OVID’S EXILE TO THE REMOTEST MARGINS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE REVOKED: Rome city council overturns banishment of ‘one of the greatest poets’ more than 2,000 years after Augustus forced him to leave…
— The Guardian
Ovid’s no longer banished. What a joy!
He’s been exonerated. That’s our boy!
However long it takes Paris or Rome
or New York City, poets can come home.
No longer must they rot on foreign turf,
or stare in anguish at a pounding surf.
Once more they’re citizens where they belong,
and can indulge in city life and song.
Once more they’re welcome home, although they’re dead.
So what? This time they will not face the dread
of banishment. They could write what they please—
if it were not too late, by centuries!
True poets everywhere, have heart and hope.
Though trials are many, you must learn to cope.
Wherever you’ve been exiled, just stay true.
At last your country may come home to you.
It was one of those days
When a guy just needs praise,
Adulation and fawning and flattery.
When your deeds all amaze,
You just need all that praise
Like charging (if you are a battery).
So the duly anointed
(Those guys you appointed)
Are eager and ready and willing
To kowtow and grovel
In ways that are novel
With various tidbits of shilling
But it does give you pause,
All these bits of applause
As you glow in your underlings’ treatment.
Are you really as great
As these toadies all state
Or are they all full of excretement?
Hark the Herald Angels sing: Why won’t cling film ever cling?
Peace on earth and mercy mild, Where’s that aggravating child?
Joyful, all ye nations rise Who’s allergic to mince pies?
With the angelic host proclaim: What’s the Vicar’s Christian name?
Hark the Herald Angels sing: Don’t forget—we need more string!
Hail the Heaven-born Prince of Peace! Did I write to Henry’s niece?
Light and life to all he brings! Should I buy some napkin rings?
Mild he lays his glory by, Could the dog have one mince pie?
Born to raise the sons of earth Can’t things cost what they are worth?
Hark the Herald Angels sing: Every year, the self-same thing.
That slavery’s a moral outrage, gay sex not so much;
That girls as young as 14 have endured his lustful touch;
That freedom of religion/non-establishment protection
Applies to all faiths equally; that he lost the election.
A surgeon has pleaded guilty to marking his initials on the livers of two patients while performing transplant surgery. … The renowned liver, spleen and pancreas surgeon used an argon beam, used to stop livers bleeding during operations and to highlight an area due to be worked on, to sign his initials into the patients’ organs. … The following summer, while an internal disciplinary investigation into his conduct was ongoing, Bramhall tendered his resignation. Speaking to the press at the time, he said marking his initials on to his patients’ livers had been a mistake. —The Guardian
Of all the surgeries I’ve done
That give me still the shivers,
I think my worst mistake bar none
Was autographing livers.
The disciplinary invest-
Igation (that’s Internal)
Objected, with (among the rest),
The Hepatitis Journal;
But though some clearly were annoyed,
Consider, at this junction,
That it was argon I employed,
Which mars no organ’s function,
And think besides what filthy waste
Goes through those lobes so meaty,
Then tell me truly what’s defaced:
Their guts or my graffiti?
The State Department’s sinking fast;
It has no sails, it has no mast.
It has no skipper, has no crew,
And no one knows just what to do.
It’s foundered since it left the docks;
Diplomacy is on the rocks.
Now all that’s bad, but here’s the chiller:
Soon, there’s going to be no Tiller.
