by Alex Steelsmith
“ABBA is back… featuring digital 3-D avatars of the band as it looked back in 1979.
The avatars will sing the group’s recorded vocal tracks, with a live band accompanying them.”
—NPR
“Among music critics, however, opinion was more divided.”
—CNN
Abbaca dabraca,
ABBA the supergroup
hopes that its members still
dazzle (despite
taking a 40-year
mega-sabbatical);
maybe they won’t, but their
Abbatars might.
by Bruce Bennett
Wrinkle, Wrinkle, you’re the best!
Surely you have aced the test!
Tearing up the street so fast,
Where’s the duck who could get past?
Wrinkle, Wrinkle, Duck Sublime,
Who’s the duck who’ll match your time?
Setting such a torrid pace,
Where’s the duck who’ll take your place?
Quacking, waddling, bound for Glory,
Ducks will revel in your story!
Runners will from this time on
Want to run a Duckathon.
by Julia Griffin
“Bat named ‘Bird of the Year 2021’ in controversial decision”
—The New York Post
Batty results have made the birders’ cluB
Indignant: Bats should not invade our areA!
Raggedy brutes—they’ll quickly wish they hadn’T;
Don’t try denying, it’s a birdy snuB;
But somehow—though they have no alibI,
And bats (v. birds) are uglier and scarieR—
Their win leaves many hearts bizarrely gladdeneD.
by Catherine Chandler
“NASA: SpaceX Toilet Still Broken…”
—Futurism
It was Dumb, or perhaps it was Dumber
who was hired as SpaceX’s plumber.
The crew’s none too happy
as each dons a nappy
and hopes the trip home’s not a bummer.
by Hilary Stanton
“Just 2% of Elon Musk’s wealth could help solve world hunger, UN says”
—The Independent
“Feed the birds, tuppence a bag”
—Mary Poppins
Dear Mr. Musk, your massive wealth
has proven that you’re canny.
But risking heaps on rocket ships?
Sir, you must need a nanny.
If you despise the UN’s cries
(“Give funds, and make it soon!”)
Perhaps a Mary Poppins song
will make you change your tune.
So take a note from Mr. Banks
(who got his just comeuppance).
Before you fly your fancy kites,
you ought to give a tuppence.
by Dan Campion
“Astronauts… made themselves space tacos”
—NPR
Rod Serling never thought of this
Peculiar metamorphosis
From astronauts to tacos.
My guess is that, for weightless bliss,
Rod might have floated nachos.
by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
“Boris Johnson used to mock ‘eco-doomsters.’ Now he’s a climate champion.”
—The Washington Post
Do as I say and not as I once said:
Old Daily Telegraphs record my sneers
At crusties—which I hope you haven’t read,
Since I’ve now U-turned over climate fears!
In doomsday terms, it’s almost midnight now.
So bike or walk, ride trains, ditch coal, don’t tilt
At windmill power. Eat more vegan chow—
You must unstitch our suffocating quilt
At once, or stand no chance of racing to
Net zero well before it’s far too late! …
Do as I say and not as I can do:
No train can get me to my dinner date
On time. So I will fly—and you will see
That rules I make do not apply to me!
by Steve Bremner
November 5 (Guy Fawkes Night/Firework Night in the UK) “is also known as Bonfire Night. Effigies
are thrown on the fires—traditionally of Guy Fawkes, but sometimes of other unpopular people, such
as certain politicians or soccer players.”
—The Mercury News
“Please to remember the Fifth of November…”
—Trad. British rhyme
(with apologies to Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt)
Please to remember the kind of November
When news was slow and oh, so mellow.
Please to remember the kind of November
When neither Reds nor Blues were yellow.
Please to remember the kind of November
When pols saw their lessons and strove to learn them.
If you remember, then model your Member,
And burn them.
Deep in December, it’s wise to remember
That soccer’s on, though snow is flying.
Deep in December, it’s wise to remember
The “fool” who flubbed, still out there trying.
Deep in December, it’s wise to remember
That some we’ll forgive, but some others, spurn them.
Only December? Can’t wait for November
To burn them.
by Steven Kent
“Apple’s Most Back-Ordered New Product Is Not What You Expect: It’s A $19 Cloth”
—The New York Times
We know how the old fable goes,
But that of the king with no clothes
Has nothing on Apple—
Mere reason can’t grapple
When folks want to pay through the nose.
by Clyde Always
“Wife shocked to learn husband’s cadaver dissected at pay-per-view event”
—Global News
Cadaver donors please beware!
I warn with gravest candor:
you may be cleaved beyond repair
for half-a-grand a gander.
by Nora Jay
If you should spot a lanternfly,
Do not be charmed by it: instead
Remember what it’s nourished by,
And squash the little blighter dead.
The lanternfly, you see, is just
A predatory incubus:
And Earth’s already incubussed
Quite efficaciously, by us.
by Alex Steelsmith
“G-20 make mild pledges on climate neutrality… [T]he leaders ‘took only baby steps’ in the agreement
and did almost nothing new… The leaders said they were ‘working on actionable options…’”
–AP News
Blabbity blabbity,
carbon neutrality
seemed like a serious
goal, but in fact
leaders still working on
actionability
weren’t, apparently,
able to act.
by Iris Herriot
“One woman, an adult actress and model on OnlyFans, said she was a ‘patriot’ after she was
sentenced to 14 days behind bars for a picture showing her buttocks near the Kremlin walls.”
—The Guardian
My patriotic fervor truly dazzles;
I go wherever loyalism calls,
To measure up my breasts against St. Basil’s,
Or air my buttocks near the Kremlin walls.
by Jerome Betts
“English town mourning Derek the Goose to raise statue in her honour. … Watchet harbour
was the inspiration for Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and a
striking statue of the sailor and the albatross he shoots is a landmark in the town.”
—The Guardian
Not far from that amazing bird
Which leaves the Coleridge-reader stirred,
Derek, the wrongly-gendered goose
Who sadly suffered fox-abuse
Upon the slipway once her dorm,
May live again, in solid form,
Like regal eagles, royal swans,
And cheer up Watchet, cast in bronze.
by Steve Bremner
“Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen says she’s ‘shocked’ by the scale of Facebook’s ‘metaverse’ plans.
Facebook recently said it would hire 10,000 people to build the metaverse.”
—Business Insider
What the FitzGerald? Are they telling me
That social media’s seizing poetry?
That every Netizen shall rhyme and scan?
Half can’t tell ‘its’ from ‘it’s’ or ‘then’ from ‘than.’
All measured, metered metaphor will go
In fav. of curt abbrev’s, IMHO,
As every bore confusing ‘your’ with ‘you’re’
Becomes the next McGonagall or Moore,
And each Diana, Darren, Dee, and Don
Pounds out vast Cantos WITH THE CAPS LOCK ON.
Ye gods, the vision makes the senses reel!
To arms, my bards! (Merci, Rouget de Lisle).
‘Mid such dank swamps, so ‘yuge’ we’ll never drain them,
Let’s raise our standards—or at least maintain them—
And when we meet a colleague in despair
Console them with a kindly, “There, their, they’re.”