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?

second time as farce

With passing time, it's clear that Donald's dim
but trusts that we won't notice what he can't
so confidant the rules are not for him
but if we balk, he'll bluster, lie, and rant.
His fans evince no interest in news
nor  that the healthcare plan he backs is mean.
They're tired of oratory from Ted Cruz,
but now, he drove his golfcart on the green!
Is nothing sacred? Can't he show some class?
Some immigrant must seed and groom his track.
Another Dangerfield's the braying ass
as Washington's remaking Caddyshack.
A tragic hero must soar high to fall
but Trump's the basest jackass yet of all

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

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

tragoidia

for Stephen Sondheim, parody's a lark
a moment's work to rip Trump a new ass
although for comic opera, it's dark
it's fun to mock his failed pretense to class
from day to day, an ever-changing spiel
without a jot or tittle he'd defend
his crowds don't think, but he gets them to feel
the White man's downward demographic trend
so Barbra Streisand sings it to the choir
and Clinton donors swoon to just be there
her war-chest's huge and mounting ever higher
at $40,000 for a chair
this orange avatar of unschooled rage
is made the butt of jokes on New York's stage

drama

Euripides gave women a Greek voice
in stories we'd known through the eyes of men
although the polis granted them no voice
their wit's recorded by the playwright's pen
but there we've stalled, 'til somebody elects
a woman to the presidential role
why merit ought to correlate with sex
smacks less of logic than about control
the Trumpen Proletariate pull back
is nothing left of Man's prerogative?
in wounded pride, they go on the attack
with rhetoric coherent as a seive
whoever's first will need a rhino's rind
to make the next great leap for Womankind        

Tempest

Prospero drowned his book and broke his staff
a fond farewell to writing comedy
'though Trinculo had charms to make one laugh
the Bard was mulling his mortality
he'd made the masses weep and beg for more
and had them baying for a tyrant's blood
but even when they're rolling on the floor
he feared the next one staged might be a dud
a play's all transience; the curtains fall
tomorrow only the reviews persist
the best of jugglers sometimes drops a ball
the best of archers has been known to miss
his mark's indelible upon the stage
let this--not "Timon" stand as his last page

human scale II

'though Sophocles saw Fates in everything
Euripides lays all of it on Man
the meanest servant and the proudest king
must lay and execute his own life-plan
a subtle midrash on Homeric texts

dismissive of the creeds of ages past

inevitable as cause and effects

the tragedy's implicit in the cast
a humanist before we had the word
for whom the action all comes from within
unint'rested in what he deems absurd
to blame a deity for mortal's sin
a treasure from the Periclean age
laid bare the human psyche on the stage    

the human scale

'though Sophocles blames Fates for everything
Euripides lays all of it on Man
the meanest servant and the proudest king
must lay and execute his own life-plan
the Golden Age of yore provides his themes
but all the drama's on the human scale
there's no heroic aura to his schemes
and not much room for gods to shape his tale
a humanist before we had the word
for whom the action all comes from within
unint'rested in what he deems absurd
to blame a deity for mortal's sin
a treasure from the Periclean age
explored the human psyche on the stage    

the seamy side

a second son with no inheritance
obliged to seek his fortune overseas
young Jason staked his life on one slim chance
to win rhapsodic immortality
the dragon would have stopped him in his tracks
had he not found an ally and a guide
who bought the hero his safe passage back
his super-competent exotic bride
Euripides stood all this on its head
a modern eye turned on the antique work
to focus on Medea's role instead
and show up Jason as a preening jerk
her suicide must be implied, off-stage
but theater-goers still thrill to her rage