by Marty Steyer

A spectacular false alarm

From deep within the bowels of Diamond Head,
an oracle proclaims: Looks like we’re dead!
Soon missiles will be arcing through our skies.
(There’s little hope they’re headed for Van Nuys.)

Radiation, spawned by North Korea,
will cause hysteria and diarrhea.
Quite seriously, this is not a hoax.
Stop what you’re doing and find shelter, folks.

Bikinied bombshells leave the beaches bare,
and handsome hunks hightail it out of there.
Which leaves what? Wrinkled prunes, like you and I.
Aloha, love. Goodbye. Hello. Goodbye.

by Phil Huffy

A Rembrandt was found in a basement.
A Bugatti got stashed in a barn.
An abandoned quartet of Vivaldi
was ensconced in a shed near the Marne.

A recipe writ for King Edward
has been baked at a hole in the wall,
and a photo of Dame Nellie Melba
has turned up at a flea-market stall.

An old New York Times in the attic
that was wrapped round a holiday plate
is the only antique I’ve uncovered
in the realm of my own sad estate.

by Donald A. Ranard

(On the Occasion of Jeff Flake’s Senate Speech)

There’s good news
and there’s bad news,
and there’s news that is fake.
But the best news of the week’s news
is news that is Flake.

by James Hamby

Trump passed his cognitive test,
And that is good,
But one thing, I fear,
Is misunderstood:
We’re not so much worried
About how many words he can retrieve,
But if he can tell the difference
Between what’s real and make-believe.

by Barbara Lydecker Crane

Beyond brisk,
a brutal blast—
Labrador landed
in Boston last week.
I brace my brittle body
against the brunt
of wind abridging
breath. Beneath boots,
sidewalk snow crackles
like broken vertebrae
but icy broomstick legs
brush and shuffle still.
This breakneck day
my bronchial bray:
“Oh, for Brazil!”

by Orel Protopopescu

Please come, save us from racists
and economic voodoo.
The president’s an asshole.
We’re drowning in deep doodoo.

by Donald A. Ranard

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you will assume,
Or, believe me, you will be in big, big, trouble,
Because this nation is in a mess, a very, very big mess,
And I alone can fix it (I have a very high IQ).
My fellow Americans, help me make America great again,
Or I’ll punch you in the face.
America needs to heel—wait, make that heal,
Don’t worry, I know how to spell, I just do it my way,
And I know all the words, all the good words,
My vocabulary is amazing. Unpresidented.

Do I contradict myself? OK, I contradict myself.
I am large—yuuuge!—I inflame multitudes.
No one has bigger crowds than me. Why?
OK, I’ll tell you why. Empathy.
There’s never been anybody more empathetic
(And with a very high IQ). You? You’re pathetic,
Low energy. Sad! Look at me! My doctor goes,
“I’ve never seen anybody like you. You have the lowest
Blood pressure ever, like 100 over something.
You’re like twenty-two (and you have a very high IQ)!”

I tweet my barbaric yawps over the websites of the world.
In the faces of men and women, I see … me!
I love these people, they’re incredible,
You can do anything you want, no sweat,
Grab them by their assets.

by Phil Huffy

You can smoke now, California
Our hats we doff to you
What was it that Sinatra said?
“Doobie Doobie, doo”

But who’d have thought such conduct
would ever be condoned?
As Dylan waxed, poetic,
“Everybody must get stoned”

by Chris O’Carroll

Wave the flag for segregation,
And for slave states that secede.
Bring the federal hammer down on
Any state with legal weed.

by Orel Protopopescu

Some say the bombshell book’s the bug
that caused D. T.’s unraveling—
comparing buttons with a thug,
co-opting truth by caviling.
Roused hordes descend to parse the tweets
that his dejected flesh secretes.

You’ll find more reason in a flea
than in his finger’s random poke.
He is as he has been, will be:
The GOP’s worst party joke—
gift-wrapped, defective from the start
and guaranteed to fall apart.

by Orel Protopopescu

Should old deceivers be forgot
and never brought to mind?
Should we forget the lies we heard
and the truths by tweets maligned?

Illegal votes for Hillary,
phony calls from heads of state,
tax cuts that hurt the president,
he whose falsehoods make us great?

For auld Trump syne, my friends,
for the chicks he never groped,
let’s smash that cup, reality,
for the fools he rope-a-doped.

by Edmund Conti

It’s time, said the Mouth,
For my Christmas vacation.
The Donald went south
And so did the nation.

by Julia Griffin

MARGARET THATCHER’S AVERSION TO PANDAS REVEALED BY DECLASSIFIED PAPERS … Her hostility towards the animals was in stark contrast to her readiness to meet the disgraced ex-president Richard Nixon, despite civil servants warning her off. — The Guardian

Judging by her memoranda,
Margaret Thatcher scorned the panda,
Much preferring Richard Nixon,
Who had fewer flies or ticks on,
And had ever more to do
With bamboozling than bamboo.

by James Hamby

We see you playing golf behind the truck.
With cover-ups, it seems, you have no luck.

by Orel Protopopescu

The president is peevish.
The president is cross.
So now he blames Jeff Sessions
for Alabama’s loss.

What numbskull made him AG
before his term expired?
What loser thought of that one?
For him, two words: “You’re fired!”