by Ruth S. Baker

“White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said she believes God wanted President Donald Trump to win the 2016 election, the Christian Broadcasting Network reported on Wednesday.”—CNN

Because the States were in a slump,
The Lord supported Donald Trump
In his campaign for President,
Revealing thus the discontent
Of Heaven (as, of course, elsewhere)
With DACA and Obamacare.
So Donald was assigned the post
By Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
Which might appear a rather odd
Decision on the part of God,
Did life not show (and Scripture, too)
The kinds of things He likes to do.

by Nora Jay

Gather your rosebuds, wily May:
Old Time is still a-speeding,
And, less than two full months away,
A deadline’s not receding.

That glorious lamp of heaven, The Sun,
Directs you down to hunker;
Back, though, on earth, the deal is done:
You won’t get any Juncker.

Then be not coy, make jamboree
Before our final outing!
Think: all that rosebud potpourri,
May soon be Brussels sprouting.

by Dan Campion

“Here the buffoonery never stops. … I never get tired of the show.”
—H.L. Mencken, “On Being an American” (1922)

Rapt fans await the Super Bowl
With cheese balls, brats, and beer.
The game will take a fearful toll
On diets. But a cheer
Will greet each devastating hit,
Each end-zone demonstration,
By gladiators young and fit,
The pride of MAGA nation.
And if the referees don’t muff
Too many calls, the best
Team wins—but if they lose, well, tough.
The volk still had their fest.

by Nora Jay

“The teen is smirking—his expression, for me, oozes entitlement.”—The Guardian

“Covington student did no wrong.”—CNS News

A Trump-supporting schoolboy’s smirk
Revealed him as a racist jerk,
Insulting arrogantly an
Indigenous old veteran—
Until a second video
Appeared and clarified that, No,
The racists here were not young whites
But old Black Hebrew Israelites,
Who claimed the tribes had damned their souls
By idolizing totem poles.
Meanwhile, the Trumpists went to work
Upon the victim of the smirk,
Declaring him an arrant sham
Who’d never been to Vietnam;
The Anti-Trumpists reeled, but soon
Rebounded like a woke balloon
And blamed the boy again—so Vox;
He found support, of course, in Fox,
And gave, for further sympathy,
An interview to NBC
Which somehow riled both right and left—
A thing which might have bridged the cleft
And thus produced an armistice
In some quite other world than this.
The vet was also interviewed:
This too’s been variously booed,
But even journalists now seem
Fatigued or running out of steam.
The videos are quite a botch,
And really not much fun to watch;
Besides, there’s plenty more on view—
Trump-Nancy, and the Oscars do.
The details of this sad event
Will quickly fade, all passion spent;
Just one vignette looks set to lurk:
That MAGA Mona Lisa smirk.

by Julia Griffin

“It’s a girl! Gender of penguin raised by Sydney’s beloved same-sex parents revealed”
—CNN

Welcome, little penguin girl,
Daughter of two penguin pops!
All the Internet’s a-whirl:
Welcome, little penguin girl!
Where’s the homophobic churl
Who’ll deny your fluffy chops
Welcome, little penguin girl—
Daughter of two penguin pops?

by Chris O’Carroll

I said I was the shutdown guy.
I’d take the mantle and the credit,
But you know how I live to lie.
I didn’t mean it when I said it.

Now there’s no credit, only blame,
So now I mean it even less.
The shutdown I once said I’d claim
I’m calling Chuck and Nancy’s mess.

by Julia Griffin

“An alpaca has confused and delighted residents of a small French town
after wandering into an optician’s shop.”—BBC News

While prospects look steadily blacker,
And news has us fuming and frighted,
In Brittany, France, an Alpaca
This week has confused and delighted

By strolling inside an optician’s
And quietly browsing the lenses.
The thought of such juxtapositions
Reduces our species to frenzies,

But camelids, clearly, are calmer
(Though possibly rather myopic).
It came and it went, with no drama;
So were I in quest of a topic

To comfort me—call it a Zen trick—
And leave my strained nerves somewhat slacker,
I’d turn from the anthropocentric,
And opt for the Opticalpaca.

by Nora Jay

“Britain’s Prince Philip has been spotted driving without a seat belt just 48 hours after his car crash in which the 97-year-old’s Land Rover flipped onto its side. … The husband of the Queen emerged uninjured after the crash on Thursday, according to a statement from local police. “
—CNN

Prince Philip, husband of the Queen,
Has just permitted to be seen
(Undaunted by his last week’s welts)
Blithe disregard for safety belts.
Through Norfolk’s would-be-tranquil glades
He roared, unbelted and in shades:
A thing, it’s fair to say, which few
Nonagenarians would do.
This time, it seems, he did no harm:
He broke no younger driver’s arm,
Nor overturned his Rover (which
Is pricey, even for the rich);
But still we’re asking how we feel.
Should HRH command the wheel?
Reports fly forth, not quickly skewered:
Is Philip licensed? And insured?
All round the Sandringham estate,
Maturer drivers hesitate
Between dislike of accidents
And something else—a secret sense
That even such a great grandee
May long, just sometimes, to be free:
To ride once more as Phil the Greek,
The master of the narrow squeak,
Escaping what so long he’s been:
Prince Philip, husband of the Queen.

by Ruth S. Baker

“If the government is not reopened before March, millions of Americans who receive benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—the nation’s food stamp program—could have their assistance disrupted.”—CBSN

What’s gonna feed me till I’m dead?
Government Cheese and Welfare Bread.
I’ll survive ’long as I got these:
Welfare Bread and Government Cheese.

Government Cheese got a nice warm glare:
Looks a lot like the President’s hair;
Welfare Bread’s got a good fake smell:
There’s that Washington style as well.

Ain’t no hobo, ain’t no Red;
Don’t ask nothing but Welfare Bread.
Work all day till I’m on my knees;
Don’t take away my Government Cheese.

Shut the Government? I don’t know
Where that Welfare Bread’s gonna go;
Lay off paying your employees?
Who’s gonna truck that Government Cheese?

Tell the President, grant us please
Welfare Bread and Government Cheese!
God help the working family fed
On Government Cheese and Welfare Bread.

by Jerome Betts

“The world’s best B&B is in Torquay, says TripAdvisor”
—London Evening Standard

The English Riviera’s Queen
Has splashed worldwide on page and screen
Not for its rather faded charms
Bedecked with NZ cabbage-palms,
Or once inspiring Aggie C.
To dream up Belgium’s Hercule P.
Or wits to fill our idle hours
With that great series Fawlty Towers,
But for possessing, pace Cleese,
The very best of B & Bs.

by Michael Calvert

“The furloughing of hundreds of Food and Drug Administration inspectors has sharply reduced inspections of the nation’s food supply”
—The Washington Post

The folks at fda.gov
Have mostly gone away.
I used to eat and pray and love;
Now I just eat and pray.

by Julia Griffin

“First green leaf on moon dies as temperatures plummet”—The Guardian

See how the first green leaf, the shoot of cotton,
That bloomed so bravely all the afternoon,
Tonight has perished, frozen and forgotten,
Abandoned on the far side of the Moon!

So passes, like the passing of a comet,
All earthly life. Is that a theme for mirth?
I see a moral here; let’s profit from it:
For any earthly chance at life, choose Earth.

by Ruth S. Baker

“Michael Cohen paid IT firm to tweet that he was sexy”—The Guardian

Although more legal hit man
Than downright sexy beast,
He made himself an IT man
In one respect at least.

by David Hedges

“The Pure American Banality of Donald Trump’s White House Fast-Food Banquet”
—The New Yorker

As Lincoln ponders on the wall
Above the splendid venue,
Little Donnie stands in thrall
At having planned the menu—

The silly grin that splits his face,
The tiny hands, the hair,
The table stacked beyond disgrace
With Donnie’s favorite fare,

Big Macs, fries, Filet-O-Fishes,
Enough to feed an army,
Calories beyond all wishes.
Donnie’s gone plumb barmy.

“Look at me,” he spouts with glee,
“I’ve scored another coup!”
The Clemson Tigers take a knee.
Chacun à son goût.

by Julia Griffin

“Gillette ad takes on ‘toxic masculinity’ in #MeToo-era rebrand, provoking a backlash”
—The Washington Post

MeToo has set us asking, What’s the best a man can get?
Before you tie yourself in knots, the answer’s still Gillette.