by Julia Griffin
“Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City and former personal attorney for ex-President
Donald Trump, appeared on Wednesday’s episode of the Fox singing show in a jack-in-the box
costume. He belted ‘Bad to the Bone.’”
—NBC News
How much—besides one greasy grin—
We’d lose of what this land rues
By trading Giuliani in
For lovely Giuliandrews!
Our Giuli could have danced all night
With genuine conviction,
And while she sang, how sweet and bright
And flawless was her diction!
But Rudy belting on about
The badness in his bone
Earns praise for honesty, no doubt,
But none for taste or tone.
by Kaitlyn Spees
(with apologies to Emily Dickinson)
I kept last Sabbath going to Church—
I kept the next at Home—
Observing Easter Sunday Mass—
Live-streamed through Google Chrome—
I kept last Sabbath in a Mask—
The Others? … mostly Not—
I dropped said Mask for just a sec
To swallow down Christ’s—Bod.
My parents caught it traveling—
My brother from a gym.
And through it all I stayed at home—
Then caught the bug from Him.
by Alex Steelsmith
Downgraded credit ratings signal “rising prospects that Moscow will soon default
on external loans for the first time in more than a century.”
—Associated Press
Rubledy troubledy
Russia’s economy
struggles, and Moscow can’t
pay back a loan.
Putin is peeved, but the
creditability
crisis is no one’s de-
fault but his own.
by Steven Kent
“Get Ready for a Scary Fortnight in French Politics:
A Le Pen Presidency Really Is Possible”
—The Guardian
This cannot happen here, we say, but maybe we don’t mean it;
Macron has lost the luster he once had.
As pressure keeps on building from the Right (you must have seen it),
Zemmour makes Miss Le Pen look not so bad.
A kinder, gentler radical she’s trying hard to be now—
Pure fascist, yes, though with a human face.
She’ll ship these stinking immigrants to camps far from Paree now,
But with a touch of elegance and grace.
by Bruce Bennett
“‘Sorry our baby might ruin your flight. Please accept this goodie bag.’
Kind gesture or unreasonable expectation? The public is divided.”
—The Washington Post
Baby’s crying? Never mind.
In this little pack you’ll find
items that will make all right.
Use them and enjoy your flight.
What’s that? You don’t mind the kid?
What you mind is what I did?
You take umbrage at my treat?
Screw you! You can change your seat!
by Julia Griffin
“Arkansas man who awoke from 19-year coma in 2003 has died aged 57”
—The Guardian
From 1965, he saw
The waking world till ’84,
Then fell asleep, aged just nineteen,
Until ’03. How fresh and green
He was for one of thirty-eight!
He revelled in his wakeful state
With eager eyes; alas, time flew;
And all too soon, in ’22,
They closed for good—a poignant fact—
At fifty-seven. Now subtract:
A wondrous symmetry appears!
(Poor prize to him, one rather fears).
by Chris O’Carroll
He gave the Aflac duck its quack
Till earthquake jokes got him the sack.
Even a terrorist attack
Was punchline grist. He had a knack
For jokes that caught a lot of flak.
He found wisecracks in everything.
Some say that’s how the light gets in.
by Dan Campion
This case, which cops have yet to solve,
Just proves a conscience can evolve.
by Steven Urquhart Bell
“Limping Pope Francis arrives in Malta”
—Scotland on Sunday
I thought it was his nickname when I read it,
Like Ageless Archie Moore or Tampa Red,
Then realized it was just a careless edit:
“A Limping Pope…” is what it should have said.
I sort of laughed—not what you’d call stentorian—
Then turned the pages: trouble heaped on trouble.
Interesting times, all right—for a historian;
Not so much while picking through the rubble.
The world could use a period of grace.
If Francis kneels to pray before the rood
Whenever something bad or dumb takes place,
No wonder that the poor guy’s knees are screwed.
by Clyde Always
“Wind energy company kills 150 eagles in US, pleads guilty”
—Associated Press
Raptory, Snaptory,
NextEra Energy
proved to the public (in
so many words)
harnessing wind would be
environmentally
friendly if only it
weren’t for the birds.
by Bruce Bennett
“’Very rarely do magpies attack more than one or two people,’ said Darryl Jones, a magpie expert
at Griffith University. ‘It’s the same individual people that they attack each time.’
And magpies have long memories: One of Dr. Jones’s research assistants was attacked upon his return after 15 years
away from one bird’s territory. As Sean Dooley, the public affairs manager of Birdlife Australia, put it,
‘If you think it’s personal, you’re right.’”
—The New York Times
Don’t trifle with a magpie.
He will not soon forget.
He’ll wait till you come back again,
and then you will regret
Whatever caused his grievance.
They’re vengeful and they’re smart.
A bird—okay, I’ll say it—
who’s after my own heart.
by Julia Griffin
“112m-year-old dinosaur tracks damaged in Utah by construction machinery”
—The Guardian
(with apologies to Thomas Hardy)
I
In a solitude of the clay,
Where cattle do not stray,
Nor those great beasts that made them, sadly crumble they.
II
A site once marked by hops
From some triceratops
Now ranks among earth’s palaeontologic flops.
III
One hundred million years
You’d think would leave some smears;
But all was well until last Tuesday, it appears.
IV
The length of time between
The birth of this machine
And that of all those giant lizards – well, I mean
V
It isn’t quite the same;
But still the moment came
When trucks hit tracks, which was a quite titanic shame.
by Nina Parmenter
In Northern Minnesota, researchers are conducting Covid tests on bears, deer, moose and even wolves
to try to predict the emergence of new variants.
We don’t flinch if we sneeze, we don’t test if we cough.
Got a fever? No sweat! Masks are off!
But it’s different for doe, as they do give a fuck,
and I bet you can’t bullshit a buck.
So it’s clear, now that humans aren’t feeling the fear…
swab a deer.
We do not have the time for that second red line!
Got a cough like a donkey? You’re fine!
But the battle-scarred beasts of the woods, one supposes,
have always put trust in their noses.
Grab the bull by the horns! Now mankind is no use,
swab a moose.
by Bruce Bennett
“Mr. Thompson also indicated that the panel would not be likely to call Mr. Trump as a witness.
‘I don’t know anything else we could ask Donald Trump that the public doesn’t already know,’
Mr. Thompson said. ‘He ran his mouth for four years.’”
—The New York Times
He “ran his mouth.”
It all got said.
We know his heart.
We know his head.
He did those things
that he does best.
That record’s there.
He flushed the rest.
by Alex Steelsmith
“Several hundred Russian soldiers were forced to hastily withdraw from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant
in Ukraine after suffering ‘acute radiation sickness’… [T]he Russian soldiers had panicked and fled.”
—The Daily Beast
“U.S.-backed Radio Free Europe sees audience surge… After Russian troops began their assault…
[Radio Free Europe’s] audience boomed in Russia.”
—The Spokesman-Review
Panicky manicky
Vladimir’s infantry,
radioactively
compromised, freaks;
news of the incident
drifts into Russia in
radio-actively
broadcasted leaks.
