by Catherine Chandler

King Donald tweets that he’s the Cheif,
though many, toiling in his feif-
dom know he’s just a lying theif.

O, may his crooked riegn be breif
(impeachment may provide releif)
but, should he win again . . . GOOD GREIF!!!

by Julia Griffin

“Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK set for 3 June”
—BBC News

Pity the Queen, whose royal post
Dictates which guests she has to host.
Despite a national campaign,
The Trumps will soon be here again
And who is going to suffer most?

We’ll have to hear him crow and boast;
She’ll hear him o’er the morning toast,
And never once will she complain.
Pity the Queen.

She has to smile and look engrossed
While Philip snorts some gruff riposte;
The protocol she must maintain
Forbids her to parade disdain
Like Mrs. Trump, that haughty ghost,
For this is what it means to reign.
Pity the Queen.

by Nora Jay

“Brunei defends death by stoning for gay sex in letter to EU …
In a four-page letter to MEPs, the kingdom’s mission to the EU called for ‘tolerance, respect and understanding’ with regard to the country’s desire to preserve its traditional values and ‘family lineage.’ … [The later states, in part:] ‘The penal sentences of hadd—stoning to death and amputation—imposed for offences of theft, robbery, adultery and sodomy, have extremely high evidentiary threshold, requiring no less than two or four men of high moral standing and piety as witnesses, to the exclusion of every form of circumstantial evidence.’”
—The Guardian

Please grant us some respect and understanding
For penalties which holiness condones
Like beating and beheading and behanding,
And pelting with divinely sanctioned stones.

It’s tolerance we’re asking, for such values
As whipping men who go around in frocks:
A means our wise defenders of morale use
To complement the showerings of rocks.

We only want our families protected
From sodomy, adultery, and theft;
We find, when robbers’ wrist bones are bisected,
They’re much more honest with the half that’s left.

Don’t fancy execution will come easy:
Four witnesses, male, pious, and unbent,
Must testify, though horrified and queasy,
To each depraved, disgusting incident;

With evidential threshholds for conviction
Established thus so dizzyingly high,
Let none (however sexually sick) shun
The luxury hotels of chaste Brunei.

by Ruth S. Baker

“’Anna Delvey,’ Fake Heiress who Swindled N.Y.’s Elite, is Found Guilty” 
—The New York Times

She partied with the richest belles
(Her chutzpah was sublime),
Till, after buying so much else,
She could not buy more time.

by Julia Griffin

“Police seize ‘super obedient’ lookout parrot trained by Brazilian drug dealers. … 
The bird joins a growing list of animals implicated in Brazil’s drug trade, although most have been reptiles.“
—The Guardian

A sinister psittacine skill
Developed in sunny Brazil
Is to let out a whoop
When the constables swoop
In pursuit of some criminal pill.

These parrots are heterodox,
And thinking outside of the box;
For the drug-pushers’ list
Is supposed to consist
Of carnivorous gators and crocs.

by Dan Campion

The Democrats now have a score
Who’d tangle with the Don.
They fear an internecine war,
Where allies fall upon

Each other, not the rival band.
They’re right to share those fears.
If open taps dilute the brand,
The Don gets four more years.

But in the other camp, the tents
Are haunted by defeat.
A specter stalks their occupants:
Some single fatal tweet.

by Edmund Conti

“Franklin Graham attacks Pete Buttigieg for being gay, says he should repent”
—ABC News

He thinks that Mayor Pete is a sinner
And what Trump does is none of our biz.
Says Franklin, “I’m riding a winner
And that is the way that it is.”

by Orel Protopopescu

Enraged by your mob never doing its job,
by the fools who refused to be tools?
Exult in the end, though not one is a friend,
few would do what you wanted them to.

by Julia Griffin

“The world’s rarest turtle has moved closer to extinction after a female died in a Chinese zoo, leaving just three known members of the species.
The Yangtze giant softshell turtle, believed to be more than 90 years old, died in Suzhou zoo on Saturday, according to the Suzhou Daily.
Its death came a day after staff at the facility attempted to artificially inseminate the animal using semen from a male more than 10 years her senior, the newspaper reported.”—The Guardian

One of our rarest, oldest turtles
Died in a Chinese zoo this week;
Thus yet another species hurtles
Into extinction, so to speak.

After some medical kerfuffle,
This one of four, this Turtle Royal,
Started a softshell softshoe shuffle
Issueless off this mortal coil.

Well may we all be sad and angsty,
Uttering vainly words like these:
“Why, Not-So-Youngster of the Yangtse,
Were you so very hard to please?”

Maybe a spiritual vocation
Made you determined to be chaste;
Maybe the word “insemination”
Struck you as in appalling taste;

Maybe; but I have also wondered
Why we should be surprised you thus
Spurned a co-parent of one hundred,
Being a sprightly ninety (plus).

—Los Angeles Times

by Frank Osen

“I want the right to say I’m FUCT,”
A clothier claimed; it went to SCOTUS,
Who promptly had the lawsuit chucked:
“Henceforth, that phrase belongs to POTUS.”

by Chris O’Carroll

It’s true the Church has harbored many a rapist,
Says Benedict Sixteen, onetime top papist,
But all those predatory priestly crimes
Were products of tradition-flouting times.
No need to look within for moral ills;
Blame miniskirts and contraceptive pills.

by Julia Griffin

On the red smoke, we saw the form embossed
Of what we had forgotten might be lost;
Inside, laid open to the light of day,
The heart that burned but did not burn away,
Holding the furnace as the walls turned black;
The fragile rose that glowed but did not crack;
The candles in the nave, still burning there,
As if to prove that fire is also prayer.
Perhaps we need such suffering to prove
The wonderful resilience of love;
This is the feast day of the risen Lamb.
Joyeuses Pâques, Madame, Notre Dame.

by Brendan Beary

“Coffee beans not vital for human survival, Switzerland decides”
—The Guardian

Though Switzerland’s a lovely place,
The Swiss are a barbaric race;
Just like their cheese, they’ve got big holes
Inhabiting their hearts and souls.
For Switzerland has now decreed
That coffee’s not a thing they need.
Where once they hoarded vast reserves,
They said they’d stop—and Oh, my nerves!
A model of efficiency
And clocklike punctuality—
Let’s see how long all that’ll last
When they have been de-demitassed!
Their downfall will be swift and total;
They’ll barely have the strength to yodel!
Too late, I fear, they’ll live and learn.
Too bad, Dummkopfen—let it Bern.

by Dan Campion

A black hole’s image has been caught,
The jet-black headlines say,
But what escapes a black hole? Naught.
So what’s up on display?

by Julia Griffin

“Doctors discover four live bees feeding on tears inside woman’s eye”
—The Guardian

Peerless insects! How have ye
Merited so blest to be?
You have broach’d those starry spheres
Whence descend my lady’s tears:
There you lodge and proudly feed
On this world’s divinest mead.
O had she once rubb’d that lid!
You had died where you were hid;
Happy your escape: though I
Gladly there would choose to die.