by Eddie Aderne
“Five years ago, Jeanne Pouchain was declared dead by a French court. …
Pouchain has spent more than three and a half years engaged in an existential battle to prove
to the French authorities … that she is very much alive.”
—The Guardian
The final judgement of the court
Declares Madame Pouchain is morte;
An unexceptionable lot
If it were true, but it is not.
For three long years she’s vainly tried
To demonstrate she has not died:
This claim cannot be reconciled
With forms and papers signed and filed.
Like anybody not alive,
She cannot travel, work, or drive,
And people who do not exist
Are stricken from the pension list.
Thus Madame P., like Joseph K.
Throughout The Trial (or Le Procès),
Is dwelling in un vrai cauchemar,
With compensations few and far;
The case is irksome to the max.
Though death, it’s true, remits all tax,
And with no carte d’identité,
She lacks, besides, the means to pay,
Yet still the brave Madame Pouchain
Indominably fights her coin;
There’s really little to be said
For being animately dead.
by Chris O’Carroll
“Michael Andrew, an Olympic gold medal favorite, says he won’t be vaccinated for Tokyo”
—Yahoo News
“Sha’Carri Richardson will miss Tokyo Olympics in wake of suspension over marijuana test”
—Independent
The swimmer bound for Tokyo
Says, “No vaccine for me.”
The runner didn’t make the team
Because of THC.
While I would share Sha’Carri’s weed
With equanimity,
I think I’d rather not inhale
In Mike’s vicinity.
by Alex Steelsmith
According to a July 2 AP report, “A Massachusetts man has returned long overdue books
that were checked out in the 1920s and 1930s to the Somerville Public Library…
(He) will not be charged late fees as the library stopped charging the fees as of July 1.”
Higgledy-priggledy,
Somerville Library
stood to make thousands in
late fees, but wait—
thanks to their very own
library-mandated
edict, they found they were
one day too late.
by Ruth S. Baker
“The world’s tallest horse has died in Wisconsin”
“The world’s tallest sandcastle has been completed in Denmark”
“Italian farmers have grown the world’s largest cherry”
—Three headlines from the same week
The world’s biggest horse has gone flop—
As a marker for whom, or a swap,
Comes the world’s biggest fort
Of the sand-sculpting sort,
With the world’s biggest cherry on top.
by Julia Griffin
“The world’s tallest sandcastle has been completed in Denmark …
Standing 21.16 metres in height (69.4 feet), the castle is more than 3 metres taller than one built
in Germany in 2019, which previously held the title, according to Guinness World Records. …
Its Dutch creator […] [wanted] to represent the power the coronavirus has had over the world
since the beginning of the pandemic. On top of the sandcastle is a model of the virus wearing
a crown.”
—The Guardian
A
Crown
Of brown:
Feel desirous?
Look! It’s virus!
What a dismal notion:
To raise, beside the ocean,
About five thousand tons of silica
And shape them like a death basilica.
Is this the avenue to Guinness Record glory –
Eight hundred inches (+) of beach memento mori?
For all its soaring arches, this is anything but more-ish:
The site is Danish, and the mood quite Castle Elsinore-ish.
by Alex Steelsmith
“Elsa, the first hurricane of the 2021 Atlantic storm season, was downgraded to a tropical storm
Saturday… impacts [were] expected to begin Monday in the Florida Keys and the southern
Florida Peninsula.”
—USA Today
Topical tropical
Elsa the Hurricane
kept South Floridians
on the qui vive,
begging the forces of
meteorology,
“Grant us a downgrade, or
elsa reprieve!”
by Bruce Bennett
Joey Chestnut wins the Crown.
Wolfs those hot dogs. Keeps them down.
Good for him! Long may he scarf!
I can’t watch though. I would barf.
Soaks the buns, which makes them slide.
How can there be room inside?
What will happen when they pass?
OMG! The groans. The gas.
Spare me thoughts of what’s in store
Once that crowd has ceased to roar.
Once there’s quiet, and his gut
Screams, Hey Joey, What is what?
I’ve been faithful. I’ve been true.
What, Man, have I done to you?
What if, with one giant cramp,
Joey’s gut does in the Champ?
by Nora Jay
“Opera singer delivers her own baby in the car while husband drives”
—GMA
Those singers who give birth in cars
Must surely be contrarians,
Since such a circumstance debars
The chance of high C-sareans.
by Iris Herriot
“French posters of kissing couples promote ‘desirable’ side of Covid jab”
—The Guardian
What kind of a bête or a boor
Would find la Covid an allure?
When you both have your Pfizers,
Then lock your incisors
And slurp all you wish. Ah, l’amour!
by Steven Kent
Indictment excitement—
We’re getting somewhere now.
Justice a must is,
That much is clear.
The richer the snitcher
The more we should care now.
Squealing? He’s dealing
And Trump lives in fear.
by Julia Griffin
“So happy to see you: our brains respond emotionally to faces we find in inanimate objects,
study reveals”
—The Guardian
Three objects in a bounded space
Will call to mind the human face.
No matter what their form or size,
Two shapes can always stand for eyes,
The third supplying mouth or nose.
This pareidolic fancy shows
Our obstinate creative thrust;
Or is it vanity, or just
Plain loneliness that makes us find
Our kin so far beyond our kind?
by Chris O’Carroll
“a disappointment in every sense of the word”
—An ex-president on ex-attorney general William Barr,
who dismissed 2020 election fraud allegations as “bullshit”
A winner in every sense of delusion,
He’s fuming in every sense of deranged
At a crony in every sense of collusion
Turned outcast in every sense of estranged.
A loser in every sense of denial
With fraud claims in every sense of absurd
And trash talk in every sense of revile,
He bullshits in every sense of the word.
by Julia Griffin
“‘At first I thought, this is crazy’: the real-life plan to use novels to predict the next war”
—The Guardian
My novel (working title: “Peace”)
Should help our global fears decrease:
The world it shows is one defined
By truth and equity combined,
Not mad, political caprice.
The wisest thoughts of ancient Greece;
Recycled boards of soft cerise;
Around them and between you’ll find
My novel.
No children fear to predecease
My calm, responsible police;
Non-partisan and color-blind,
A world awaits, more truly kind,
If only someone would release
My novel.
by Dan Campion
“Puerto Rican man confirmed as world’s oldest living male at 112 years old”
—USA Today
Emilio Flores Márquez: Cheers!
Your secret? Love. No anger.
(My hope was you would name cold beers,
Mofongo, crispy banger.)
Your loving cup is fine by me.
Mild temper, I can’t boast,
But swear by the Sargasso Sea
I’ll try it. Hence this toast.
by Jerome Betts
Lush green Wimbledon’s strawberries and cream,
Long bronzed limbs and white dresses a-gleam,
Make a summer’s day just like a dream . . .
Till Ms. Grunt slugs it out with Ms. Scream.
