by Julia Griffin
“An Alleged Lock of Emily Dickinson’s Hair is Selling for $450,000… But Was it Stolen?”
—LitHub
I heard the Press buzz – when I died –
A Cutting – from the Locks
That I had grown – was now for sale –
For half a million – Bucks –
And all the Scholars – lost their minds –
Insurers too – because –
The Lock was stolen – so they said –
And possibly – it was –
by Jerome Betts
“Aukus pact backlash grows”
—The Guardian
The acronyms which strike the ear,
Euphonious or raucous,
Have truly plumbed new depths this year
With—Heaven help us!—AUKUS.
by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
A scientist from Auckland is gung-ho
To potty-train young cows. This pioneer
Is not your rocket scientist, although
Nitrogenous exhaust fires his career! …
Kept locked in their latrine till they can go,
Lashed hard with H2O if they can’t wait,
Enticed by treacle treats to mind their flow,
Forbearing cows soon learn to micturate
On artificial grass in their Moo Loo—
Research shows human toddlers aren’t as quick
At learning where to pee! But pee’s not poo.
Can Holstein heifers learn the second trick? …
Our prof now dreams of future episodes—
When pastured cows use only field commodes!
by Dan Campion
“Woolly mammoths could walk the Earth again by 2027 if CRISPR startup succeeds”
—CNET
They’ve got investors panting
For mammoth cash returns
On hairy beasts set trampling
The permafrost. One yearns
For some sense of proportion:
Let’s save the monarchs now!
But what sells? Time distortion.
The next ginned-up cash cow.
by Jennifer Reeser
“‘That fella down under’: Joe Biden forgets Scott Morrison’s name during historic pact announcement”
—The Guardian
Thinking today how the English for “blunder”
Happens to rhyme with Australia’s “down under”—
Verily, scarily, how our Joe Biden
Forces the faux pas horizons to widen!
by Bruce Bennett
“Worried Trump could ‘go rogue,’ Milley took secret action to protect nuclear weapons”
—CNN
Hooray for our hero, Mark Milley,
Who saw that Trump wasn’t just silly.
He acted to quell
What might have been Hell!
Disaster was imminent till he
Got everyone on the same page
To undercut chaos and rage.
All Hail to that Chief
Who thwarted the thief
And kept him locked up in his cage.
by Julia Griffin
“‘What is this if not magic?’ The Italian man living as a hobbit
After building his own version of Middle-earth, Nicolas Gentile
has thrown a ‘ring’ into Mount Vesuvius”
—The Guardian
Scrub the glasses and mind the plates!
Hone the knives and shine the forks!
Signor Baggins re-relocates—
Fill the bottles and pop the corks!
Stuff the cakes with sugar and fat!
Jiggle barefoot along the floor!
Wave some flags and a bathroom mat!
Rub the knocker and paint the door!
Press your handkerchief, don’t be shy,
Bear your ring to the crater’s rim—
Don’t discard it, though—raise it high!
Here’s Gentile! Let’s welcome him!
What though dragons declare him “screwy”?
Hobbity happiness, Bilbo Due!
by Chris O’Carroll
The Russians are shooting a movie in space.
No word what its rating will be.
Since neither the cast nor the script will have weight,
I expect it’ll be Zero-G.
by Shaun Jex
“The anonymous text, which concludes with the lines ‘Go on, love me / It does you good,’
was popular across the eastern Roman empire in the second century…”
—The Guardian
In both the present
And days of yore
Bards have penned verses
Hoping to score
by Hilary Stanton
“Ed Sheeran took Taylor Swift to a pub and no one noticed”
—CNN.com
Poor Ed and Taylor, lacking a guitar,
relinquish acclamation of their fame—
how did it feel to walk into a bar
where everybody doesn’t know your name?
by Coleman Glenn
Yackety flackety
Norman of Canada
Didn’t hold back or hit
Punchlines by half.
Folks would get mad, but, uh,
Tragicomedically,
Now he’s belovèd. Norm
Gets the last laugh.
by Steven Kent
“Bolsonaro Diehards Take To Streets Of Brazil To Urge Firing Squads And Coup”
—The Guardian
Our man’s in trouble! Let us go
To show our might in rallies.
We’ll strike down cops and judges in
A slew of bloody sallies.
For Jair and country we would fight
And die if God should will it,
But now to save democracy
I guess we have to kill it.
by Jennifer Reeser
“… you know, the—what looks like a tornado—they don’t call them that anymore…”
—Joe Biden
Tornado’s not the term these days
for catastrophic, pull-up plans.
I nominate a fitter phrase.
Let’s call them Joe’s Afghanistans.
by Alex Steelsmith
“TikTokers bombard Texas anti-abortion whistleblower website with Shrek porn…”
—NBC
TikityTokity,
prurient images
target a website in
efforts to short-
circuit a mission that
antiabortionists
otherwise certainly
wouldn’t abort.
by Nora Jay
“Naked woman, 28, drives golf cart into Florida standoff scene with armed suspect”
—Fox News
Nude babe, golf, guns, and Florida: it’s checking every box.
Farewell, high-minded Guardian! The world’s more fun on Fox.