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.

"Over There"

The Kremlin quakes; the war's come home at last;
another general will kill no more.
All Moscow must have heard the car -bomb's blast,
and Russians can't pretend they're not at war.
Three years of efforts to assassinate
Zelenskyy so far, all have been in vain.
At home, he's so hard to defenstrate;
the Kremlin wields few levers in Ukraine.
The empire Putin dreamt would make his name,
like Katherine reborn, astride his steed,
insists it has no wish to be reclaimed
to gratify his autocratic greed.
Civilians, far too late become aware
no war's conducted wholly "over there".

Gray Tribe

A new day dawned, Luigi took his shot
and fled the crime-scene on a city bike.
The media were quick to miss the plot
as if downtrodden proles would never strike.
A man falls dead; none can repair the loss
He leaves a world uprooted and bereft.
For life, like health, who can compute the cost?
A human value's not pure 'Right' or 'Left'.
Two parties, each indebted to the few,
instead of working for the public cause,
do only what insurers want them to,
pretending that they're just enforcing laws.
As we embark another gilded age,
a bandit-hero vents the people's rage.

Bashar

The ophthalmologist picked up and fled
with just his credit cards, and trophy wife.
He'd watched Qaddafi hunted, beaten, dead...
and leapt to barter honor for his life.
The heir apparent jousted with a truck;
mismatching masses, vast momentum won.
Succession settled on one day's bad luck
this chinless understudy for a son.
In Moscow, worn out puppets cool their heels
they polish Putin's boots, and sing his praise.
Re'ssuring him the people's love is real
as if they're wistful for tzar Ivan's days.
An empire in decline can't shield its friends;
nobody has a clue how all this ends.

A New Dawn

Assad thought Putin'd always have his back
presuming Kremlin coffers would stay filled
But sanctions bite; gas revenue's now Jack
He'd have to pay for future thousands killed.
Dug in, behind Damascus' ancient walls
What's next, a world of pundits couldn't tell 
He had emigrate, or take the fall
and join his fellow Baathist thugs in Hell.
The blitzkrieg Putin couldn't pull off in Ukraine
rolled like a Spring storm torrent heaven-sent
his mercenaries quit where there's no gain
to leave their boss alone in Yael's tent.
One chinless exile languishing alone;
six million refugees now turn for home.

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?"

Rhymes with Orange

The siblings he had never known in life
embrace their newest brother as their own.
The bargain--in addition to a wife--
now--at a stroke--gets family, and home.
From Orange, to Seattle, (and return?)
the trek you'd never charter in advance
by way of tending forests as they burn
shows human will triumphant over Chance.
Contracted freely by a human hand,
no clergy need intrude in this domain
No fictive Power hanging over Man
needs mediate when Ian met Jermaine.
When speeches, pomp, and pageantry are done,
two lives united joyously make one.