by Julia Griffin
“As the appointed hour to end the meeting came and went, May was left kicking her heels as EU27 leaders sought to find a compromise, over a dinner of green lentils and langoustine terrine, roast duckling à l’orange and a desert [sic] of chocolate variations.”—The Guardian
Deserted by the proud UK,
The broken ring of nations
Now take their solitary way
Through Chocolate Variations.
O what a long and lonely trudge
Confronts them, stalled and slowed:
Plain Bitter Dark, and Nutty Fudge,
And endless Rocky Road.
by Jerome Betts
“UK’s top toilet roll suppliers stockpiling
in case of no-deal Brexit”—The Guardian
The US is, it seems today,
Awash with tweeted Trumpf,
But Britain, Brexit-racked by May,
Just fills the shelves with bumf.
by Bruce McGuffin
“Two Stanford students filed a class action Wednesday in Federal court … [They] allege that, in light of the admission of students who paid bribes to secure their slots, the universities are liable under California state law for false representations about the fairness and reliability of their admissions processes…”—Reuters
Some colleges turn out to have a side door
to go through if you pay a coach a fee.
So angry Stanford students brought a lawsuit.
Those poor kids could have gone to USC.
by James Hamby
He summoned all his courage,
Forced down his rising dread—
It takes a very special man
To talk smack of the dead.
But Trump remained undaunted
And meant each word he’d said—
He didn’t give a second thought
About insulting the dead.
He feared no specter rising,
No revenant’s empty bed,
Nor even a zombie apocalypse—
No rising of the dead.
All hail our fearless chief,
Our nation’s valiant head!
Although he quails before the truth
He doesn’t fear the dead!
by Julia Griffin
Chuddies – Indian word for underpants
Jibbons – Welsh word for spring onions
Fantoosh – Scottish word for fancy
Sitooterie – Scottish word for a place to sit out
Bigsie – Scottish word for pretentious
Dof – Afrikaans word for foolish
—From the newly updated Oxford English Dictionary
I stopped for a bite of charcuterie
Inside a fantoosh new sitooterie:
They’d slivered their jibbons
As finely as ribbons—
It wasn’t some sort of a Hooterie.
I hoped to encounter some buddies;
The guests, though, were such fuddy-duddies,
So bigsie and dof
That they frowned and backed off—
And me in my shiny new chuddies.
by Ruth S. Baker
“‘Flintstone’ house sparks lawsuit from California town: ‘It’s an eyesore‘”
—thaivisa.com
Eyesore, it’s an eyesore,
It’s the grossest house in human sight!
From the town of Bedrock,
It’s usurped the home of Frank Lloyd Wright.
Just look, it’s that prehistoric gang
Put there courtesy of Florence Fang!
Yikes, it’s Casa Fangstone:
It’s a yabba dabba duplex blight!
by Dan Campion
“Works of art are just objects, like a refrigerator or a vacuum cleaner.”
—Daniel McDermon in The New York Times
Why deal in similes? Some works
Are fridges and shop vacs,
Since artists have discovered perks
In dogging Duchamp’s tracks.
Though bourgeois jaws may still go slack,
Chic gallerists and clients
Reward those artists with the knack
Of selling an appliance.
by Jerome Betts
(With apologies to Sir John Betjeman)
“ . . . Eton College. This institution sits
at the heart of the Brexit mess and the
dismal political failings that led to it.”
—John Harris in The Guardian
Come, legislators, fall on Eton!
Bared buttocks now may pass unbeaten
But still you put a rich elite on
The path to power.
One day, damned relic by the river,
Old unrepentant privilege-giver,
We’ll hear the timbers crack and shiver,
Your final hour.
You’re loved by no-deal Brexit-brinkers,
Ex-mayors, mendacious pen-and-inkers,
Rees-Moggs, and rolling-in-it stinkers
With funds off-shore.
So, drop your fees, they’re quite offensive,
Sell off your fields (far too extensive),
Rename yourself Slough Comprehensive
Or face the law!
by Dan Campion
“I quickly referred to Tim + Apple as Tim/Apple as an easy way to save time & words.”
—Presidential tweet
Tim Apple speeds with Gwyneth Goop
On Elon Tesla’s hyperloop,
While Mary General Motors texts
With Sundar Google, who elects
To share with Ginni IBM
The mega-corporate apothegm:
“Though never quiet flows the Don,
Trump can’t outswim Jeff Amazon.”
by Julia Griffin
“‘I hear it in my sleep’: CVS to update hold music that ‘haunted’ psychiatrist …
‘CVS hold music stimulates the almond-shaped amygdala that sits in our reptilian brains,’ he wrote, ‘and that’s not good.'”—The Guardian
“That strain again!” he cries in pain,
“I’d nuke it if I could;
It sits in my reptilian brain,
And that’s not good.”
Oh that’s not good, no that’s not good,
It could not well be less;
It hurts your mental hardihood:
Blame CVS.
“Now, I am a psychiatrist:
My mind is iron-clad;
I don’t go lightly round the twist;
But this is bad.”
Oh this is bad, yes this is bad;
For all its shapeliness,
The poor amygdala’s half mad;
Blame CVS.
“I’ve been on hold, all told, for years;
My hand has turned to wood;
I’ve started carving off my ears;
And that’s not good.”
Oh that’s not good, and this is bad,
And though I must confess
You really could hang up, I’ll add:
Blame CVS.
—New York Post
by Bruce Bennett
It’s merely a glitch. Do not worry.
Just take out your card in a hurry.
And though it seems strange,
Don’t bother with change,
Because — well — it might come out furry.
by Julia Griffin
“Musher loses huge lead in Alaska’s Iditarod Race after dogs go on strike:
Nicolas Petit says dogs stopped after he shouted at them”
—The Guardian
O have you heard tell of a musher named Nick,
Who traveled the ice with his sled and his pick,
And sixteen brave huskies, a regular squad:
And all for the prize in the Iditarod?
They set out from Anchorage early in March:
The sled was heaped high with tarpaulins and starch,
The dogs were in harness and sturdily shod,
Intent on success in the Iditarod.
They sledded through Willow, their spirits were high,
The tundra and spruces were sweet to the eye;
Brave Nick offered praise to the dogs as they trod:
O how could they fail in the Iditarod!
Now Rohn was behind them and also McGrath,
When Nick felt inside him the stirrings of wrath:
Two huskies were snarling. “This isn’t so odd,”
Thought he, “with the strains of the Iditarod”;
But three blizzards on, by the cold Bering Sea,
He turned on the two with a curseword or three.
Then snorted the pack: “Does he think he is God?
Let him take the pull for the Iditarod!”
And down on their haunches they parked in the snow.
Not one further step could he coax them to go;
So home again sadly Nick knew he must plod,
So close to his goal in the Iditarod.
And this is the story of Nick-out-of-time,
Defeated by dogs in a difficult clime;
Let’s hope they’ll forgive him and give him the nod
To come back next year for the Iditarod.
by Julia Griffin
“A man stranded with his dog in snow in central Oregon for five days survived by eating taco sauce packets”
—The Guardian
Five days quite unusually chilly
Trapped two in a car willy nilly—
A fearful fiasco
If not for tabasco,
Sriracha and hot piccalilli.
Yes, Taco Bell’s sauce has no rival
For keeping us warm and salival:
With Bell’s for your ketchup,
Wherever you fetch up
You’ll have a wild chance at survival.
—The New York Times
by Bruce Bennett
Trump counts on his Saters and Peckers
To keep his misdeeds from fact-checkers.
But Dems have the crew
And know what to do
To be both restorers and wreckers.
The rest of us say, About time!
We’re sick of the sludge and the slime.
The swamp must be drained.
Trump must be restrained.
At last he will pay for his crime—
His crimes. What are those? We shall see.
Stay tuned. Each new day there will be
Unforeseen revelations
And tawdry sensations
Delicious to you and to me!
Until, at the end—but who knows?
At the least, he won’t smell like a rose.
We’ll get rid of his henchmen
And some of the stench when
He picks up his marbles and goes.
by Orel Protopopescu
Power’s an aphrodisiac
for one, now half-amnesiac,
whose fourth term’s nearly done.
As fragile as a shriveled stalk,
he cannot talk and cannot walk,
but somehow, says he’ll run.
