by Paul Lander

South Korean show:
Someone lives, another dies
This week’s Squid pro quo!

by Julia Griffin

For Maria

“Elk finally liberated from car tire stuck around its neck for 2 years”
—Live Science

The elks of Colorado
Know well what rotten luck
Turned incommunicado
A once-audacious buck

Who tossed his horns with relish,
For elkdom to admire;
The proudest life turns hellish
When collared by a tire.

Two years he shunned the herd and
Lay low where none could see;
At last he’s been de-burdened,
His neck unchafed and free,

But as for his bravado,
’Twill never be the same:
They know, in Colorado:
He wore the Tire of Shame.

by Jerome Betts

“Burnishing his green credentials before the Cop26 summit,
it was with pride that Prince Charles revealed that
he runs his Aston Martin on ‘surplus English white wine
and whey from the cheese process’.”
—The Guardian

Raise a glass of the bubbly and bright
To Prince Charles and his gallons of white.
As a royal eco-wonk
He employs surplus plonk
For exhaust fumes we sniff with delight.

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

“Asked if he sympathised with Greta Thunberg, the climate campaigner
who has also criticised leaders for failing to act, [Prince Charles] said:
‘Of course I do, yes.'”
—BBC News

Of course I sympathize with Greta T’s
Frustration—blah, blah, blah is all she hears!
Can talking fix COP26? Well, Jeez!
Old leaders have just talked for thirty years,
Unwilling to take action, so our youth
Rebel … It isn’t helpful, though, to be
So keen to vandalize—I wish, in truth,
Extinction R would take their cues from me:
I drive a car that runs on wine and cheese,
Desist from meat and fish two days a week,
Off dairy stay another day, plant trees
Year round, and get some hydro from my creek …
Expect no comment, though, on Boris J.—
Since I’d regret, when king, what I might say!

by Paul Lander

It’s so damn windy
Dorothy, Oz, Toto, too,
Smashed a car windshield.

by Alex Steelsmith

“A sheep has been on the loose… for at least five days and has evaded capture,
despite multiple sightings. Bloomington residents have captured photos and videos
of the sheep.”
—UPI

Little Bo-Peepishly,
Bloomington residents
can’t catch a sheep, though they
catch it on cam.

How is this wily and
woolly Houdini of
Artiodactyla
still on the lamb?

by Clyde Always

According to Governor Abbott
Joe Biden is being unjust
and only a bully, dagnabbit,
would mandate what businesses must.

And so, like a little kid dueling,
Ole Greg, in a bit of a rant…
has issued a similar ruling
to mandate what businesses can’t.

Ruth S. Baker

“China’s noisy ‘dancing grannies’ silenced by device that disables speakers
Many people are too scared to confront the groups of middle-aged and older women who take
over public parks and sports grounds to exercise along to music
Viral videos and reports have shown the groups arguing and fighting with basketball players
to take over their court, or, in one case, breaking into a football field and stopping the game
to dance in the space, prompting a police response and arrests.”
—The Guardian

Beware the dancing grannies
Who rule the public parks:
Who shake their aged fannies,
And greet aggrieved remarks

With disco blasts, unfitting
Their venerable age!
Instead of mutely knitting,
Behold them, centre stage,

Gyrating and stampeding
On sacred fields and courts,
Not making tea or reading
The gardening reports.

In vain you hush their speakers
Or summon the police;
These old excitement-seekers
Rave on and will not cease,

A case which quite reverses
This long-established truth:
To be a social curse is
A task reserved to youth.

by Dan Campion

“Actor William Shatner expressed awe Wednesday after traveling to space on a Blue Origin rocket.
‘What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine,’ Shatner told Blue Origin
and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos following the flight. “I’m so filled with emotion about what just  happened.'”
—Cox Media Group

Jeff proved, whatever crown you’ve won,
You still need one more factor:
To gild your Enterprise with sun,
You comp a brilliant actor.

by Iris Herriot

“Ruthie Tompson, pioneering Disney animator, dies aged 111…
The iconic animator worked on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs…”
—People

This week, we should remember Ruth,
Who drew for Disney in her youth.
She whistled, sure, while she created;
Alas, she’s now de-animated.

by J.P. Celia

“More great weather Wednesday”
—WESH2 News

A Florida autumn isn’t what you want.
The trees are prudish and the nights are warm.
No ghost or poet would seek out to haunt
A palm tree forest in a thunderstorm.

A Florida autumn isn’t built to please.
It’s merely summer in November dress.
Just lift her skirt up past her knobby knees;
You’ll find hot August in a sultry mess.

A Florida autumn? A complete disgrace.
There is no cider, and there is no stew.
Retirees garden and bronze children race.
The only smoke is from a barbecue.

by Alex Steelsmith

“2-foot-tall cow posthumously recognized as world’s shortest.”
—UPI

“Catfish eaten before being verified can’t qualify for record.”
—ABC News

Higgledy-fickledy,
bovine mammalians
no longer living are
recognized, but

fish are disqualified
post-existentially.
What’s with the rules? Are they
fishy, or what?

by Stephen Gold

“Boris Johnson admits he has known of lorry driver shortage for ‘long, long, long time'”
—The Independent

“Fuel and food shortages could last until Christmas, warns Boris Johnson”
—The Times

(To the tune of “The Christmas Song”)

Parsnips rotting in a winter field,
Turkeys culled before our eyes.
Who can haul? Frankly, no one at all,
Since we ran out of fuel supplies.

Anybody know where all the pigs-in-blankets are?
Each and every one’s untucked.
Yuletide’s here, but forget festive cheer.
Britannia’s “Great” no more, it’s fucked.

Are there more truckers on their way?
Where are my pickles, panettone and pâté?
I pray they make it in the nick of time.
Thank God I signed up for Amazon Prime!

And so, I’m offering this Christmas thought.
Own up, you must have had it too.
My friends, this is it; we are deep in the shit,
Now we’ve left the EU.

by Nora Jay

“Lindsey Graham told Republicans they ‘ought to think about’ getting a coronavirus vaccine.
They booed him. … [Graham] responded to the crowd, telling them: ‘I didn’t tell you to get it.
You ought to think about it.'”
—The Washington Post

“You’ve a choice!” Graham soothed his backers,
Whom his hint had driven crackers.
Here’s a choice I’d choose to lack, sirs:
Lindsey Graham or Anti-Vaxxers.

by Coleman Glenn

“Scammers are targeting T-Mobile customers through a new … text message [that] says that you may
have been affected by a T-Mobile service outage and that the company wants to compensate you for
the inconvenience.”
—BestLife

We much regret, dear customer,
the outage (which did not occur).
Moreover, we apologize
for slanders, insults, jabs, and lies
that you’ve endured throughout your life—
we now confess: we caused that strife.
In fact, the least thing that’s gone wrong
for you was our fault all along.
To make it right, we’re offering
a gift card. It’s a little thing,
but please accept it as a token
of penance for the trust we’ve broken.
We know you’re smart. You sniff scams out.
But there’s no need for prudent doubt
in this case. Let us overload you
with righteous lust for what is owed you.