by Alex Steelsmith

“An escaped racehorse made its way to a train station… before attempting to board a train…”
—UPI

Here’s how the
incident
might be ex-
plained:

Sometimes an
animal
needs to be
trained.

by Ruth S. Baker

“Secrets of the humbling, many-hearted octopus”
—National Geographic

The many-hearted octopus
Is also blessed with many brains:
It generates domestic fuss
By sliding up the pipes of drains.

The octopus’s braininess
Is hard for us to comprehend;
We lack the skill to self-compress
Enough to climb a U-shaped bend.

But, granting that its mental span
Exceeds the cleverest of us,
Let’s humbly pity (all we can)
A broken-hearted octopus.

by Marshall Begel

“Mocking the Abrdn name is ‘corporate bullying’, says chief investment officer.
Peter Branner accuses press of making ‘childish jokes’ about rebrand,
which would not be acceptable if firm was a person”
—The Guardian

No wdgies, ngies, snpping towls—
We bully by deltng vowls.

by Steven Urquhart Bell

“A stressful job could stave off dementia, according to new analysis”
—Daily Mail

What helps arrest the progress of dementia,
Before it has a chance to do its worst,
Is less the stressful job that keeps you thinking,
And more the heart attack that kills you first.

by Julia Griffin

“Brazilian woman arrested after taking corpse to sign bank loan: ‘She knew he was dead’
“This is the last straw … This goes beyond all limits because there can be no doubt … about
the difference between a living person and a dead person,” [a journalist] said.”
—The Guardian

LP: warm body temperature; veins pulsing; blood at work.
DP: pervasive chilliness; internal bits on hold.
LP: spleen working; bladder filling; limbs inclined to jerk.
DP: no growth (save hair and nails); skin (have I mentioned?) cold.
LP: emotion; memory; a tendency to aches.
DP: quiescence; stiffness; similarity to wax.
LP: responsibilities; fatigue, for goodness’ sakes!
DP: sequestered property; immunity to tax.
LP: infection forming; self-propulsion; joy and pain.
DP: no phlegm; no itch; no bruises; eyeballs turned to blanks.
LP: warm heart (for good or bad); (likewise) responding brain.
DP: no fear of death; some fear of fraudulence in banks.
LP: I know the difference! I prefer to be this way.
DP: What I prefer, and know, I do not choose to say.

by Simon MacCulloch

“Let’s stop talking about ‘great’ Britain—and rebrand ourselves as a different sort of country.”
—The Guardian

The problem with being ‘Great’ Britain:
We struggle to chew what we’ve bitten—
A grand leading role
From equator to pole,
A lion’s share claimed by a kitten.

by Marshall Begel

“‘It’s like staring at demons,’ [says man with] a rare condition called prosopometamorphopsia…
in which parts of the faces of other people appear distorted…”
—CNN

Seemingly—dreamingly—screamingly
Typical Tennessee resident
Stricken with psychopathology
Sees every face as bizarre.

Burdened with agoraphobia,
He sought assistance from experts, but
Neuroanatomy specialists
Haven’t made progress, so far.

Could it be, in a world spellbound by
Megalomaniacs, those who have
Prosopometamorphopsia
Recognize things as they are?

* Editors’ note: As far as we know, “Mephistophelian Countenance” is the first triple dactyl ever published in Light (or anywhere)!

by Steven Kent

“Bad omens and deep state lunacy: solar eclipse brings wave of memes”
—The Guardian

The rapture’s nigh! Beware, the Deep State acts!
These planetary signs mean earth’s destruction!
Conspiracies and fables, absent facts,
Resist all Occam’s Razor-ish reduction.
False prophets on the Net predict our doom
While hucksters reap true profits, easy money,
From those who aren’t the smartest in the room—
Apocalypse aside, it’s weirdly funny.

by Julia Griffin

For Mary

“A Stork, a Fisherman and Their Unlikely Bond Enchant Turkey
Thirteen years ago, a stork landed on a fisherman’s boat looking for food. He has come back
every year since, drawing national attention. … “Nature doesn’t have much space for emotions,”
[a Turkish ornithologist] said. “For the stork, it is a matter of easy food. …”
“It is just to love an animal,” said [the fisherman]. “They are God’s creatures.”
—The New York Times

Their bond, originally fish,
Has changed and deepened, some believe,
Though experts scoff that this is wish-
Ful thinking. Do we self-deceive

In thinking that a man and stork,
Although so different in physique,
Might share a link immune to fork,
And insusceptible to beak?

For thirteen years, much written of,
These two have trysted. Something grows
Between them, which the man calls “love.”
The stork says nothing. But he knows.

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

“Amol Rajan pledges to drop his ‘haitches’ in favour of ‘aitch’ in pronunciation [kerfuffle]”
—The Independent

A quizmaster’s aitch variation
Irked viewers. He promised cessation.
That haitch on TV
Caused this paradox: He
Has aspired to have no aspiration!

by Stephen Gold

“Dutch division of [accounting firm] KPMG fined $25m for cheating in exams.”
—The Times

When examinations tax,
Don’t you worry, just relax,
We are always at your side to lend support.
Why leave anything to chance?
Get the answers in advance!
Playing fair should be the very last resort.

If you think this is a sin,
What’s the world you’re living in?
All that matters is to get that vital pass.
To be ethical is fine,
But for us, the bottom line
Is to never be the bottom of the class.

Giving credit where it’s due
Is commendable, that’s true.
But a more important lesson to be taught,
Is that in the modern day,
There’s an even better way,
Namely, taking all the credit where it’s not!

by Marshall Begel

“Gov. Hobbs signs ‘Grandpa in the Garden’ bill, paving way for human composting in Arizona”
—Arizona’s Family

Put Grandpa in the garden,
When he is cold and still.
But if the ground should harden,
We’ll have to rototill.

We’re composting our kinfolk,
No caskets to be seen.
It’s not some household in-joke—
We’re going, going green!

In Grandma’s final hours,
She told us “No cremation!”
So, now among the flowers,
She’ll practice re-carnation.

(chorus)

So if you’re sick and, knowing
You’ll soon be dead and gone,
You want to help things growing,
Come spread out on our lawn.

(chorus)

by Iris Herriot

(After Larry Morey)

“Study sheds light on the white dwarf star, likely destroyer of our solar system …
When asteroids, moons and planets get close to white dwarfs, the latter’s huge gravity rips them into smaller
and smaller pieces, which continue to collide, eventually being ground into dust. While the researchers said Earth
would probably be swallowed by our host star, the sun, before it becomes a white dwarf, the rest of our solar system… ultimately may be shredded by the sun in a white star form.”
—The Guardian

Just whistle while you shred:
(Earn your dwarfish cred!)
Turn asteroids to dusty voids
And live things into dead;
So warble as you chew:
(Mash planets into goo!)
The Earth’s a guest now grown a pest—
That goes for Venus too.

And as you brightly croon,
Pretend you’re a cartoon
(The antiquated kind):
You’ll find
You’re crunching up the moon!

Dig wormholes, worms! In cosmic terms
It’s coming very soon.

by Dan Campion

“Peter Higgs, Nobelist Who Predicted the ‘God Particle,’ Dies at 94”
—The New York Times

Higgs had an insight, and it stuck;
Some Nobelists have all the luck!
To add to his enduring fame,
The field that gives mass bears his name.
Too modest (but such faults endear),
He’d skip champagne and quaff a beer—
Not soak up accolades all night—
Relaxing on a homebound flight:
The sort of gentlemanly quark
Who’s here and gone but leaves his mark.

by Alex Steelsmith

“Eclipse chasers, or umbraphiles… will do almost anything, and travel almost anywhere, to see totality…”
—ABC News

“Why NASA says the total solar eclipse [today] will be way cooler than any before it.”
—Business Insider

Higgledy-syzygy,
serious umbraphiles
monitor many a
lunar ellipse,

plotting their optimal
geocoordinates,
doggedly planning their
faraway trips.

Always intrepid, they
monomaniacally
goggle from mountaintops,
deserts, and ships;

every eclipse, being
superspectacular,
seems to eclipse every
other eclipse.