by Ruth S. Baker

“Crab blood to remain big pharma’s standard as industry group rejects substitute”
—The Guardian

The best type of lab blood
Is known to be crab blood:
No substitute liquor will do.
What makes it so proper?
Primarily copper,
The source of its elegant hue.

The tests all confirm it:
The blood of the Hermit
Will clot near a drug that’s impure;
Thus Pharma’s equations
Depend on crustaceans—
Employed under contract, I’m sure.

by Gail White

Although you may feel that your peace has been shaken,
You know you’re not left in the lurch
When your President (moi) has his photograph taken
In front of his neighborhood church.

Your governors (dumb as a parcel of pullets)
Do nothing at all! But I’m proud
That I had the courage to spray pepper bullets
And gas on a peaceable crowd.

It’s true, my first act was to run to the basement
And turn all the lights out and hide,
But now you can see what my shelt’ring in place meant—
Sheer brilliance! And I haven’t died.

I’m truly the greatest world leader since Nero,
I’m keeping America free—
So get out the vote for your savior, your hero,
Your favorite President—ME!

by Bruce Bennett

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany compared President Trump’s visit to a church to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill inspecting bomb damage during World War II.

Sure, Trump’s like Winston Churchill:
A Bible in his hand,
he poses at the Church front,
the way such heroes stand.

But wait. There’s something missing.
This wasn’t quite the Blitz,
and Trump relied on tear gas.
And Churchill had his wits.

by Dan Campion

“I am your president of Law and Order.”
—Donald J. Trump

If Don’s a DA, I’m Clark Kent,
A boast non compos mentis.
He’ll always be, as president,
The host of The Apprentice.

by Richard Wakefield

He hunkered in his bunker “for inspection”
and then emerged to quell the insurrection.
His minions gassed a pathway through the rubble.
The arms he took against a sea of trouble?
A borrowed Bible, surely apotropaic,
held Heston-like aloft to look Mosaic.
His message to his lackeys was “Adore me!”
and “Thou shalt have no other gods before me!”

by Eddie Aderne

“Italian village underwater since 1994 could resurface
The [13th century] village of Fabbriche di Careggine, in Tuscany, Lucca province, was flooded in 1946
to build a hydroelectric dam … Submerged under 34 million cubic meters of water, the still intact
structures of the abandoned village—including stone houses, a bridge, a cemetery and the San
Teodoro Church—reemerge only when the dam is emptied for maintenance. According to local
tourism officials, this has happened only four times: in 1958, 1974, 1983 and 1994.”
—CNN

Near the quarries of Carrara
Lies a village all alone:
Three-arched bridge and campanile,
Ancient houses all of stone,

With the church of Teodoro
And its final resting ground,
All subsumed by engineering
And professionally drowned.

While her stony phantom sisters
High-and-dryly freeze or bake,
Lost Fabbriche bathes her frescoes
In a redirected lake;

Only once in every decade
When the maintenance is due
Is the weight of water lifted,
And the land returned to view.

Then the bell-tower damply splutters
And the bell shakes off its rust,
While the cemetery shivers
With the soft return of dust,

And a faint pavana echoes
Through the bridge, long water-jammed,
To salute those strange fiestas
When the dead are all undammed.

by Barbara Loots

After watching 33 free streamed operas from the Met during quarantine

Sometimes the heroine is just a girl,
an innocent set up to be betrayed.
Whether she loves a hero or a churl,
she’ll face a three- or four-hour escapade
in which her feelings and her fate are swayed
by charm, by force, deception, or disguise
she’s helpless to resist or to evade.
And then she dies.

Sometimes around the heroine unfurl
fate’s sinister entrapments. Undismayed,
she feels the storm of accusation swirl
and knows the price of honor must be paid.
Beset by Powers That Must Be Obeyed,
she suffers while the chorus vilifies.
Her hopes of justice and redemption fade.
And then she dies.

Sometimes the heroine, a perfect pearl,
whether a princess or a village maid,
regardless of her protest or demurral,
becomes the object of an evil trade,
a bloody game, a sinister charade,
with hidden motives and transparent lies,
with clash of insult and with flashing blade.
And then she dies.

Through every lamentation and tirade,
each heroine embraces her demise
despite how fervently she may have prayed.
And then…

by Julia Griffin

“The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned of ‘unusual or aggressive’ behavior
in American rats as a consequence of more than two months of human lockdown for city-dwelling
rodents who now find themselves unable to dine out on restaurant waste, street garbage and other
food sources. …
Elevated levels of rat aggression [have] been observed in New York, where there are increased reports
of cannibalism and infanticide, and New Orleans, where unusual rat behavior was caught on CCTV.”
—The Guardian

How scary is the urban beast
Obsessively compelled to feast
On burgers, fries, and Chick-Fil-A
Who, if those treats are swept away,
So quickly lets its manners slide
To cannibal infanticide!
There’s something in this contact drought
That brings the worst in mammals out;
Aggressively they spread disease
And hang up effigies from trees;
They turn psychotic, eat their brood,
And spit at workers selling food.

by Chris O’Carroll

They show no respect for my crown.
They say that my lies are untrue.
I’m shutting the company down—
You know, like democracies do.

by Barbara Lydecker Crane

Pandemic walks have fast become
each day’s aerobic task—
not by distance or by speed,
just breathing through my mask.

by Bruce Bennett

I would have screamed right back, but you were gone.
The truth is, I forgot I had it on.

by Stephen Pisani

“Boy, 12, Remains Totally Calm Despite The Massive Bear Creeping Up Behind Him”
—HuffPost

A bear’s behind me, but I’m not afraid.
I keep my cool, retrace my steps to camp.
My parents yell, “Return at once to shade!”
I walk unhurried. I won’t risk a cramp.
“Return! Return!” My parents yell it loud.
The bear seems nice. I’m thinking, What the heck?
I dawdle, going slow as I’m allowed.
“He’s getting close!” I turn around to check.

by J.P. Celia

“World’s most endangered primate population
triples after 17 years of careful conservation.”
—Good News Network

The gibbon is my favorite beast.
My favorite monkey, to be sure.
It’s not a monkey, but an ape.
An ape’s a monkey, but mature.

The gibbon doesn’t have a tail.
I guess somebody sawed it off.
It doesn’t have a family name,
Like Hindenburg or Romanov.

It swings, or rather, “brachiates.”
It’s lost its wallet and its keys.
It’s also lost its underwear.
It speaks in fluent gibbonese.

by Ruth S. Baker

“’Milli Violini’: I was a fake violinist in a world-class miming orchestra’”
—The Guardian

I’ve longed to play the violin
Since I was just a tiddler.
What matter if I’ve ears of tin?
I’m still a world-class fiddler.

by Julia Griffin

“‘Llamas are the real unicorns’: why they could be our secret weapon against coronavirus …
Llama antibodies have been a fixture in the fight against disease for years, with researchers
investigating their potency against HIV and other viruses.”
—The Guardian

The Llama and the Unicorn
Disputed which was real.
The Llama said: “That glitzy horn
Establishes the deal:
I am the one who grows the wool
While you do tail-coiffures;
You’re rainbowish and fanciful;
I’m making virus cures.”

The Unicorn demurely rolled
Mascara-laden eyes,
And murmured: “Sheepy, must you scold?
You’re welcome to the prize
Of being laden, shorn, and tame,
And fixing HIV;
Just don’t, I beg you, try to claim
That you’re a real-er me.”