Murkwood Mary Sue's come back
Rebranded and recast.
First "Itaril" imploded, now
It’s "Tauriel" who’s passed
From Vicky Vale to Lois Lane:
A snowflake melting fast.

I know.
But I do not approve.
And I am not resigned.

Metrics for Measure
(Dedicated to Cindy Sheehan)

The pricking of his thumbs begins to sting
As something wicked comes his way unsought:
The awful truth about the play as thing
Wherein the conscience of the prince is caught

Now Isabella camps outside his ranch
Her silent supplication real not fake
Her rude requests for justice make him blanch
Her simple power poised to grab and shake

Her time, down in a roadside ditch, she bides
With twenty*-hundred crosses witness mute
While safe within his bubble he resides
The gashes in the dead his lies confute

His thought no counsel credible informs
So on he stumbles, mouthing scripted rhyme
Upon the gibbet’s scaffold he performs
For his allotted fifteen minutes’ time

An angry ape with glassy essence clear
Before high heaven trotting out his trick
Afraid of nothing quite so much as fear
Which makes splenetic angels laugh till sick

Assured of his own ignorance he pressed
To have himself informed of what he knew
In little brief authority he dressed
So as to mask his nakedness from view

His counselor, the clown, roved here and there
Professing, like Rasputin, cures to know
For royal hemophilia laid bare
As turds that blossom on the frozen snow

But still the would-be great no greatness had
They thus could only mock the small who sobbed
Until disrobed, in disrepute unclad,
Their perfidy showed clear to those they’d robbed

But Gandalf once to Frodo Baggins said,
In telling him his uncle Bilbo’s tale,
That even small ones lost in fear and dread
Can turn the blast of fortune’s greatest gale

For Bilbo spared the vicious Gollum’s good
In pity of one long so lonely lost
And would not strike him even though he could
Which in the end saved all great evil’s cost

No doubt some live who maybe ought to die
And some that die deserve to live instead
But who shall make of his own life a lie
Who deals out death in judgment of the dead?

And as the wizard might have said at length
What Isabella did, a court to sway:
How excellent to have a giant’s strength
But tyrannous to use it in that way

For even very wise ones cannot see
The end to all the mischief that ensues
From feckless fights and their mad misery
As complex as a rainbow’s many hues

And as such smallish suitors might combine
Soliciting compassion as their cause
They plead for pity in a single line
That pelting petty officers might pause

For making thunder just to hear the noise
And lightning just to see the awe and shock
If overused by adolescent boys
Will look more like the chicken than the hawk

They like it well enough when first they think
That all will go exactly as they dream
But soon enough they shun the fetid stink
That clogs the nose and gags them till they scream

Those wise who hold great power in reserve
And do not waste it in a foolish deed
Have moral power more which well will serve
When faced with future’s grave and greater need

Thus Isabella Baggins now implores
The one who can to pity those who serve
And bring them home from bloody foreign shores
To reap the future lives that they deserve

We only ask for metrics we can use
To measure what is often promised glib
By bureaucrats who went and lit the fuse
And now can only hedge, and stall, and fib

The prince from all his lies, has not escaped
Despite the chimps and baboons that he aped
Upon this dwarfish thief with soul misshaped
His title's giant robe hangs loosely draped

* Note: As of early 2008, the number of dead American soldiers in Iraq had reached 4,000 – or “forty hundred,” as the poetic meter would have us mark the doubling yet again of premature graves filled with more luckless victims of vainglorious venality.

Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2005, 2008, 2011

Elvish STDs

I fell in lust with the "forest daughter."
Through bushes and brambles, for ages I sought her.
She wanted a ring, so I heard, which I bought her
From dwarves who for payment insisted I slaughter
Some goblins for them. This I did, then I brought her
The thing she desired. Was she happy? No, not her.
It turned out her mind she had changed, now she thought her
Affections best lavished on men who had fought her.
So this I did, too. And I won! I had caught her!
But bad luck for me, no one ever had taught her
About elf diseases, and so when I got her
She gave me a pain when I try to pass water.

You-Know-Him

He's six feet two,
Has eyes of blue
And blonde hair to his buttocks --
An action elf
Right off the shelf,
Direct from Sears and Roebuck's.

You-Know-Her

She's five feet eight
With eyes of slate
And hair down past her shoulders.
A killer elf,
Pure Death herself,
With breasts as big as boulders.

Michael Murry, The Misfortune Teller

A Name by any other Name ...

Daughter of vegetation,
Child of the flowers and plants,
Offspring of trite derivation,
Sweetheart of movie romance,

Formula role for an actor,
Paid to look lovely on cue,
Storywise, hardly a factor:
Anything sexy will do.

Show up for filming and fake it
Who’s to care what you might do?
Jiggle and wiggle and shake it.
Strike a cute pose for the crew

Try to look fierce yet alluring
Try to look deadly but sweet
Prior to, after, and during
Scenes where you turn up the heat

“What’s in a name?” you inquire.
“Nothing at all,” we reply.
Just fan the flames of desire
Then have the good grace to die.

Michael Murry, The Misfortune Teller