Only To Rise Again

Age-long they fell, Olorin and his foe
and even falling, never paused their fight.
drole 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,
to scorch the retinas of elves, and 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.

Playing Games

Imploring Xi to shut the Persians down,
Trump grovels like a supplicant of yore.
as if Beijing 's indebted to this clown
who'd planned no exit, when he rushed to war.
Climb flights of stairs! Attend my leisure! Kneel!
Humiliation 's meted out, non stop.
It's we who must rely on Chinese steel,
while Iowans can't sell their soybean crop.
This war's unpopular, and getting worse,
as party elders feel elections loom.
Endorsed by Trump, a candidate feels cursed;
Abe Lincoln's party's got a date with Doom.
Chinese play Go, Iranians play Chess,
and both sense  we're the party in duress.

Fortune favors the prepared

'Though Anthony proposes to rely
on Kurtis to bring oxygen tanks, full,
Scott knows--although this wasn't quite a 'lie--
such promises get filed away as "bull".
With years, a pilot learns to be aware
great Owens days won't come on our command.
It's wise to show up totally prepared;
what's delegated isn't in our hands.
Memorial week, thermals often rip
a glider up to frolick with the birds.
But far too often, pilots waste the trip;
to gamble with hypoxia's absurd.
No outcome's guaranteed at sea, or air
But Fortune smiles on those who come prepared.

the Fig Leaf (Vayigash)

Exposed, ashamed, the brothers can't deny
they'd sold Yosef, and thought him gone for good.
'Til Joe contrived the diplomatic lie:
they'd merely done what God has meant they should.
The intervening years great changes wrought;
the tactless teen has learned to temper truth.
A handsome lad those Midianites bought
has gained in wisdom what he's lost in youth.
Yehudah, for his part, had grown his soul.
'Though fourth-born, he's now leader of this mob.
Where Reuben's proved unfit to wield control,
the man who can steps forth to do the job.
Pericope of unaccustomed scope
finds reconciliation, past all hope.

War Powers

Cambodia taught Congress to assert
what Founders designated is its role.
Before our youth bleed out on foreign dirt,
we must be clear just who is in control.
War Powers aren't Trump's to arrogate
whenever journalists call out his crimes.
Our Senate's mandate's to deliberate,
before we rush to arms, we must take time.
"EMERGENCY!" Trump bleats, 'cause Bannon'd taught
extraordinary powers can be seized
from Congress, once they're compromised, or bought,
and won't be stripping Grandpa of his keys.
Recalling history's a bitter thing
when Congress thinks it's vassal to a king.

Clathrates

Disordered water can't sustain its hold;
archaic methane wafts free from the box.
The climate we've evolved in from of old
is unsustainable once that's unlocked.
Those voids that hosted methane as their guest,
collapse on melting, like they'd never been.
Al Gore's just one of billions in distress
as what's turned loose, that had been pent within.
This conflagration on a global scale--
self-reinforcing with each gram released--
proceeds from such molecular detail.
Mortality ticks up, with each Increase.
The centre cannot hold; things fall apart
as permafrost lets rip this deadly fart.

Cry 'havoc!"

Our Pentagon gamed all this out before;
the Persian Gulf's no battlefield we'd choose.
with Persians waging asymmetric war,
most simulations show we slowly lose.
Tom Jefferson refused to pay a toll
for shipping on a common route at sea.
But Trump now put the Persians in control
where we had sent Marines to Tripoli.
Two hundred years, free shipping made us strong
and wealthier than Lydia of yore.
But Trump can't tell his public he'd been wrong;
so bid your kids farewell; they're bound for war.
What Congress hasn't weighed turns on one man
wh manifestly hasn't got a plan.