The Will to Power

The balrog's motives nowhere get explored
could he aspire to wield this parlous thing?
He's no mere worm, to stash it in his hoard;
a maia'd be a monster with the Ring!
Olorin'd held it once, but let it go;
he wasn't hither-sent to dominate.
The One's not his to wield, or to bestow.
This Age, it's little folk hold their world's fate.
While Gandalf fell, ring-bearer bore it East
through Lorien, where Time seemed not to pass.
unwitting how the mage threw down the beast
returning through his darkness, at the last.
Of all the characters to face the test,

for Tolkien, humble Samwise comes out best.

count no woman happy until she be dead

Andromache endured the fall of Troy;
her heir and husband brutally struck dead.
Awarded to the victor's tween-aged son,
expected to consort with him in bed.
When Paris judged one goddess to be best
set his whole city-state against long odds.
To snatch a wife's a grave sin for a guest,
outraging not just Greece, but all the gods.
Fair Helen turned the heads of all the guys,
except Achilles, far off in the North.
Condemned to always be some master's prize,
a thing of value, bartered back and forth.
As ornamental parts to fill a scene;
the role was perilous, to play the queen.

the editor's art

Achilles let fair Thetis teach his son
fierce hatred for the royal house of Troy.
Andromache had hoped the worst was done
until she met the feral red-haired boy.
Sage Chiron'd taught his father how to heal;
nine Muses taught him song, and dance, and more.
This lion's cub seems not so much to feel
as to subsist on carnage, gore, and war.
It's not enough her lord and son lie dead;
the tyke will never get a proper pyre.
She's now consigned to warm her victor's bed;
her high estate now rides the sucking gyre.
Euripides leaves such a scene off-stage;
what Homer wouldn't treat, he too won't touch.
The hero's scion's plainly not of age;
to picture him with women's just too much.
The artist frames his work with end, and start;
and Homer's still unrivaled in this art.

prologue

Achilles found the harem kinda fun;
his mother'd never dressed him in such bling!
A hundred foster mothers for his son
repaid the nights he had to serve the king.
Tiresias foretold; he must be found
to fetch fair Helen back from strong-walled Troy.
Those battlements were never coming down
unless they brought the sea nymph's darling boy.
Odysseus stepped up (disguised, of course)
to dangle high adventure to the lad
before he'd dreamed to build a wooden horse
or thought to duck the draft by playing mad.
The audience should know what went before
to understand blind Homer's song of War.

injudicious

Barbaric Hector gave Greek values voice
upbraiding Paris for the fall of Troy.
Olympians had punted on this choice,
demurring to a Trojan shepherd boy.
When goddesses contend, no choice is right;
the Special Master's doomed before he speaks.
To claim the dame deemed best in mortals' sight
condemns his city-State to death by Greeks.
Fair Aphrodite tried to shield her whelp
down in the melee, where the blows fell thick.
not even Ares could have been much help;
there's no good end to thinking with one's dick.
Penelope works tireless at her loom;
she'll wait another lifetime, if she must.
Two souls so knit, they share a single doom
True love's not predicated on mere lust.
Blind Homer's not enthralled by flashy looks;
His vision's clear--to those who'll plumb his books.

memorial

On moonless nights, the dogs are unperturbed
they know each path, each rock, each root full well.
While I risk injury on every curb,
they're game to navigate, as if by smell.
Sweet prince, some pound proposed to euthanize,
lest someone take his woof for an attack,
intimidated by his lupine size,
was only fierce in loving his new pack.
The squirrels stripping fruit trees in the park
might miss the charm of predators beneath.
The nightmares haunting rodents in the dark
wed 'Tasha's speed to Odin's crushing teeth.
One day, we're hiking; next, he's wracked with pain.
There's scarcely time to bid a last 'so long'.
Eroding tibia can't take the strain;
abrupt old-age strikes hard in one so strong.
The Frisbee she disdained to ever share
lies idle now that Odin's just not there.

rosh hashanah

By equinox, Orion's high and bright
reminding us it's time to sharpen skis.
Free calendar republished night by night
for those mistrustful of technologies.
The StarLink constellation's something new;
Koheleth scowls, but nothing's to be done.
Illuminated just before dawn's due
Aloft, but plainly well beneath the sun.
Few city dwellers ever get to know
that Nature can't be bounded in a park.
Bedazzled by the artificial glow
they lose the wonderment of primal Dark.
A glimpse of sky sets poets' minds ablaze
as much at night as on the bluest days.