Turf Luck!
Green lawns become a brown morass
Thanks to a tourist horde,
Lord Fescue foamed “Get off my grass!”
And fell upon his sward.
The coroner, concluding, said,
“From facts I’ve been supplied,
This life peer now is clearly dead.
My verdict’s herbicide.”
A Matter of Serious Concern
“The use of a courtesy title by the spouse
of a dame has been the subject of lengthy
debate and study in the United Kingdom
and elsewhere. No satisfactory solution
to this anomaly has been found.”
—New Zealand Website
Dept of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
Te Tari O Te Pirimia Te Komiti Matua
My spouse is a Dame. I applaud,
But it leaves me in limbo, ignored.
I lack something vital—
A courtesy title
Like the wife of a knight or a lord.
Is there salve for such social disaster
In these words from my erudite pastor?
“Just recall the black sheep
Who once lulled you to sleep.
Should the spouse of a Dame not be Master?”
Jerome Betts lives in Devon, England, but comes from Herefordshire, and edits the quarterly Lighten Up Online. His verse has appeared in a wide variety of British magazines and anthologies as well as UK, European, and North American web publications such as Amsterdam Quarterly, Angle, Better Than Starbucks, Light, The Asses of Parnassus, The New Verse News, Parody, Per Contra, The Rotary Dial, and Snakeskin.