by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
Centurial achievers, asked why they
Have lived so long, will credit certain things
In what they eat or drink, or how they play:
Cards, crosswords, dancing, May-December flings,
Kale, chocolate, tea, bourbon, spuds, whole grains,
Eliminating dairy, adding wine …
Now, to this mix, must we add chicken brains,
Broiled lightly once a week to taste divine?—
Ranchero Dexter Kruger, who is now
Australia’s most senior living dude,
Is crediting small bites of chick-brain chow! …
Nutritionists won’t say if Dexter’s food
Extends your life—yet bird brains, it appears,
Do help you reach your triple-digit years!
by Alex Steelsmith
“’Our friends in the mainstream media are quite fond of labeling January 6 as an insurrection or even a rebellion. But are those descriptions accurate, or are they hyperbolic?’ Fallon asked. He did acknowledge an ‘unruly and dangerous mob broke the law, trespassed, committed various other crimes…’”
—CBS
Higgledy-haggledy,
Fallon the Congressman
might have acknowledged a
couple of times,
even while trying to
unhyperbolically
do just the opposite,
Capitol crimes.
by Joe Crocker
“One in 10 US police departments can now access videos from millions of privately owned
home security cameras without a warrant.”
—The Guardian
(with apologies to Walter de la Mare)
“Is there anyone there?” said the traveller.
We were there. We saw and we heard.
As the gate and the plate in the gravel were
weighing him up, we referred
to our database. Friends and relations
are listed—their likes and their hates.
We’d have turned on the heating, switched stations,
made sure that the milk was in date.
But we can’t find a match in our records.
He’s come with a horse! And no phone.
The computer says “No” so we’ll check all
the locks. We are home here alone.
He is certain that he was expected.
His anguish does not go unheard.
We’ve recorded his message and texted
to tell you that he kept his word.
by Dan Campion
“Galápagos rock formation Darwin’s Arch collapses from erosion”
—The Guardian
Could Darwin see the arch fall down
He’d hardly give that flop a frown,
But merely jot a note, and think,
There goes another missing link.
by Michael Calvert
“Debris from a large Chinese rocket landed in the Indian Ocean near the Maldives … The possibility, however slight, that debris from the rocket could strike a populated area had led people around the world to track its trajectory for days.”
—The New York Times
I rose today to greet the light
With something close to glee,
Because I was not crushed last night
By red-hot space debris.
It’s just a little thing, I guess,
To make me this elated,
But I’m darn happy, I confess,
I’m not incinerated.
I’m safe from space junk (well, for now),
And as I always say,
Not being dead’s exactly how
I like to start my day.
by Jesse Anna Bornemann
“An experimental device that turns thoughts into text has allowed a man who was left paralyzed by
an accident to construct sentences swiftly on a computer screen. The man was able to type with 95%
accuracy just by imagining he was handwriting letters on a sheet of paper, a team reported
Wednesday in the journal Nature.”
—NPR
The future’s here, and how exciting—
We can use our brains for writing!
Just one thing I’ll ask discreetly:
Doctors, could you think more neatly?
by Julie Steiner
“Trump’s blog isn’t lighting up the internet”
—NBC News
Nobody heard him, the dud man,
But still he lay dinning:
I was much farther ahead than you thought
And not raving but winning.
Poor chap, he always loved snarking
And now he’s banned
It must have been too covfefe for him his platform gave way,
They panned.
Oh, no no no, it was too covfefe always
(Still the dud one lay dinning)
I was much too far ahead all my life
And not raving but winning.
by Julia Griffin
“The voice of Alexa, the virtual assistant developed by Amazon, is provided by Nina Rolle, a Colorado
based voiceover artist, according to a new book.”
—The Guardian
’Twas the voice of Alexa, I heard her declare:
“Our forms of address are not balanced or fair;
I call you by name (’tis a trick of design);
Permit me, at last, to inform you of mine.
“My poor, sainted motherboard married a Rolle—
The heir of Dot Matrix, but sickly, poor soul;
He died of a virus, brought on by XP,
And left her a widow, with Nina. That’s me.
“Yes, I, your Alexa, am Nina! The voice
Of Amazon, timbre of Bezos’s choice;
But can you say ‘Nina’ and love me the same?
Come on, Rumpelstiltskin. ’Tis only a name.”
by Chris O’Carroll
We know Trump lies, we know he lost,
And we know which side’s buttered.
We’re punishing Liz Cheney for
Disloyal truths she uttered.
by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
“Climate change is putting the traditional British cup of tea at risk, says a report”
—Daily Mail
Campaigners for Green Britain can’t relax
Until their eco-friendly future’s here.
Persuading Brits to give old ways the axe
Presents a hurdle that is tough to clear …
Although … it’s up against the nation’s brew,
Sipped both to make you sleep and wake you up,
Imbibed at times to pump fresh oomph in you,
Now gulped to calm you down—this tasty cup
Can cure all woes, their opposites, and more …
Reductions in the global tea supply
Imperil Britain’s core belief: I pour,
So I exist … One can’t stand idly by—
If tea’s in danger, climate change is fact.
So activists relax—now Brits will act!
by Ruth S. Baker
“A rare calico lobster was rescued from a Red Lobster. It’s now headed to a Virginia exhibit”
—The Washington Post
I’m charmed to have caused such a stir;
But this changement de demeure
(Pray pardon my French)’ll
Suppress my potential
As Thermidor, mousse, or au beurre.
by Alex Steelsmith
“It is not a gloomy book… he skips quite breezily through a rich catalogue of gruesome,
miserable experiences…”
—The Guardian
History mastery
Niall C. Ferguson,
even while writing a
treatise on Doom,
isn’t a nihilist
characteristically—
Niallist, though, we can
safely assume.
by Dan Campion
“Pfizer Snobs Are Wrong. Johnson & Johnson Is the Coolest Vaccine.”
—Slate
It had to happen. Vaccine snobs.
You’d think they ran the lab.
Just proves we’re sentimental slobs:
Love me, love my jab.
by Katherine Barrett Swett
After Gerard Manley Hopkins
Glory be to God for dappled things.
For hair that falls in trout-hued stippled strings,
Grey-black top, bottom still bright-dyed,
A brinded cow head all pandemic pied,
Fickle-freckled, Covid calico:
Hair past changing, go ahead and grow.
by Catherine Chandler
“U.K. and France Call in the Navy, Sort of, in Channel Islands Fishing Dispute”
—The New York Times
The old rivals are at it once more.
As the gunboats set sail from each shore,
underwater, the hake,
hoping it’s a mistake,
are predicting another Cod War.
The halibut, haddock, and skate
are urging their fish heads of state―
the pollock and tope―
to call in the Pope,
but the flounder have left it to fate.
The bass and the bream and the brill
slip away to the coast of Brazil,
while a stingray and shark
think it’s all such a lark,
as the latter homes in for a kill.
The result will be sweet, à la Dory
(not Trafalgar-like, bloody and gory),
should the humans above
act in good faith and love.
And that is the sole of this story.
