Byronic

Lord Byron hid his penchant for the lads
behind the pretty objects one expects.
To publicize those conquests would be mad,
when England criminalized even sex.
What fantasies Don Juan might entertain
while mingling sweet in someone else's bed,
in neither prose, not verse did he explain.
We're free to speculate, now he lies dead. 
The literary version of a man
elides complexity, as fiction must.
At best, it sketches out what verbiage can;
there's nuance lost, when simplifying lust.
Vain groupies, hoping each might be his bride
don't grasp he's batting for the other side.

formalist

Will Shakespeare explained
why he kept his metric scheme
"iamb what iamb"

meta-text

Penelope worked tireless at her loom,
While Helen practiced subtle arts in bed.
Pursuing beauty lures men to their doom,
except Odysseus, who keeps his head.
Blind Homer knew that Aphrodite's charm
is no true compass to the happy life.
The hero who's averse to grievous harm
must seek a partner, not a trophy wife.
Achilles never bid for Helen's hand
--Like Phoebus, he disdains to compromise--
But Briseus is his! No mortal man
would mess with such a godling, were he wise.
Enduring ethics sung in the Bronze Age,
go so much further than Achilles' rage.

rodef-dam

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.

While wise Penelope wove a fair shroud

her cousin Klytemnestra wrought a snare.

The textile-arts such ladies were allowed

Go way past weaving, sewing, and repair.

Hog-tied while stepping out of his warm bath
so like his daughter, on that Aulis pyre
a sacrificial beast beneath the ax,
he conquered Troy, but not his lady's ire.
Immortal poetry preserves their names;

the House of Atreus went down in flames.

Field of Pelennor

"Death!" roared his riders    Eomer led them
spotting his sister               flung on the fallen
king in his noon-years        eager for killing
Rohan's anointed               at the sun's rising

Theoden's fallen                gone to his Fathers Eorl's wunderkind             worthy of honor Slew the Black Serpent     Sauron's surrogate midwinter minstrels         shine his memory shattered by Snowmane    bane of his master When he's embarrowed     women will mourn him Last of his bloodline         crown must pass sideways Son of his sister                starts a new mounds-row Eowyn's brother                eclipsed in battle Theoden's fallen               gone to his Fathers Dropping his home-guard  rode to save Mundburg Bright flairs the sunset     Third Age is ending

Agon III

Sing muse, of Achilleus and his ire
the only male immune to Helen's charm.
She's fair, but not the type to light his fire
and Paris never did him any harm.
No oath obliged him in the Greeks' dispute; 
to court the Spartan heiress, he's too young.
The kin of Ganymede are smokin' cute

and like their  famous horses, nobly hung.
Nine years, the booty dangled out of reach
the oak hulls rot, the linen sails lie furled.
Our hero with his boyfriend strolls the beach
'til Agamemnon gives him back the girl.
The Western Canon's greatest epic text
makes no pretense that War's not twin to Sex.

twin tales

Two heroes meet where only one can live
Achilles cut down Hector in his prime,
then asks old Priam that he should forgive
outrages when he wasn't of sound mind.
Two heroes meet, one's purely bred of man,
the other's only half of mortal stuff.
Each glorious in doing what he can,
unbending, 'though their lots in life be tough.
Two heroes meet, but only one goes home.
Achilles' tomb's uncounted leagues from Greece.
While Hector nestles in his natal loam
Peleides in exile knows no peace.
Two heroes  meet, their epic's twelve nights long
undimmed by death while still we sing their song.

Agon II

Sing muse! Achilles awesome in his ire
remained immune to Helen's vaunted charm.
She's fair, but not the type to light his fire
and Paris never did him any harm.
No oath obliged him in the Greeks' dispute; 
to court the Spartan heiress, he's too young.
But Priam's boys by all accounts are cute
and like their  famous horses, nobly hung.
Nine years, the booty dangled out of reach
the oak hulls rot, the linen sails lie furled.
Our hero with his boyfriend strolls the beach
'til Agamemnon gives him back the girl.
The Western Canon's greatest epic text
makes no pretense that War's not twin to Sex.

formal constraints

One hundred forty syllables suffice
for those who'll spend the effort, and the time
to choose each word with effort (not with dice)
within constraints of meter, and of rhyme.
Communication takes two of a kind
whose inner lexicons contrive to synch
but certainty that there's another mind
rests more on faith, than arguments one'd think.
Elizabethan sonnets set one norm
for Dryden, Shakespeare, Coleridge, and Donne.
Ideas run wild, while hewing to the form.
But some seem unconvinced this could be fun.
Some other life, I may be one of those
content to dream in monochrome, and prose.

sow's ear

A presidency's arc in rhyming verse
sweet presentation, 'though the content's gall.
Obama's exit changed us for the worse;
Trump seems Hell-bent on our republic's fall.
The Checks and Balances our Framers wrought
collapse when Congress shirks its proper role;
when donors dictate to the pawns they've bought
It's dollars, not the People, in control.
Each week, his language skills degenerate;
where others focus, he spews verbal hash.
A manichean world, all "bad" or "great"
excludes all values neither "gold" nor "trash".
I might as well write sonnets to the moon;
Trump's deaf to what's not pitched in a cartoon.

Times change

Since Robert Frost, the poets' realm's grown small
their library's contracted to one shelf.
Where Milton sang of Eden, and the Fall,
the Modern's world's no bigger than the self.
Miranda craved an Art that's got more range
let haiku-masters keep theirs neat, and terse.
While others whine, he'll engineer the change;
this generation's primed for rhyming verse.
Millennia, t'was poets ruled the stage,
from ribald comic highs, to tragic lows.
His Hamilton's the wonder of the age,
eclipsing treatments done in plodding prose.
Each year, some forms gain favor, some forms lose.
Tomorrow, something new may please the Muse.

changing fashions

Since Robert Frost, the poets' realm's grown small
their library's contracted to one shelf.
Where Milton sang of Eden, and the Fall,
the Modern's world's no bigger than herself.
Miranda craved an Art that's got more range
let haiku-masters keep theirs neat, and terse.
While others whine, he'll engineer the change;
this generation's primed for rhyming verse.
Millennia, t'was poets ruled the stage,
from ribald comic highs, to tragic lows.
His Hamilton's the wonder of the age,
eclipsing treatments done in plodding prose.
Each year, some forms gain favor, some forms lose.
Who knows what offerings may please the Muse?

that was a good king!

his people love him, but still, there's no son
to stand with Beowulf against the worm
the thanes devour his board, but quit and run
against such terror, no man's knees are firm
now, only Wiglaf's doing the right thing
of all who swore they serve at his command
a piddling army for the great Geat king
to fend off devastation from the land
from savior to martyr, he's complete
while still alive, he's half-way deified
while bards still sing the praises of this Geat
it's just his earthly trappings that have died
the dragon proved the hero's grimmest foe
but death in battle's the grand way to go

times change

Miranda brought rhymed verse back into vogue

his Hamilton's the smash hit of the age

to cast a banker as a dashing rogue

infused new spirit into New York's stage

pentameter trips lightly off the tongue

when Mamet's characters connive and scheme

but Hamilton's libretto must be sung

to conjure history as in a dream

like hemlines, literary fashions drift

one bad review could ring your curtain down

but if they're raves, the format gets a lift

the playwright's hailed the hero of the town

Elizabethan sonnets are passé

but if they're coming back's not mine to say

hospitality

the Levite's concubine replays Sodom
where hospitality's turned on its head
no matter where the stranger might come from
he'll find no sanctuary in his bed
ten righteous men could justify a town
a sacerdotal mission to the folk
but one would see his ethics trampled down
'til all gets purged in brimstone, fire and smoke
Homeric themes transcend the tongue we speak
respect for strangers grounds society
as much for Israelite as for the Greek
to treat them ill is grave impiety
back home in Ithaka, Ulysses burned
foul brimstone where a stranger had been spurned

unlinked

the sage of Amherst rarely left her home
depression often kept her pent in bed
like Proust, it's just her mind that got to roam
the life she lived was mostly in her head
but for her writings, did she live at all?
was she an avatar in someone's game?
existing only on a Facebook wall
with no biology behind the name
her correspondence bridges time and space
a virtual community through books
she'll never meet her fan-base face-to-face
and they can only guess at how she looks
for Dickenson, a spindly web of ink
provided her her only human link

garden of branching paths II

the metaphoric woods of Robert Frost
evoke the start of Dante's Comedy
each path not taken is a cosmos lost
potential worlds that never come to be
a chance encounter on a plane, or walk
might introduce a nemesis, or wife
predictions are too often empty talk
there is no certain foresight in this life
two paths diverge, and I can't take the twain
unlike a photon, I'm constrained to choose
decisions now, in hopes of future gain
inseparable from the chance to lose
that darkness in the woods Frost dimly saw
for Heisenberg, achieved the force of law

the garden of branching paths

the metaphoric woods of Robert Frost
evoke the start of Dante's Comedy
each path not taken is a cosmos lost
potential worlds that never come to be
a chance encounter on a beach, or plane
might introduce a nemesis, or wife
predicting ev'ry consequence is vain
there is no certain foresight in this life
two paths diverge, and I can't take the twain
unlike a photon, I'm constrained to choose
decisions now, in hopes of future gain
inseparable from the chance to lose
that darkness in the woods Frost dimly saw
for Heisenberg, achieved the force of law

Hamilton!

Miranda brought rhymed verse back to the stage
to tell an orphan's inspirational
life story to a cynical new age
his Hamilton's acclaimed sensational
a renaissance of forms we'd thought passé
reshaping how our stars of the stage speak
as if medieval Europe changed the way
it valued heritage in Attic Greek
libbreticists fit in historic facts
but human drama grips the audience
who may not care about stamps, tea, or tax
but love a costume drama's elegance
with time, a culture's templates ebb, and flow
but this year, Hamilton's the hottest show

summarizing Proust

Proust kept a log of his  untidy mind
inviting readers in to sink, or swim
some find their thoughts are much of the same kind
some feel it's all particular to him
great literature ought to resonate
but still meets a diversity of taste
those hawthorn blossoms of his endless prate
some readers find a shapeless verbose waste
a shorter form fits my attention span
of seventy iambs in rhyming verse
within a reader's mind I dare hope can
evoke a self-consistent universe
a monument to years spent pent in bed
Marcel's rich life was mostly in his head