Of arms, and the man

No sumptuary laws constrain a king;
Hephaistos wasn't sparing any cost.
Achilles took the field, in epic bling!
His enemies must know just whom they've crossed.
To flee, or fight once they'd strayed near his path
was all the same, before this day is done.
This godling, incandescent in his wrath
consumed them all, like aspic in the sun.
Patroklos stemmed the tide in borrowed gear
but failed to fool Apollo, so he died.
To counterfeit the prince that god held dear
mere armor can't ennoble what's inside.
The wine-dark sea, the burnished bronze's sheen...
Blind Homer conjured worlds he'd never seen.

pay not attention to the tan behind the curtain

The thatch befitting an orangutan
bizarrely grafted onto Donald's head
as artificial as the spray-can tan
morticians use to 'juvenate the dead
took flight as he embarked on AirForce One.
It wasn't engineered for such a test
a golfer's 'do, to amble, not to run
transforms to an abandoned raven's nest.
The bald-spot that he hides beneath that mop,
winks pinkly from a million TV screens
third buttock, brandished cockily  on top
what ought to be concealed within his jeans.
Potempkin coiffure, ginned up for the Press
pretends it's more, but all can see, it's less.

I try like Hell to hide that bald spot

A glimpse of candor, with that flash of pate
as Trump embarked on wind-swept AirForceOne
belies his fervent claim that his hair's great,
deflating pompadour so stiffly done.
The trademarked orange tonsure Bozo claimed
can be repurposed--for a license fee.
Orangutanish mop, by hairspray tamed,
that had been clownish, now's just parody.
A fragile ego, tied to thinning hair
and sycophants won't speak an honest word.
His Chief of Staff would have to grow a pair
to tell his boss that bouffant's so absurd.
A more secure man'd learn to wear a hat;
no sleight of comb can dignify this brat.

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?

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

hot air

Oligosaccharides we can't digest
are clipped to methane by our symbiotes.
Archaea who've long been our GI guests,
have wed their fortunes to our gastric lot.
Electron-transport stalls at Hydrogen
or ethanol, or lactate where air's scant.
but H2's gobbled by methanogens
that tolerate an atmosphere we can't.
It's gluten takes the rap when bellies bloat,
or when a bank of fog swirls in their head.
Now, fussy eaters get a doctor's note;
it's all the rage to swear off eating bread!
The staff of life on which the West still leans
next year, the faddish diet foreswears...beans?

Sleeper

"all natural!" the strychnine package read
"low sodium!" "sincerely gluten-free!"
it's not our fault if users end up dead
this stuff's organic! from an unpruned tree!
a generation self-righteous and sure
mistrusts ingredients in six-point type
embracing what's left unrefined as "pure"
convinced that what's so groovy can't be hype
organic every day they had on Earth
four thousand generations just got by
whatever got them through our times of dearth
and all the better if fat-content's high
the true believers try to live on kale
with supplements refined from brewer's yeast
but I'll take a steak (rare) washed down with ale
and leave the greens to garnish the roast beast
food fashions are endorsed with foolish zeal
then damned another time around Time's wheel

cupping

What octopus signed Michael Phelps' back

and left its calling-card all down his arm?

How many other suffered such attack

and was there more than superficial harm?

A lifetime, they've been honing their technique

and fear one race might turn on happenstance;

one top performance at their very peak

is too important to be left to chance!

Competitors will grasp for any edge

they've long since shaved off all their body hair.

And now the purplish blots of hemorrhage

accessorize their minimal swimwear.

Where one can't carry talismans for luck

they bear stigmata of the cups that suck.