by Bruce Bennett
“I avoid macaroni salad at cookouts and picnics…
I avoid it even though I love the idea of macaroni salad:
a glossy, substantial side dish…”
—The New York Times, “What to Cook This Weekend”
It’s “gloopy” and always too sweet,
So it isn’t a dish that I eat.
Yet served on the side,
That I more than abide:
The idea I regard as a treat.
The same thing is true, I have found,
With people. My love is quite sound
And usually serves.
Still, they get on my nerves,
And I’d rather not have them around.
by Nicole Caruso Garcia
“Nothing worse than having blood drawn by novice phlebotomist.
Nothing worse, that is, except when she then DROPS AND BREAKS
all your vials of blood.”
—Paisley Rekdal, on Twitter
Jabbery-Pokery
Novice phlebotomist
Oopsies your vials; the
Klutz must re-draw:
(Salvage impossible
Ultracentrifugally)
Cringe—her syringe again!—
Keep your sangfroid.
by Ruth S. Baker
“A Disney-obsessed husband and wife have been blasted online after… they spent
the last of their wedding budget on an appearance by Mickey and Minnie Mouse
rather than provide food for their guests.”
—Newsweek
The guests at our wedding:
We thought we’d uplift them,
But now they are spreading
Complaints that we stiffed them.
They’re pulling no punches.
The cause of their grouses?
We gave them, not lunches,
But M. and M. Mouses.
What makes them so picky
(They’re hardly so skinny)
They wouldn’t choose Mickey,
Together with Minnie?
To friendship so fickle
We’ve no wish to truckle.
To us, any Mick’ll
Count more than a muckle.
by Marshall Cobb
“Two people… fell into a tank of chocolate at the Mars M&M’s factory
in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania… . According to a Lancaster County dispatch,
the pair were not injured but required assistance to get out of the waist-high chocolate
so a rescue crew was sent to the facility.”
—Daily Beast
Two men fell into a chocolate vat
Thus causing co-workers to worry.
They called paramedics to rescue them
And the guys, said, “Fine, but don’t hurry.”
by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
“Paddington Bear joins Queen Elizabeth II for tea at Buckingham Palace”
—NPR
A queen—whose servants serve to satisfy
Ma’am’s every whim—need never carry cash
Or Kleenex: Though there’s nothing she can’t buy,
No subject asks for cash, it lacks panache,
And even if queens blew their noses, and
Reportedly they don’t, a footman would
Come leaping with a hanky in his hand …
Her Majesty, we long have understood,
Scarce needs her purse, but brings it nonetheless,
Perplexing us for decades. What is holed
Up in it? Gin? The Racing Post? Each guess
Remained just that. But now the secret’s told:
She hides a royal sandwich—freshly made
Elizabethan bread and marmalade!
by Gail White
“Capybara Quartet Born at Schönbrunn Zoo”
—Zooborns
When I woke up this morning,
the world was still at war
and gas was more expensive
than it was the day before.
The headlines were disasters
except for the debut
of the baby capybaras
at the Schönbrunn zoo.
Hurricanes are forming
and famine is in sight.
The news I went to sleep on
has worsened overnight.
The clouds are dark above me
but skies are bright and blue
on the baby capybaras
at the Schönbrunn zoo.
by Alex Steelsmith
“… 42 Russian colonels have died on the ground in Ukraine…”
—Newsweek
“Russia Is Counting Killed Soldiers as ‘Missing’ to Hide Losses.”
—Newsweek
Jiggery-pokery,
colonels on battlefronts
simply go missing, says
Putin. Forsooth,
while he prevaricates
propagandistically,
one more goes missing: a
colonel of truth.
by Felicia Nimue Ackerman
“…Russia has set out to seize the last parts of the region not controlled by the separatists . . .
[During a call with French and German leaders], Putin emphasized that Russia was working to
‘establish a peaceful life in Mariupol and other liberated cities in the Donbas.’”
—AP News
So Putin’s revving up the war
To make the conflict cease?
He’s back in Nineteen Eighty-Four,
Proclaiming, “War is peace.”
by Julia Griffin
“Man arrested after Mona Lisa smeared with cake
Man, 36, placed in psychiatric care after painting’s display case covered in cake
in apparent climate protest … In 2009 a Russian woman threw an empty teacup
at the painting, which slightly scratched the case.”
—The Guardian
“The Italian name for the painting, La Gioconda, means ‘jocund’ (‘happy’ or ‘jovial’) or, literally, ‘the jocund one’,
a pun on… Lisa’s married name, Giocondo. In French, the title La Joconde has the same meaning.”
—Wikipedia
I fix my eyes on sights beyond.
I cannot dodge. I cannot flee.
It must be nice to be joconde.
I feel I’m staring through a pond.
This glass reflects. It’s hard to see;
I fix my eyes on sights beyond.
If I could wave a magic wand,
I’d change the climate, honestly.
It must be nice to be joconde.
I’m not permitted to respond
When smeared with cake or cups of tea;
I fix my eyes on sights beyond.
La bouche la plus fameuse du monde!
It isn’t easy being me.
It must be nice to be joconde.
I think I’d like to go ash blonde,
Break out and run, unknown and free!
I fix my eyes on sights beyond:
It must be nice to be. —Joconde.
by Steven Kent
“Mr. Banksy, I presume: the councillor who quit over claims he has a secret”
—The Guardian
I’m Billy Gannon! Listen up: I’ve got a job to do,
And frankly I sure wish you’d let me do it.
Why would I lie if I were him? My friends, if this were true,
I’d have the life I want—heck, I’d pursue it!
I’m just a bloke: an artist, yes, half-decent with the paint,
But innocent of that which you’re accusing.
It’s easier to prove now who I am than who I ain’t—
Say, wouldn’t Banksy find all this amusing?
by Clyde Always
“The First Amendment Protects the Right To Put a Tiny Penis on a Beer Label”
—Reason
Sudsily, Pudsily
Flying Dog Brewery
proved in a trial, so
righteously fought:
banning of packaging’s
unconstitutional
whether it features a
package or not.
by Paul Lander
Laura Ingraham blames
Mass shootings on pot smoking.
The “Big Bong Theory.”
by Clyde Always
“Federal agents find sophisticated tunnel under US-Mexico border
and seize almost a ton of cocaine”
—CNN
To New York City’s Subway
and to London’s Underground:
just south of San Diego
a competitor’s been found.
In terms of pure efficiency
this system really shines—
on just a single set of tracks
it runs a million lines.
by Julia Griffin
“Japanese man spends $15,700 on dog costume to fulfill lifelong dream
of transforming into an animal”
—Yahoo! News
How much is that doggie in the window?
The one with the waggly tail?
And how would it work were he skinned-O,
And swapped with a humanoid male?
I love rolling round on the carpet;
I hate to be left on my own;
I long to be somebody’s star pet,
And gnaw every night on a bone.
Some meanies believe it’s just folly,
Or even a waste of good cash,
But I want to live in a collie,
And waggle my nose in your trash.
I don’t want the life of a lizard;
I don’t want the life of a lark;
I just want raw liver or gizzard,
And someone to clap when I bark.
In sniffing I’m just a beginner,
But still I’ve a nose for a sale;
So please let me in, mister skinner,
And sell me that waggly tail!
by Alex Steelsmith
“U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights… ended a long-awaited trip to China with cautious criticism
of the country’s crackdown [on the Uyghurs], balanced with praise for Chinese authorities, in what
rights advocates called a propaganda win for Beijing… ‘The High Commissioner’s remarks were too
non-specific and weak to match the gravity of the situation,’ wrote William Nee [of Chinese Human
Rights Defenders].”
—The Washington Post
Notably, quotably,
human rights advocates
say her remarks on the
Uyghurs were weak;
Chinese authorities,
WaPo-reportedly,
eagerly welcomed her
muyghur critique.
