brinksman

"Great television!" Putin's lapdog snarled
reverting to a scale he feels is real.
Deluded that he's merely playing cards
when frontline allies need a weapons deal.
The Europeans watched Zelenskyy stand
against the bullies, knowing he is right,
and rushed to underwrite the better man;
Ukrainians are waging the West's fight.
The Nazi threat our fathers' fathers fought
now not in Germany, but here at home,
took just one demagogue who's long been bought
and wants America to sit alone.
While Trump pursues his stupid fictive debt
all Europe's unified against the threat.

whose asset?

What Kompromat on Trump does Putin hold,
that keeps his creature fawning at his side?
Zelenskyy would be left out in the cold
and would soon need not ammo, but a ride.
Or would, if Europe didn't take a stand
behind one country fighting for us all.
While bullies mock and jeer the better man
as if it's only poker, or futbol.
Gross beauty pageant impresario
presumes consent when bulling in on teens
who might not feel empowered to say 'no'
to one who gets to vote on who's crowned "queen".
Beyond the nasty stench of pay-to-play
Trump's dealings wouldn't stand the light of day.

Orange Manbaby

The Kremlin propaganda Trump repeats
finds paltry purchase in his party's ranks.
Control those rubles bought now seems complete
beyond the fondest dreams of Wall Street banks.
Machinery McConnell'd built so strong
has been co-opted by the KGB.
Agenda Mitch can now perceive are wrong
advance without the turtle's by-your-leave.
Americans who don't watch FauxNews know
Ukrainians are waging the West's war.
Against the ancient grasping ursine foe,
they'll have no part of empire anymore.
Those files of Kompromat, so deep and wide
keep Putin's poodle fawning at his side.

as Below, so Above

Fleet Hermes offered to take Ares' place
snared by Hephaestos in the smith-god's bed.
Imagining the Goddess' embrace
bright ichor floods his visage hectic red.
The cuckold seems less sanguine for his part
deluded he might be the only one
to stoke the fires in Aphrodite's heart.
As if she'd given thought beyond what's fun.
Athena saw no reason here for mirth;
she'd seen such passions playing out before.
On high Olympus, or on lowly Earth
the fleeting love's prelude to grinding war.
No less than his Achaean kings and queens
Homeric gods seem hormone-addled teens.

JRR's groundwork

The pride of Denethor was Sauron's tool
to broach the citadel so stoutly built.
The fall of Faramir was doubly cruel
increasing as it must, a father's guilt.
John Milton resonates through Tolkien's work
his highest praise is saved for humble Sam.
While no one--quite--calls Boromir a jerk
Galadriel--for one--accounts him damned.
His outcome's dicey 'til his final breath
defending Hobbits under Amon Hen.
Unworthy life, redeemed in noble death
A Catholic author's jaundiced view of Men.
Rejecting allegory out of hand,
he can't transcend the world he understands.

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.