by Dan Campion
“Semicircular canal size constrains vestibular function in miniaturized frogs”
—Science
To jump with grace, a frog or toad
Requires a generous inner ear,
The lack of which will discommode
The creature when it needs to steer.
But evolution didn’t care
And crafted frogs and toads so small
Their leaps and landings make one stare.
Yet they survive while kingdoms fall.
by Nora Jay
“An American tourist has caused €25,000 (£21,000) worth of damage after hurling her electric scooter
down Rome’s Spanish Steps. … The incident came two weeks after a visitor from Saudi Arabia
drove a Maserati down the flight of steps.”
—The Guardian
I threw my scooter down the Steps;
He drove his Maserati;
They make you mad, these endless schleps
Each time you want gelati!
by Steven Urquhart Bell
“Trained rats to help rescue earthquake survivors”
—Daily News
If caught in an earthquake or other disaster
And trapped under roof beams and rubble and plaster,
My hopes of a rescue might rest with a rat—
I don’t know how happy I’d be about that.
A rat can be trained in a very few days
To creep through debris like it’s threading a maze,
And go where dogs can’t, which is all fine and dandy—
But how would it carry a barrel of brandy?
by Julia Griffin
“Chickens were first tempted down from trees by rice, research suggests”
—The Guardian
They might have had millet,
Or barley, or peas;
They stuck to their billet:
The trees.
When hearing of farro
Or buckwheat, or corn,
Their eyes went quite narrow
With scorn.
They vowed to adhere to
Arboreal fare;
Their tempters were near to
Despair,
Till one, worth renown, in-
Troduced them to RICE:
And then they flew down in
A trice,
Suggesting this motto
Or rule for your thumb:
Make chicken risotto!
They’ll come.
by Alex Steelsmith
“… [Pope] Francis will have stacked the College of Cardinals with 83 of the 132 voting-age cardinals.
… [T]he chances that they will tap a successor who shares Francis’ pastoral priorities become ever greater.”
—NBC News
Piously biasly,
Jorge Bergoglio
gets 83 of his
cardinals in;
stacking the deck with a
supermajority
isn’t, however, a
cardinal sin.
by Iris Herriot
“Family Tortoise Found Alive In Attic 30 Years After Going Missing…”
—LAD Bible
“‘Fantastic giant tortoise’ species thought extinct for 100 years found alive”
—The Guardian
Henceforward, I suggest that tortoises
Should be secured by locks and mortises.
Without some sort of a surveillance system,
We can’t be sure if they’re missing or if we’ve simply missed ’em.
Keeping tortoises jailed isn’t nice, I agree, I’m not generally OK’ing it;
But how can we know if a species is lost as long as our own species keeps on mislaying it?
by Chris O’Carroll
“A Missouri woman was awarded $5.2 million in a settlement
from insurance company GEICO after contracting a sexually transmitted
disease from her partner in his vehicle, which was insured by the company…”
—CNN
In his back seat despoiled,
I picked up an infection.
He knew his diagnosis,
Kept mum, used no protection.
The car in which he wronged me
Was covered by the gecko;
O lizard, hear my cries
For justice, how they echo.
You wrote his policy,
You’re in up to your neck-o.
The legal system says
You’re writing me a check-o.
by Steve Bremner
“How to Entirely Empty Your Bowels Every Morning—
Top Surgeon Explains How”
—Recurring unsolicited Web advertisement
“Inflation soars to an over 40-year high.”
—NPR
Rumpily dumpily
“Top Surgeon” lectures us.
Spare us the scalpel: We
Can, if we choose,
Summon the same result
Psychosomatically
Simply by switching on
NPR News.
by Paul Lander
Trump on Truth Social.
Post hearing, can you blame him?
Wanting time alone.
by Philip Kitcher
“Stop all this hubbub, these cries to be gone!
Britain still needs me for ‘levelling up.’
Quaff a few draughts from a full stirrup-cup!
I must go soldiering on.
Though all the ballots were strictly anon,
I won more votes—so there’s no cause for exit.
Can’t trust the Wobblies to oversee Brexit!
I must go soldiering on.
‘Quit’ doesn’t figure in my lexicon.
Servants’ careers can be flushed down the drain—
Partygate’s trifling compared with Ukraine!
I must go soldiering on.”
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!