Edoras

In Fangorn, Brego had the timbers felled
to build a fitting meadhall for his throne.
The golden roof of storied Meduseld
would gleam on wooden rafters, not Helm's stones.
Illiterate, his builders might have been
who coined no currency to spend in Dale.
They put their faith in equines, not machines
and celebrated life with lakes of ale.
Their architecture showed their good horse-sense
had not been dulled by urban fripperies.
They didn't trust in moat, or wall, or fence
to guard their brawny backs when at their ease.
Since Brego deemed one mustn't drink and ride,
Door-bars faced out, to pen his drunks inside.

Yule

Past perihelion, flung back into space

Chileans watch their Summer sun recede

still snugly held in gravity's embrace

a dancer following Sol's stately lead.

Norteños watch days wax, and night-lengths wane

as New Year treads the beard of one grown old.

An axis canted from the solar plane

means days grow longer while our world's still cold.

Nativity got overlaid on Yule

as Saturnalia morphed to sing God's birth.

To face the dead of Winter sober's cruel

while pagans fete renewal of the Earth

As years concatenate another link,

we pass the darkest night with friends, and drink.

legislating morality

self-medicating blunts anxiety
for some who doubt they'll ever carve a place
contributing to a society
that offers less a life than a rat-race
some lean on booze, and we tried banning that
which pumped a lot of money into crime
you'd almost have to think the world were flat
to criminalize smoking pot this time
dispassionately acting on the facts
we wouldn't keep repeating these mistakes
on such a market, we should levee tax
if half our legislators were awake
from Prohibition, we can learn a lot
about the fight for legalizing pot