irreversibility

Six weeks and more, there's no one in that seat;
there's no one at the galas, chasing checks.
Kentuckians inured to ceaseless heat
deserve some slightest clue of what comes next.
The spirit's fled; the empty house of clay
might be sustained as labs would culture cells.
What's crossed the river Styx goes just one way
and can't rebook the slated date with Hell.
Heroics no one undertakes for fun:
machines to breath, and pump, and cleanse the blood...
But after everything's been said, and done,
this turtle's not emerging from the mud.
McConnell's damned us with his dying breath;
he even falsified his date of death.

Past tense

The mind that stole Supreme Court seats for fun
no longer animates the turtle's shell.
McConnell's rule in Washington is done;
but he's reserved a special place in Hell.
Tripartite governments been known to work
"ambition [can] be made to counteract..."
but not collaborating with a jerk,
who won't concede the plainest point of fact.
Kentuckians deserve to have a voice
in how we're gonna divvy up the tab.
Beshears must let them verbalize their choice
since Mitch is chilling out on his morgue slab.
A shell as empty as an angler's float
must not control the Senate in a vote.

Let it go

McConnell's gone; his party won't admit
that nothing animates the Turtle's shell.
Todd Blanche's nomination takes the hit;
his chance of confirmation trends towards Hell.
Beshears now feels the urgency to act
to fill the Seat that corpse still occupies.
Behind the smoke and mirrors, there's a fact;
what had been Mitch, is now attracting flies.
Kentuckians have rights we can't forget
by propping up a stiff to fill the seat,
their basic needs just aren't being met
where leaders have no motive to compete.
Tripartite government's had a good run
but if we let this stand, our day is done.

Only To Rise Again

Age-long they fell, Olorin and his foe
and 'though in freefall, never paused their fight.
drol spectacle for nameless Things below,
before ascending to the snow-capped height.
Matched Maiar, each a specialist in fire,
ablaze like Glorfindel at Bruinen.
As if the noon day sun were turned up higher,
they'd scorch the retinas of elves, or men.
That stair's destroyed; there could be no retreat,
had either pondered that he might survive.
The Balrog's Middleearth time's now complete;
the wizard's inexplicably alive.
Their seismic combat might not mean a thing
except to rearguard Frodo, and the Ring.

Charles III

The sunrise finds him cooling in his bed
who yesterday planned with his royal wife
a future in which neither one was dead;
denial features in king Charles' life.
His mother'd kept him comfortable in Wales
'til any juice of youth was safely spent.
the dernier cri in well-appointed jails
in which her first-born could be life-long pent.
He's done his duty, got a hale male heir
Like Henry couldn't, 'though--Lord knows-- he tried.
If now he's distant from the red haired Spare,
I tend to blame it on his second bride.
Would I be awfully forward to inquire:
"who gets to throw that woman on his pyre?"

Pellenor

The breaking dawn lights silver tree on black
that lady Arwen'd wrought in mithril thread.
Lord Aragorn, with legions at his back
rides into battle, 'though his army's dead.
As Theoden gave up his final breath,
king Eomer sweeps up the pennon green.
Rohirrim roared in unison for ''Death!"
Their blood is high, their lances long, and keen.
The final die's cast at the Crack of Doom
by Gollum in his deathgrip on the Ring.
But such maneuvers need the sort of room
that's only purchased with the deaths of kings.
Great warriors and small, show each their worth
in Tolkien's epic tales of MiddleEarth.

generation gap

Immortal Thetis can't have aged a day
since Peleus first claimed her for his bed.
Her first-born's flesh had mouldered into clay,
before she would concede that he lay dead.
Mortality's a "gift" in Tolkien's eyes
to never weary of the tolling years.
A sacred thing, to love what has to die;
to season feasts of pleasure with hot tears.
The immortality Achilles won
was not the sort a mother'd hoped to share.
His glory glows as long as songs are sung,
but she prefers he'd left one heir, one Spare.
Fleet-footed sea-nymph brooding in her fjord
know all too much of mortals, and their wars.

legacy

King William died in awkward circumstance;
his squires despoiled the corpse of any worth.
No coffin could be found in all of France,
to fit the English monarch's regal girth.
Enteric fauna took their tranche as well
before a fitting box was found, at last.
Beyond the limit human guts can swell,
He quit this world with one foul putrid blast.
Poor Hector, uncorrupted, lay in state
'til Priam tucked him in, atop his pyre.
But French bacteria disdain to wait;
recycling nutrients, as sure as fire.
These Windsors don't rely on Normans' claims,
but have a thing for inauspicious names

no honor among thieves

Prigozhin's stable-boy pulled off the swap,
bronze axle-pin replaced with one of wax.
Life's tenuous for Russians near the top;
they pull no pensions once they've got the ax.
From thirty thousand feet, this took a bit
'though decompression might have knocked them out.
If they were conscious by the time they hit,
who'd punched their final ticket's not in doubt.
"Appeal to Heaven"'s still Locke's last resort;
vonStauffenberg's revered for having tried.
Once Putin neutered both the Press, and Court,
fond dreams of perestroika wholly died.
Another rival sent to Davy Jones
the Kremlin wrote the rules for Game of Thrones.

oermatched

His vambrace showed the faintest smudge of breath,
and Imrahil felt hope leap in his breast.
The maid who'd seemed so parlous fair in death,
now waxed heroic in her martial quest.
The terror that has served the Morgul Lord
as shield and armor in a changing world,
availed him nought when facing Dernhelm's sword;
he'd never faced the equal of this girl.
Despairing of the only man she craved,
she'd sought at least an honorable end.
Where only menfolk could be seen as 'brave'
a fiery soul horselords can't apprehend.
The worthy death fair Eowyn desired
deferred when Faramir was spared the fire.

Shemini

Investiture's complete; it's been a week,
These Cohanim are ready to debut.
They've learned to dress, and schecht, and not to speak.
(as grievous as that last feels for a Jew) 
White-clad in linen, purged of sin and fear,
a turban knotted on each oil-slicked head
uniquely set apart, prepped to draw near,
a fancy-dress rehearsal to play dead.
As pure as Aaron's bull, and just as game
as Isaac, when his father'd raised that knife,
these two found consummation in the Flame,
exultant as a groom to take a wife.
Saint Paul proposed salvation's won through Faith;
Jews partner God, and have done, since the Eighth.

a leaf in the wind

So cold and numb, the hailstrikes scarcely hurt;
their relative velocity's quite small.
Ten thousand meters off the Aussie dirt,
Wisnierska wasn't piloting at all.
Unconscious baggage in convection's blast
her glider--packed with snow--persists to fly.
Her life-force on the wane, and fading fast
the mystery is that she didn't die.
Where Gadd and Castle opt to sit one out,
she takes the meethead's word the day looks good.
Subordinating any private doubt,
'though now, she might repent that, if she could.
Mere gossamer within the stormhead's suck
she lives to fly again, through dumbest luck.

memorial

On moonless nights, the dogs are unperturbed
they know each path, each rock, each root full well.
While I risk injury on every curb,
they're game to navigate, as if by smell.
Sweet prince, some pound proposed to euthanize,
lest someone take his woof for an attack,
intimidated by his lupine size,
was only fierce in loving his new pack.
The squirrels stripping fruit trees in the park
might miss the charm of predators beneath.
The nightmares haunting rodents in the dark
wed 'Tasha's speed to Odin's crushing teeth.
One day, we're hiking; next, he's wracked with pain.
There's scarcely time to bid a last 'so long'.
Eroding tibia can't take the strain;
abrupt old-age strikes hard in one so strong.
The Frisbee she disdained to ever share
lies idle now that Odin's just not there.

Love and Death

Fleet-footed Thetis just can't understand
how could her darling love what's doomed to die?
The gods had given her to such a man,
but she'd felt no affection for the guy.
This demi-god's more rooted in the world;
eternity's for deities above.
While Zeus fucks every pretty boy and girl
In Patrocles, he's lost his one true love.
Fair Helen launched the action on our stage,
but then retreated to a minor role.
Achilles is the wonder of his age;
the all-consuming war's his to control.
The paragon that Greeks aspired to be
mourns for his therapon, like it was he.

Funerary Games

His mother urged Achilles to get laid;
a woman's love might ease him through the night.
But now his partner's dead, his world's unmade.
No drive remains for life, or love, or fight.
Let Trojans do for Hector as seems fit;
that uncorrupted corpse is theirs to burn.
Our hero's too soul-numb to give a shit;
He'll see the forms played out, 'til it's his turn.
The fatal arrow's artfully off-stage;
we only learn he'd died in volume II.
He'll never know the aches of middle-age
or taste diminishment, as mortals do.
Peleides blazed bright by burning fast 
among Achaeans, foremost, first, and last.

Be Here Now

The puppy chasing shadows on the beach
of butterflies above him on the wing
cares nothing they're forever out of reach;
the pure pursuit for him's the only thing.
The surfers catching waves to let them go
don't dream that they'd possess the ones they caught.
Exulting in the endless ebb, and flow
the goal is not a thing that can be bought.
The tide rolls in, and everything's erased;
tabula rasa for another night.
Romantic liaisons so hotly chased
are only memories in the new light.
"All's transience" we're taught, but so few learn
to ride the wave with grace, while it's our turn.

changing fortunes

Great Hector did his best, then turned and ran,
confronting Achilleos in his rage.
Enflamed with grief, he's no mere mortal man;
this demigod's the terror of his age.
This Trojan king's a very Zeus-on-Earth
no less than Agamemnon for the Greeks.
But any soul of wholly mortal birth
against Peleides, is up a creek.
Andromache looks on, atop the wall
and understands that for their toddler son
should he survive at all, it's as a thrall.
One blow means Priam's dynasty's undone.
Her sister-in-law shakes her empty head;
her cuckold king still wants her back in bed.

fireplay

Two Maiar clash in flame on Durin's span
who hadn't met in Middle-Earth's Third Age.
The fearsome bane of Elf, or Dwarf, or Man,
was unprepared for combat with a mage.
Utumno fell, most balrogs went to ground
disdaining leniency in the far West.
There dozing deep, 'til Durin's folk delved down
insatiable in their mithril quest.
Istari'd played no part in Eru's scheme
as first enunciated long before.
But this old swordsman's tougher than you'd deem
he'll need an entry in Ents' rhymes of lore.
Grey bearer of the Elvish ring of fire
dispatched his foe to the infernal choir.

ka-chinng!

From Glorfindel, the Nazgul wheeled and fled.
A Noldo incandescent in his rage,
this balrog's bane, too puissant to stay dead,
was taking zero crap in his old age.
Defending Gondolin, he'd made his name
with Mandos, who was quick to send him back.
Each balrog slayer gets another game;
the deaths of elves are less than white and black.
Olorin knew this history full well;
his balrog wasn't gonna slip away.
Tenaciously embracing as they fell
the flame of Udun's bearer had to pay.
They're Hell to slay with battle-ax, or sword,
but killing balrogs wins a life's reward.

arcana

The IFF Celembrimbor devised

to keep the riffraff out of Khazad Dum,
in later days, defied the great and wise
who sought security in starless gloom.
Olorin knew the author by repute;
the son of Curufin left reams of lore.
But dwelling still in Bliss through this world's youth;
he'd never had to enter through this door.
Too late to sway Isildur from his fate
great Gandalf came to midwife the Fourth Age.
But first, at Moria, this mute West Gate
posed quite a barrier to one grey mage.
While archers shoot; while swordsmen slash, and hack
Mithrandir slew his Balrog, and came back.