by Jerome Betts
7 May 2015: UK General Election
23 June 2016: UK EU Referendum
8 June 2017: UK General Election
They claim that wood pulp now is fighting for its throne,
A victim of the digit’s dreaded squeeze,
But in election years it more than holds it own
And costs deliverers, as well as trees.
A party worker’s task is something most would shun
When forcing flimsy paper through a slit
Far tighter than that fabled bleep-bleep of a nun
Thanks to the insulation lining it.
Dodging demented dogs is one affliction more
On garden paths, or hidden in the house,
As bits of human finger, sauced with floods of gore,
Give pleasure like a cat finds in a mouse.
Some voters, too, are hostile, snarling cheap abuse,
Or ripping up the sheet in public sight.
Irrational, emotional, confused, obtuse!
Lost souls, incapable of seeing light!
Yet still the activists dispense persuasive print,
Though some might wish for drones or other means
So those who’ve plodded through their third successive stint
Could sit the next one out in front of screens.
by Mae Scanlan
The news, in case you haven’t heard:
It’s Infrastructure Week!
It’s time, says Trump, to spread the word;
Our underpinnings creak.
It’s all the fault of Democrats,
Our rotten roads and bridges,
Our water lines and power plats
That once were so prestigious.
But Trump will reconstruct them all
Until they glow and gleam;
The finished products, large and small,
Will cap a nation’s dream.
I say, to Trump, forget the bricks,
The mortar and the stone;
The infrastructure you must fix,
Quite simply, is your own.
You need a remake, foot to hair,
Before you can pass muster;
We need to know there’s something there
Besides your tweets and bluster.
Hey, you’re the builder—get to work;
Transform the basic You.
And when you’ve changed to prince from jerk,
We’ll see what you can do.
by James Hamby
“Covfefe!” cried the Trumpersnatch
In a loud and frabjous tweet;
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack
But couldn’t deal defeat.
“O, cease your nonsense!” wailed the knight,
“Our country’s sick of you!
Compared to you George Bush seems bright!
When will your reign be through?”
The monster chortled and gyred with glee,
Then gave a manxome grin:
“I know you’re sore, but did you see
My yuge electoral win?”
“Nobody cares!” the mome raths cried,
“You are the worst of men!”
But to it all he just replied,
“Make Wonderland great again!!!”
by Daniel W. Galef
In awe at a vocabulary so beefy,
I ask: Is it “covfefe” or ‘”covfefe”’?
I humbly ask our Twitter-twit El Jefe,
Is it pronounced “covfefe” or ‘”covfefe”’?
by David Hedges
The Donald’s latest scandal trumps them all
(The Russian thing, the European slights)
In terms of sheer unmitigated gall.
He’s been caught pinching assets, dead to rights,
Branding, with a stolen coat of arms,
Everything from socks to golf course sites.
In Scotland, that’s a cinch to trip alarms
And tie some knickerbockers in a knot.
Officials say adulteration harms
The whole of heraldry, a topic fraught
With shalts and shalt nots of the strictest test.
The cause célèbre started when Trump bought
His Florida resort from one whose crest
Was part of the décor. He took it, chopped
“Integrity,” the motto, kept the rest.
His Scottish permit application flopped:
“Ye cannae break th’ rules!” The Donald chose
A new design. A pending suit was dropped.
His legal crest, a two-faced eagle, shows
The world his nature, mounted on a wall
At his resort in Scotland. So it goes.
by Edmund Conti
Twitter, twitter, little Don.
How I wonder what you’re on.
Up so early in the a.m.
Little tweets and lots of mayhem.
by David Hedges
No politician in the world
Has suffered slings and arrows hurled
With such ferocity by foes
On mainstream network TV shows.
No pol in all the universe
Has suffered under such a curse,
From pre-reality Big Bang
To post-Obama sturm und drang.
No politician — no, not one! —
Has been so thoroughly undone,
So flattened like a plate of peas,
And that’s including Socrates.
by Mae Scanlan
Though I am not a Spicer fan,
For once I’m on his side;
The man was near the Vatican,
Whereat he was denied
A longed-for meeting with the Pope
(He is, I hear, devout),
But higher powers-that-be said nope,
And shut poor Spicey out.
Other members of the staff
Obtained the chance to meet
The pontiff; share a prayer or laugh
Within the holy seat.
The Vatican’s a spacious place;
I’m sure Trump could have squeezed
Sean in to gain some papal grace;
I doubt that God is pleased.
by Rosemarie Keenan
When I was young
(ten years, six months, some days)
And my heart was an open book
eager for danger and love,
I used to say live and let live
and snuck into movies my mom disapproved of
and fell for a man:
debonair,
perfect hair.
But when this ever-changing world in which we’re living—
no room for a Bond with a quip on his lips—
Makes me give in and cry,
I raise a glass,
Say live
(and good-bye).
by SOFASRUS
Says POTUS on landing in Saudi:
“Their womenfolk look awful dowdy.
We’re down on head-chopping
but hear there’s great shopping,
so we’ll swing by the King and say howdy!”
by Chris O’Carroll
Come into my Oval parlor.
(I’m the fly and you’re the spider.)
I’m important, I get briefings,
I’m a beautiful insider.
No one’s bigger, no one’s smarter,
No one knows more secret stuff.
No one spills the beans like I do.
Please admire me enough.
by Edmund Conti
The Donald decided to pillory
The Director with heavy artillery,
Declaring that Comey
Could not be his homey
Because he was mean to poor Hillary.
by James Hamby
“Your chains resemble mine,” said Ailes’s ghost
To Bill O’Reilly, the former Fox News host.
“So think of this, before your life’s expired!”
O’Reilly thought, then stated, “I was fired
For seeing women only as good lays;
Perhaps I should repent and change my ways…”
But Ailes’s Ghost cried, “You misunderstand!
Harass them all! Get pleasure while you can!”
by David Hedges
As with every move The Donald’s made,
His pick for envoy to the Holy See
Defies credulity. It’s retrograde
To taunt the Pontiff with impiety.
Forethought ordains an envoy versed in God,
A diplomat whose creds are Simon-pure.
Why did Callista Gingrich get the nod?
Was she the only soul he could procure,
A cinch to gain Republican acclaim?
The third and so far current wife of Newt,
The flake who flipped and flopped his way to fame
As Speaker of the House of Ill Repute,
Callista was his mistress, an escape
From holy matrimony’s bonds. The Pope
is bound to get his nose bent out of shape.
What does The Donald take him for, a dope?
This Shepherd isn’t one to fleece his flock
Or plunder nations to assuage caprice.
Unlike The Donald, Francis walks his talk
And has a pipeline to the Prince of Peace.
Is Trump rewarding Naughty Newt because
He flogged Bill Clinton for the escapade
With Monica (despite no broken laws),
While he himself played footsie with an aide,
None other than Callista? Their affair
Was overlooked upon The Hill, though why,
God only knows. (Why would reporters care,
When they had Bill, a bigger fish, to fry?)
Number Two was mistress when the first
Of Newt’s three wives was licit. Number Four
Might well be waiting in the wings to burst
Upon the scene through Newt’s revolving door.
This theory may illuminate the deal
Newt cut: “You send Callista off to Rome,
While I stay home to test my sex appeal.
She’ll be content to climb Saint Peter’s Dome.”
by Mae Scanlan
In France’s vote, across the boards,
Macron was chosen by the hordes,
Which goes to prove that once again
The horde is mightier than Le Pen.
