by Miriam N. Kotzin
“Locals panic as Sea of Galilee turns blood red…”
—Daily Express U.S.
1. Hers
“My darling, soon we’ll have no lips;
you’ll touch no more my thighs or hips.
But now I yearn. Away time slips,
so pass me the potato chips.”
2. His
“It’s merely algae in a bloom.
Love, once abed we’ll banish gloom,
become anew like bride and groom
when, though we die, our bed’s no tomb.”
by Paul Lander
Steve Martin, 80:
Don’t mess with him, he’s now one
Wild and cranky guy!
by Julia Griffin
“She’s an icon.
She’s a legend.
And she is the moment”
—US Department of Energy describing coal
After Charles Aznavour
She may be the face I have to hack,
Though now I can’t unbend my back,
May be my wages or what leaves me on a bier;
She may be old Hades’ dusty flower,
May be our only source of power
Now that the Green New Deal’s gone sour
In not much more than half a year.
She may be the legend or the lie,
May be the icon or black eye,
May turn the landscape to a crater or a heap;
She may be the wind that turns grass grey,
The one who beats the EPA;
She may not be what admen say
To earn their keep.
She who cannot be left peaceful in her crypt,
Whose fans are always wild to have her stripped—
No one can fail to see what they discard;
She may be the darling of the DOE
(Whose members don’t contract COPD),
And all the lobbyists who work so hard;
She may be the cause my breath comes thick,
The why and wherefore I’m so sick,
The one who blocks my windpipe like a slimy bung;
Me, I’ll wear her colors in each lung,
And not be scared of dying young,
So on my grave write “RIP:
The reason for my death is she.”
by Alex Steelsmith
“Doctors Horrified After Healthcare AI makes up a body part that does not exist in humans…
It identified an ‘old left basilar ganglia infarct,’ referring to a purported part of the brain—
‘basilar ganglia’—that simply doesn’t exist… [T]his can lead to headaches for users during
their research and fact checking…”
—Futurism
Cranial, brainial
“basilar ganglia”
physiologically
doesn’t exist.
Though it might seem a bit
counterintuitive,
headaches induced by it
may well persist.
by Bruce Bennett
“Lake Alice, a 26-acre local gem nestled in the crook of Minnesota’s eastern border, was drained to nearly
nothing after maintenance staff found that the valve meant to control its water levels was stuck.”
—The Washington Post
What’s going on? She isn’t here.
Alice is gone. Things disappear.
A pile of fish flop in her place.
Swiftly, almost without a trace,
What’s loved may vanish! We’re bereft!
We gaze. There’s almost nothing left.
This world, once filled with love and laughter,
is doomed. We see what’s coming after:
Destruction. Horrors. Drought. The works!
Just peer around. There Evil lurks.
Yet, don’t give up. Just take a break.
Hope whispers, Find another lake.
Don’t bow and yield your world to Malice.
Lakes will outlast this. Go ask Alice.
by Geoffrey Basking
“It’s difficult to say why Seuss’s books have gripped us for over six decades.
Green Eggs and Ham is an especially mysterious text, open to multiple interpretations.”
—Jess de Courcy in LitHub
I am Gripped. Gripped I am.
That Gripped-I-Am! That Gripped-I-Am! It’s hard to get that Gripped-I-Am!
Do you get Green Eggs and Ham?
I do not get it, Gripped-I-Am.
I do not get Green Eggs and Ham.
Could you get it in a course?
I could not get it in a course.
I do not recognize its source.
I cannot parse it worth a damn.
I do not get it, Gripped-I-Am.
Could you get it with a gloss?
Could you get it wrapped in floss?
I could not get it with a gloss.
I could not get it wrapped in floss.
I could not get it in a course.
It might as well be made in Morse.
I do not get Green Eggs and Ham.
I do not get it, Gripped-I-Am.
Could you get it with a crow?
Could you get it with Foucault?
Could you get it through Les Mis?
Try it! Try it! Here it is!
I would not, could not with a crow!
I would not, could not with Foucault!
I do not get Green Eggs and Ham!
I do not get it, Gripped-I-Am!
You do not get it, so say you.
Try it with a child of two!
Try it! Try it! Do, do, do!
Wham! I get Green Eggs and Ham!
I get why everyone is gripped!
And I would get it in a crypt!
And I would get it on a flan!
And I would get it with De Man!
And I would get it with the Queen!
And with Lacan! And with Bakhtin!
I understand Green Eggs and Ham!
Thank you, thank you, Gripped-I-Am.
by Steven Urquhart Bell
“I’m a [family doctor]—it’s a myth that you shouldn’t swim straight after eating”
—The i Paper
But if you’ve eaten beans, don’t venture
Deeper than your knee—
You might let off a big one
That propels you out to sea.
by Thomas Germana
“Frugal NC lottery winner has lofty plan with newfound cash — buy thicker bologna”
—Charlotte Observer
I hardly buy his modest act,
His precious parsimony.
No, not at all. I think, in fact,
He’s full of (thin) bologna.
by Thomas Germana
“SpaceX launched disease-causing bacteria to the International Space Station”
—Live Science
I must admit, I’m not surprised
That that was brought in tow.
As much as it was ill-advised,
It is their CEO.
by Bruce Bennett
It used to be Three Kings.
Now it is CEOs.
What progress history brings!
It used to be Three Kings.
Now there are no such things.
A Savior Heaven chose?
No way! We’ve different Kings
And bowing CEO’s.
by Chris O’Carroll
“I will be sworn in as an ICE agent, ASAP.”
–Former Superman actor Dean Cain
Dean’s new hero role is ICE-man.
What bad hombres he’ll expel
Once he dons the mask he’ll wear to
Bust illegals like Kal-El.
by Alex Steelsmith
“Hot dog spill closes Pennsylvania interstate”
—UPI
Squishily, squashily,
thousands of frankfurters
littered the interstate,
widely dispersed.
Notable experts in
accidentology
said that the problem was
frankly the wurst.
by Dan Campion
“Proposed spacecraft could carry up to 2,400 people on a one-way trip
to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri”
—Live Science
The trip would take four hundred years,
And at the end’s a planet
That may sustain life, it appears.
Good luck to those who man it,
The ship they’ve named the Chrysalis.
I hope that when they scan it
The planet proves an isle of bliss
And butterfly wings fan it.
by Clyde Always
“Naked man wearing only balaclava and plastic clogs—and carrying sex toy on a stick—
terrifies European tourists [in Slovakia]”
—New York Post
“Naked man in gimp mask caught on bizarre video prowling quiet town [in England]”
—New York Post
In two distinct cases
a mask-wearing outlaw
was spotted. One slinks
and the other one struts.
If asked what the photos
of both of these fugitives
clearly expose, I would
answer: they’re nuts.
by Steven Urquhart Bell
“‘Richard Osman made £10m, I made £250’: The money novelists really make”
—The i Paper
Instead of spending ages writing novels
For hardly any money, why not rhyme?
There isn’t any money in it either,
But poems take a fraction of the time.