who deride his orange rugs
will need new adjectives, for Trump on drugs.

archetypes

Slain Agamemnon obligates his son
like Leto's murder drives the plot of 'Dune'.
Harkonnen crowed too soon of what he'd won,
he'd keep a date with Alia's harpoon.
Blood vengeance from the grieving next of kin
is how societies degenerate.
Feuds escalate; they're easy to begin,
where Justice isn't doled out by the State.
Until Athena stooped to intercede
Orestes fled before the Hags of Hell.
He'd done his duty, as his father's seed
but never after got to sleep full well.
Grand epic themes are writers' legacies
that resonate through House Atreides.

blood debt

Maimed Lebanon gropes blindly for its head
but doesn't bother looking on the street.
'Though all the ledgers are awash in red,
persistently, they name the same elite.
Hariri's not yet done with al-Assad
who rubbed his father out, like a mistake.
So far, he's left revenge to courts, and God
but there's a limit to what he can take.

what could Orestes do in such a plight?
He's next of kin and must avenge the king.
In his dilemma, no decision's right;
the best of actions, consequences bring.

The Mehlis probe laid out the case full well
Assad has a hot date to keep, in Hell.

Orestes saw his duty, and proved true;
Elektra's orphaned by her brother's hand.
Good kids stood up to do what they must do
to purge the regicide taint from the land.

Orestes can't shrug off the family weight
Until Athena will adjudicate.

Orestes was ordained to break the spell;
Athena took him for her very own
Inventing courts to thwart the Hags of Hell.
Exiled from Mycenae, he found a home.

His father's murder cried out from the Earth.

Orestes knew what duty'd bid him do

to prove himself a pious son of worth.

but matricide's a Capital sin, too.

what could Orestes do in such a plight
he's next of kin and must avenge the king
in his dilemma, no decision's right
the best of actions consequences bring

'roid rage

Don Jr. thinks his father sounds insane
but hesitates to call him out, alone.
Ivanka'd been the one to hold the reins.
"The lights are on, but ain't nobody home".
On dexamethasone, Trump's feeling great!
Although he struggled with a flight of stairs
With cameras rolling, he'll prevaricate.
Fact-checks come later, and nobody cares.
His housestaff are replaceable, I guess.
He signals clearly what's not said aloud.
Aerosolizing his infectious mess,
like Mussolini playing to the crowd.
A madman's seized the helm of Ship of State.

November's referendum comes too late.

derailed

Ruth Bader Ginsburg bent the moral arc
towards Justice while she nursed a wisp of breath.
She's gone, and leaves us pathless in the Dark;
Truth's torch lies fallen with Her servants death.
What prairie-fire that brand may yet ignite
is hidden from us in McConnell's gloom.
A nation famished for a glint of light
fears our republic's shambling towards its doom.

Her bench sits empty while McConnell schemes
to seat a judge subservient to men.

An evil turtle's ultimate pipe-dream--
to disenfranchise half the vote, again.
Tripartite government's third leg's too short

until a balanced jurist joins the court.

House of Atreus

Poseidon kept sweet Pelos for his bed
once Tantalos' heir had been restored.
He'd seen potential in what he'd been fed
ambrosial boy has ways to please his lord.

His grandsons likewise ended in the pot
no deity stepped in to bring them back.
Their uncle's wrath went overboard (a lot).
When in Mycenae, don't stop for a snack.
Dire Klytemnestra knew the stakes were high

the clan she'd married into had been cursed.
To cuckold Agamemnon on the sly
she'd honed an ax with which to kill him, first.
Celebrities may entertain us all

but splatter like ripe produce when they fall.

quorum

McConnell needs a quorum to confirm
a Justice to Ruth Ginsburg's still-warm seat.
A month from now begins his lameduck term
if Democrats can compass his defeat.

A three-seat margin can evaporate
already, two have told us they'll abstain.
As Trump keeps trying to inoculate
more senators, that edge swirls down the drain.
Each day, another minion calls in sick
this virus doesn't care that they're so rich.
Self-quarantine means he can't turn this trick;
the numbers don't look good for Putin's bitch.
Trump's tantrums, petulence, and childish wrath
mean nothing to the epidemic math.

legacy

Poseidon kept sweet Pelos for his bed
once Tantalos' heir had been restored.
He'd seen potential in what he'd been fed
ambrosial boy has ways to please his lord.
Thyestes frolicked with his brother's wife
and Atreus nursed doubts about his sons.
Mycenae's no place for the happy life;
their royals don't know how that would be done.
Aegysthos shirked while all Greece sailed to war
and bedded Klytemnestra on the sly.
When Agamemnon strode through his own door,
the guy who'd won at Troy, came home to die.
Orestes can't shrug off the family weight
Until Athena will adjudicate.