Marry well

Her sister'd maddened half the men of Greece,
but Kkytemnestra's no great prize to wed.
Her husband won at war, but died in peace;
that garland's useless when you've lost your head.
Twin Tyndarids proved equally unchaste;
One ran off with a pretty Asian lad.
To marry for a famously fair face,
to Homer's mind, is bound to turn out bad.
Odysseus brought home the best of wives,
Penelope, who matched his famous wit.
While other paid for glory with their lives,
the man of many ways proved the most fit.
When we recall the Mycenaean world
the tales turn on Tyndareus' girls.

the Agamemnon

Her sentinels report: the watchfires flare;
king Agamemnon's coming home from war.
Aegysthos who had shirked his duty there,
starts planning to slink out the postern door.
It's Klytemnestra lays the bolder plan:
she'll lay the crimson carpet for his tread,
surpassing Helen to betray her man;
she'll take not just his honor, but his head.
Cassandra's prophecy's a wasted breath.
They put no credence in such future facts.
She's heard the swirling blood; she's smelled the death
She's seen the subtle net, the gleaming ax.
Peleides died young, but won renown;
Odysseus pushed through to win long life.
But Atreus' heir just gets hewn down
mere barnyard livestock to his fancy wife.
The meta-narrative can criticize
heroic figures, painting them life-size

Who Governs?

The camp falls silent;Nestor stands to speak
this Argonaut knows much that's gone before.
Experience is precious to these Greeks,
who'd never contemplated ten years' war.
He'd left a son Telemachus' age
to fight for Helen, whom he'd never wooed.
But with Achilles seething in his rage
the enterprise may utterly be screwed.
The ego Agamemnon can't control
precludes commanding loyalty from men
who see which kings could better play the role
without inflaming rancor, yet again.
If leadership's not vested in the wise,
the greatest squabble, for the merest prize.

Crown Prince

bin Salman's virtue's nowhere to be found;
his failures heap up stinking to the sky.
No resume that justifies a crown,
when Salman must inevitably die.
He got away with murdering Mansour,
and still Khashoggi's body won't stay hid.
No honest judge could deem his hands are pure,
if they knew just a hundredth what he did.
Yemeni orphans starving, curse his name;
Qataris he'd blockaded didn't fold.
For these, and more he's utterly to blame
Without a brain, it's parlous to be bold.
Allied to Trump, he's doomed to sink or swim
And Vegas isn't taking odds on him.

the good wife

No towel dried her husband from his bath;
fair Klytemnestra swathed him in her net.
The victor's victim to his woman's wrath;
their firstborn's not some kid whom she'd forget.
Aegysthos lurked just off the killing floor;
no royal blood would stain his dainty hand.
To stay at home while others sailed to war,
the playwright marks this one as not a man.
Her cousin labors tireless to reweave
the shroud that she'd unpicked by candlelight.
The faithful wife who's careful to deceive
the villains violating what is right.
The textile arts, deployed for good, or ill,
no less than bronze, can bind a wound...or kill.

Conflagration

Great swathes of central Oregon ablaze,
a million acres, near as we can tell.
Horizons dwindle in this toxic haze;
myopically, we navigate through Hell.
Fire policies embraced in 1910
that felt so forward-looking, now seem cruel.
We've queued the same catastrophe again
Suppressing every fire, we banked up fuel.
A managed forest, leaving room to drive
more like the climax woodland long before,
might flare up briefly, yet go on to thrive.
Instead, each August smells like baleful war.
Until--improbably--we really learn
we'll build more wooden houses, and they'll burn.

Reparations

The reparations Trump proposed to pay,
like Kaiser Wilhelm, humbled at Versailles,
can't make his Persian folly go away;
Iranians would pay to watch him die.
The war he'd pledged he wasn't gonna start,
now holds a dagger to his party's throat.
His coalition's poised to fall apart,
when We, the People rouse ourselves to vote.
Three dozen times, he's bragged we're at the end
a glorious success all due to him!
But Congress holds the only pow'r to spend
those billions won't be doled out at his whim.
If this is "winning", we can't bear the cost;
historians will tally this "Trump's Loss".

Waterloo

Iranians have Trump against a wall,
as midterms loom, he's got to end this fast.
Reserves of crude have nowhere left to fall,
and voters' patience isn't gonna last.
Until elections, missile strike won't cease
to drive the costs of gas and diesel higher.
The urgency is all on Trump for peace,
as Persians hold his feet in his own fire.
Our Pentagon had gamed this out before;
that Persian Gulf fits like a jacket (strait).

Our navy's ill-configured for this war,
and all Iranians need do is wait.
The reparations Trump proposed to pay
can't make mistakes this heinous go away.

irreversibility

Six weeks and more, there's no one in that seat;
there's no one at the galas, chasing checks.
Kentuckians inured to ceaseless heat
deserve some slightest clue of what comes next.
The spirit's fled; the empty house of clay
might be sustained as labs would culture cells.
What's crossed the river Styx goes just one way
and can't rebook the slated date with Hell.
Heroics no one undertakes for fun:
machines to breath, and pump, and cleanse the blood...
But after everything's been said, and done,
this turtle's not emerging from the mud.
McConnell's damned us with his dying breath;
he even falsified his date of death.

Past tense

The mind that stole Supreme Court seats for fun
no longer animates the turtle's shell.
McConnell's rule in Washington is done;
but he's reserved a special place in Hell.
Tripartite governments been known to work
"ambition [can] be made to counteract..."
but not collaborating with a jerk,
who won't concede the plainest point of fact.
Kentuckians deserve to have a voice
in how we're gonna divvy up the tab.
Beshears must let them verbalize their choice
since Mitch is chilling out on his morgue slab.
A shell as empty as an angler's float
must not control the Senate in a vote.

Let it go

McConnell's gone; his party won't admit
that nothing animates the Turtle's shell.
Todd Blanche's nomination takes the hit;
his chance of confirmation trends towards Hell.
Beshears now feels the urgency to act
to fill the Seat that corpse still occupies.
Behind the smoke and mirrors, there's a fact;
what had been Mitch, is now attracting flies.
Kentuckians have rights we can't forget
by propping up a stiff to fill the seat,
their basic needs just aren't being met
where leaders have no motive to compete.
Tripartite government's had a good run
but if we let this stand, our day is done.

humiliation

The reparations Trump agreed to pay
-- outrageously, it's far beyond his writ --
won't make the IRGC go away.
They've got him by the balls; he's in deep shit.
Elections loom; no candidate will stand
for spending that acknowledges this loss.
The country's bigger than one orange man,
and nothing justifies such grievous cost.
Humiliated by the better man
like when his daddy spanked him as a boy.
Trump's getting throat-fucked daily in Iran.
And only Putin knows what he enjoys.
Two parties, neither one is in control
and no one's speaking to our nation's soul.

new Treaty of Versailles

Iranians see leverage increase;
with passing weeks, the US mid-terms loom.
Trump's allies will be doomed if there's no peace,
and that's a world away from MoU.
The foreign war he'd sworn he wouldn't start
won't be resolve just 'cause he offers cash.
The MAGA base is apt to fall apart
if we're still paying through the nose for gas.
Humiliated in the shipping lanes,
Trump vents his wrath on Bibi in his turn.
As doomed as Putin's venture in Ukraine,
each gets to pay for everything he's burned.
'Though Congress may repudiate this cost
one must be blind to not perceive this loss.

Heroism

Proud Boromir appealed to Denethor
like Isaac's first-born, skilled at Fish and Game.
The kind of guy men follow into war,
but ever thirsting for the mob's acclaim.
Covertly, Faramir sustains their world
without his brother's appetite for praise.
Not incidentally, he'll get the girl
who rescued Gondor in its darkest days.
Core Christian virtues, Milton would endorse
must undergird the core of MIddleEarth.
Humility, not showy feats of force
characterize the hero of great worth.
Big men might find Redemption as they died
but Sam's the hero wholly purged of Pride.

Plausible Deniability

Zeus nods his head; Olympus toes the line;
gods won't engage this combat any more.
Hereafter, they'll just meddle with men's minds,
while Greeks and Trojans prosecute their war.
Athena deems this ruling went her way;
the contest will be played out on her field.
She's picked the champions whom she can sway
and doesn't need the fools who doubt She's real.
That leaves the demigod; what man could stand
against Achilles, when he deigns to fight?
Apollo wrought a bow for Paris' hand;
His breath just nudged an arrow in its flight.
Our hands are all gods have, to work their will
but Eros plays us all like puppets, still.

Only To Rise Again

Age-long they fell, Olorin and his foe
and 'though in freefall, never paused their fight.
drol 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,
they'd scorch the retinas of elves, or 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.