by Brendan Beary
A California judge says coffee beans
Have toxins known as harmful to our genes,
So Starbucks cups we purchase every morning
Should have a boldface anti-cancer warning.
But now I’m facing, from my morning brew,
A Catch- (or Cappuccino-) 22:
The times when I should pay that warning heed,
I’m frankly not alert enough to read.
by Julia Griffin
“A French waiter fired for being ‘aggressive, rude and disrespectful’ says his behaviour wasn’t out of line—he’s just French. Guillaume Rey, who worked at a Vancouver restaurant on Canada’s Pacific coast, filed a complaint with British Columbia’s Human Rights Tribunal against his former employer, claiming ‘discrimination against my culture.’ … In alleging discrimination Rey said French culture just ‘tends to be more direct and expressive.'”—The Guardian
You say I am aggressive, hein?
You’ve dared to call me rude?
You think I’m penitent? De rien;
Va-t-en and eat your food
(So called). If you’d the least soupçon
Of cultural respect,
You’d say instead, mon pauvre con,
“Expressive” and “direct.”
You hate expressiveness? Eh bien,
It is la France you hate,
Petit crétin de Canadien.
For one snatched dinner plate,
One glutton speeded up un peu,
Or aided, malgré lui,
With some expressive word ou deux,
You want me out? Tant pis:
I’ll prove myself a true Français,
Whatever my locale!
That’s all we have to say, chez Rey.
See you au tribunal.
by David Hedges
The Prez drops Wednesday’s cable news,
Whose anchors show him no respect,
And watches Roseanne put the screws
To alt-left losers who refuse
To bend their knees and genuflect.
Her sister Jackie plays the fool,
The left-wing bird with half a brain
Who perches on her ducking stool
While making faces, dribbling drool,
And croaking like a whooping crane.
Poor Dan is caught between two rocks,
The Wealthy and the Working Class.
One fries his eggs and darns his socks;
The other flocks with chicken hawks
And doesn’t know his ass from grass.
Dan gives the one he lives with breaks,
Tiptoeing down the center stripe,
Ignoring boring bellyaches.
Roseanne and Don? A pair of flakes
Who share their love affair with hype.
by Jerome Betts
(The captain and vice-captain of the Australian Test team in South Africa have been sent home and banned from playing for a year because of their role in ball-tampering.)
You see the green-capped bowler scampering
To field the bright red ball he nearly caught?
One side of it he’s polishing and pampering,
The other, roughing up, as he’s been taught—
With no “Not cricket!” scruples hampering—
A batsman may record a big fat nought
Through swing enhanced by cover-tampering.
by James Higgins
I Googled “Stormy Weather,”
being keen on Lena Horne.
But I’ll be bound: all Google found
was Stormy Daniels porn.
I Googled “Let the stormy clouds…”
from Singin’ in the Rain.
The engine’s spin continued in
a Stormy Daniels vein.
I Googled “Stormy Monday Blues.”
(I love when “Shorty”* blows.)
But no such luck: poor Google’s stuck
on Stormy sans her clothes.
“Storm trooper” and “Storm warning” searches
yielded like results.
What’s all this show? The “need to know”
of curious adults?
*A trumpet solo by Maurice “Shorty” McConnell is featured
in the 1942 Earl Hines and His Orchestra recording
of this jazz classic. (From Wikipedia)
by Mae Scanlan
Baseball’s beginning as basketball ends;
The diamonds of baseball are this girl’s best friends!
by Brendan Beary
O Cambridge Analytica,
You know my every thought:
The posts I like, the pics I take,
The items I have bought;
You seek to sway the way I’d vote
By getting in my head—
The shows I’ve watched, the links I’ve clicked,
The articles I’ve read.
You seem to know me better than
I know myself, but please,
Exploit my mind more usefully—
Like, where’d I leave my keys?
by Cody Walker
(with apologies to Elizabeth Bishop)
The art of losing isn’t hard, McMaster;
so many Trump picks seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Someone’s gone every day. First came the ouster
of Michael Flynn, his rubles badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard, McMaster.
Since then we’ve just lost farther, ever faster:
Spicer, Priebus, the Scaramucci gent,
and Bannon. None of these have brought disaster.
We lost Sebastian Gorka. And look! the last, or
next-to-last, of three lead counsels went.
The art of losing isn’t hard, McMaster.
We lost two sweethearts: Porter, Hicks. And, blaster
drawn, Rex Tillerson. (That guy can vent!)
We miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
—Even losing you (the shiny head, that tonsure
we love) we shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard, McMaster,
though it may look like (Bolton?!) like disaster.
by Chris O’Carroll
In the Upper Big Branch mine explosion,
Twenty-nine West Virginians died.
Blankenship had been running a death trap,
So the judge gave him one year inside.
Now Don’s out and he’s running for Senate,
Hoping coal country families decide
To vote for a mine boss whose millions
Piled up while the twenty-nine died.
by Bruce Bennett
The man is a “scurrilous cad.”
You already knew he was bad.
First Stormy, then Karen.
No doubt there’s a Sharon.
Well, he has the word for it. Sad.
What’s sad is, he’s running the show.
No more than a circus, we know,
But how could a clown
Have been handed a Crown
With such license to strut and to crow?
So ask yourself: Who put him in?
Whose is the Original Sin?
There’s still time to atone.
Go on, cast the first stone.
You might yet find Redemption. Begin.
by Dan Campion
“DO NOT CONGRATULATE” misfired.
Our president can’t read,
Or thinks his counselors conspired
Against his right to lead.
With warm congrats to Vladimir
Our Donald shows affection
For czar, and even more sincere,
For rule by sham election.
by David Hedges
The female crayfish that gives birth
Without a mate, for what it’s worth,
Will one day dominate the Earth
By squeezing out the ones that play
By Nature’s rules. With sex passé,
This crayfish knows when Mother’s Day
Is nigh because she has a choice —
A strong, no longer passive, voice —
In when to lay her eggs. Rejoice,
Ye lovers of the human race!
Someday it may be commonplace
To breed without a fond embrace.
The quicker women learn they can
Conceive without a middleman
(A fact of life since time began)
The sooner men will say, “No more
Do we feel free to march to war.”
The Women’s Diplomatic Corps
Will make a veiled appeal for peace,
And armed hostilities will cease.
Communities will charge police
With keeping people safe and sound.
The implications are profound!
(Don’t worry, we’ll still fool around.)
by Orel Protopopescu
The news is hot, hot off the wires,
so flaming hot it’s molten—
McMaster’s out, that thinking hunk,
and now we’re getting Bolton.
John’s itching to deliver nukes
to states that need a jolt.
If I were Kim Jong Un I’d think
perhaps it’s time to bolt.
by Mae Scanlan
Trump says he can flatten Biden.
Well, let’s give the thing a go.
I don’t know with whom you’re sidin’;
As for me, my dough’s on Joe.
by Julia Griffin
“Alexander Nix, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica, the firm at the heart of the data-mining scandal, has been suspended. …
In a series of secret recordings broadcast on Channel 4 News, Nix claimed credit for the election of Donald Trump.”—The Guardian
A secret sting has caught the tricks
Of Mr. Alexander Nix:
His firm, between and yet betwixt,
Has sadly had him 86’d.
His prospects may have crossed the Styx
Through fraud and pride, a fatal mix:
Trump’s triumph, he divulged, was fixed!
Unluckily, this can’t be nixed.