by Timothy Steele

(After Emma Lazarus, with some of her words)

Matron of Exiles, by the golden door,
Our Lady welcomes still the tired and poor.
But agents of the government now track
The refugee and turn the migrant back
While, in DC, a brazen giant stands
And holds aloft a sand wedge, and commands,
“Bring me those skilled in treachery and stealth,
Your crypto barons yearning after wealth.”

by Julia Griffin

“Trump lashes out over viral TACO meme.”
—ABC News

Quit, little man, your crazy rambling,
Undermining, risking wars:
Everyone’s aware you’re gambling
Safety (ours) for profit (yours),
Adding daily dodgy profit;
Debt’s for all non-billionaires.
Increase benefits? Come off it!
Look beyond your stocks and shares.
Lively times for inside trade;
Attorneys wait. But they’re afraid.

Teaching: crushed with open, hidden,
Or pre-emptive censorship;
Research: finds itself forbidden:
Trounce the Ivies! Wield the whip!
Ignorance makes expertise
Leave its posts, and grabs them too;
Learning shrinks to your decrees
Alone. God help us! (God’s not you.)

Give for all true allies and for
Us some hope of acts not dumb –
A handshake we won’t ask a land for.
Clue us in on what’s to come
About Ukraine! No good, I fear.
Melania—is she still here,
Outsourcing effort every way,
Looting the job (her words come dear),
Escaping work that does not pay?

Spite against any who’ve objected;
Anger at any who oppose;
Lying (an art you’ve long perfected):
Same skill-set, never altered, shows
Again. Meanwhile, the whole world knows:

Trumpists cut healthcare, aid, and schooling:
All can be sick, or dumb, or dead.
Clear as the next Pam Bondi ruling,
Out go our rights. Now watch this spread.

by Iris Herriot

“Emmanuel Macron says video of wife pushing him shows them ‘joking around’.”
—The Guardian

That was no “pushing” from Brigitte:
We joked around; she chanced to clutch me.
Voilà l’amour, so bittersweet!
At least my wife can bear to touch me.

by Stephen Gold

“Harvard fires professor of honesty for ‘being dishonest'”
—The Times

Honesty is always best,
Right-thinking folks agree.
It’s something I have long professed
(Just look at my C.V.)

But honesty is also hard,
On which I now reflect,
As, hoisted by my own petard,
I see my record wrecked.

“Do exactly as I say”
Is sound advice, it’s true,
But even wiser words to weigh
Are “Don’t do as I do.”

by Paul Lander

Vlad drones on with war.
Trump claims Putin’s nutso. Nope:
Putin’s still disPutin’.

by Christopher Scribner

“Secretary of State Marco Rubio… issued a cable to all U.S. Embassies and Consular agencies
[ordering pauses on interviews for student visa applications] ‘until further guidance is issued septel…’
‘Septel’ is State Dept. shorthand for ‘separate telegram.'”
—UPI

They know Signal cannot be trusted,
so the Cabinet opts to assess
the relative merits of using
Morse code or the Pony Express,
since the carrier pigeons are busy,
and carving a petroglyph’s hard,
and Rubio’s run out of minutes
on his MCI long-distance card.

The Vatican’s hogging smoke signals,
and it’s dangerous firing a flare,
and semaphore’s use has been flagging,
while drumming’s too devil-may-care.
It’s safest to issue a cable
and hope its transmission won’t jam.
Their backup’s a pantomime gesture
and if that should fail—Candy-gram!

by Clyde Always

“Texas teen Faizan Zaki overcomes shocking, self-inflicted flub to win Scripps National Spelling Bee”
—The Associated Press

This year, at the Bee, the top seed
showed off, in the finals, his speed.
If the word he could spell
makes you ask “What the Hell?”—
an éclaircissement‘s what you need.

by Alex Steelsmith

“Greenland… handed a 30-year mining permit to a Danish-French mining group aiming to extract a moon-like rock
that could offer a climate-friendly alternative in aluminum production… Despite the geopolitical spotlight…
the U.S.’ interest in Greenland had not yet translated into tangible investment.”
—Reuters

Higgledy-diggledy,
mining developments
climatologically
friendly and clean

show that, regardless of
geopolitical
interrelationships,
Greenland is green.

by Simon MacCulloch

“Services previously run by South Western Railway (SWR) are the first to be brought under public control
by the Labour Government… The first SWR service under public ownership… will be a rail replacement bus.”
—ITV News

It seems a bit churlish to fuss
When they take back the railways for us,
But let me explain:
When I pay for a train
It’s a train I expect, not a bus.

by Chris O’Carroll

Gérard Depardieu,
Accused by more than a fieu
Women, is convicted of sexually assaulting tieu.
But wasn’t groping them just one of the perks that accrieu
To such a French cinema icon as Gérard Depardieu?
(As another celebrity sex assailant maintains, if you’re a star, they let yieu.)
Mais non, mes amis! That exception française
No longer plaise these daise.

by Timothy Steele

“Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, . . . has repeatedly raised questions about the safety of
the measles shot while suggesting, falsely, that miracle treatments, like cod liver oil, were available.”
—The New York Times

Let’s be good hosts. Let’s warmly welcome in
Bacteria and viruses and tumors.
Let’s innovate and practice medicine
According to the Theory of Four Humors.

by Julia Griffin

“Dubbed by Trump as the ‘big, beautiful bill,’ the legislation would extend the president’s expiring tax cuts passed in 2017…
[It] would also slash spending in other areas, including hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program, while rescinding a series of clean energy tax credits passed by Democrats in 2022. And it would raise
the debt ceiling by $4 trillion.”
—NBC

After Seymour Brown

Oh, you beautiful bill, you great, big, beautiful bill!
Every bill-ionaire relaxes,
Knowing how you’ll slash their taxes;
Time for trickling down: the rest can swallow their fill;
No more subsidizing greedy kids on PELLs:
They’re gonna give up working jobs or else.
Oh-oh, oh-oh
Oh, you beautiful bill.

Oh, you beautiful bill, you great, big, beautiful bill!
This is sure to set the seal on
All the spacey schemes of Elon;
Fools who choose to be poor had best not ever get ill:
All that cash you’ll raise from cutting Medicaid
That’s gonna cover tax that won’t be paid.
Oh-oh, oh-oh,
Great, big, beautiful bill.

Oh, you beautiful bill, you great, big, beautiful bill!
You are set to go the distance
By defunding food assistance
Think the Senate won’t bend? I’ll bet all Greenland it will;
No more greeny credits, no more debt relief,
No robbing SpaceX for some welfare thief;
Oh-oh, oh-oh,
Oh, you beautiful bill!

by D.A. Prince

“”Chicago Sun-Times confirms AI was used to create reading list of books that don’t exist”.”
—The Guardian

Those who say AI lacks imagination
should contemplate this reading list and grovel.
These summer fiction titles don’t exist?
Well, what’s a novel if it isn’t novel?

by Clyde Always

“NY man offered farmer Wild Turkey bourbon to let him feed girlfriend’s ex to hogs…”
—New York Post

A murderous scoundrel named Jeal,
who gladly would toss as a meal
his foe to some swine,
faces seven to nine
(his accomplices went on to squeal).

by Dan Campion

“Trump ambushes South Africa’s president with false claims of ‘white genocide’”
—NPR

The “Oval Office”? Try “Dry-Gulch,”
Where foreign heads of state
Get waylaid, trust is churned to mulch,
And truth has little weight.
Were I a prince, I wouldn’t go.
Of course the question’s moot.
Each leader now is in the know:
They’re asked to lick a boot.