by Alex Steelsmith

“[T]he ‘Forever Marilyn’ statue will be moved from its perch in front of the Palm Springs Art Museum
to a city park… Many critics did not object to the [26-foot-tall figure] itself, merely its placement…
However, some have said the statue is hyper-sexualized and misogynist, given that it shows Marylin
Monroe’s underwear… The statue recreates a famous scene [where a breeze] blows up the skirt
of Monroe’s character.”
—The Desert Sun

Fittingly, wittingly,
local authorities
plan to move Marilyn.
Nevertheless,

some might accuse them of
unconscientiously
skirting an issue they
ought to redress.

by Philip Kitcher

This nation yearns for leaders who are young,
And I am keen to swear that solemn oath.
The practiced master of the double tongue,
I’m on one ticket. Why not run on both?

The model of a modern demagogue,
For any cause I choose, I tune my voice.
Debate? A schizophrenic dialogue,
From which I’ll exit as the people’s choice.

I change opinions as I change my socks.
My guiding maxim: Principles are cheap.
I seize each opportunity that knocks.
Cat-lady Ddear Kamala, I’d love to be your Veep.

by Julia Griffin

“Trump urges Christians to vote: “You won’t have to do it anymore”
—CNN

And I shall wipe away
The tears from faithful eyes,
While nasty people pay
In fire that never dies.

And I’ll make all things new
And fix what came before;
Vote one last time! Then you
Won’t have to anymore.

by Ruth S. Baker

“A divided Ohio Supreme Court ruled Thursday that consumers should not expect boneless wings to be free of bones.”
—Fox News

Are shepherds sheepless now? Are monarchs throneless?
Writers are speechless. I am, now I know
That boneless wings may sometimes be non-boneless.
Tell me at least they’re still real buffalo.

by Kaitlyn Spees

“Whenever stress at work builds, Chinese tech executive Sun Kai turns to his mother for support.
Or rather, he talks with her digital avatar on a tablet device, rendered from the shoulders up by artificial
intelligence to look and sound just like his flesh-and-blood mother, who died in 2018.”
—NPR

(with apologies to Emily Dickinson)

The scramble on the ‘Net,
Once techies’ mothers Croak,
Creates from social media
An Avatar, bespoke,

To speak in her Scraped Language
And look like her Scrubbed Pics—
Put up your broom, E. Dickinson—
Eternity—is this?

by Steven Kent

“Will the assassination attempt on Donald Trump sway undecided voters?”
—NBC Boston

Oh, undecided voter, are you real?
Or are you, like the “rational consumer,”
A unicorn, a fairy tale? I feel
Great skepticism (laced with jaded humor).

Forgive me, but your argument is jive:
You need more info still, and can’t discern here?
Friend, given what we know of 45,
Exactly what is left for us to learn here?

by Stephen Gold

“Smell of human stress makes dogs pessimistic.”
—The Times

When my owner is stressed,
Out of sorts, or depressed,
I deploy my acute sense of smell.
With a solitary sniff,
I can tell from the whiff
If my day is about to be Hell.

In this life, I have found
That the role of a hound
Is to be a consoler and pal.
But it’s hard to bear up,
When, since I was a pup,
He’s done nothing but crush my morale.

I’ve tried nuzzling up tight,
In the hope that he might
Throw a ball, or say, “Time for a run.”
But he paces the room,
Wrapped in Stygian gloom.
(Have you seen how he fingers his gun?)

It’s a dog’s life for sure,
Just a crock of manure,
And I wish I could think of a plan
That would make him feel fine.
I should hang out a sign
With this warning: “Beware of the man!”

by Bruce Bennett

“Researchers have confirmed the presence of cocaine in sharks off the coast of Rio de Janeiro…”
—The New York Times

If swimming has given you pause
Because of your terror of Jaws,
Best stay high and dry.
These killers are high
And also have flouted the laws.

by Steven Urquhart Bell

“Nature reserve celebrates finding its 500th moth”
—BBC

I bet they douse their clothing with repellent:
With all the moths they’re helping to preserve,
It’s vital if they’re not to be mistaken
For Durham’s newest naturist reserve.

by Marshall Begel

A paleontologist at the University of Illinois Chicago “turned an Essexella [fossil] specimen upside down
while doing research. Immediately, the seemingly amorphous blob’s true identity began to take shape.”
—The New York Times

“‘Magical’ self-portrait was hidden for decades—until the canvas was flipped”
—The Washington Post

If masterpieces can be found,
And fossil science rectified,
By turning well-known things around
And looking at the other side,
Can changing views expose a clearer
Picture we’d be thrilled to find?

Alas, my full-length bedroom mirror
Reveals an image not so kind.

by Chris O’Carroll

“Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago private club in Palm Beach is set to raise its initiation fee
from $700,000 to a staggering $1 million.”
—The Independent

Pay a million to join Mar-a-Lago.
Ante up. Be elite. Have it all—
The palm trees, the nearby Atlantic,
The felon’s face gracing the wall.

For those who are courting his favor,
This fee is one way to begin.
Hand over a million. The felon
Will happily welcome you in.

You know how corruption defines him
And his every unscrupulous knack.
He’ll lower your taxes by zillions.
Right now, kick a piece of it back.

Fatten the purse of the felon
For judgments he might have to pay.
A million plus Florida sunshine
Has fascism looking OK.

by Steven Kent

“‘They’ll do good work’: In JD Vance’s hometown, Trump is already the winner”
—The Guardian

Oh Middletown, Middletown, what have you done?
An Ivy League phony’s your favorite son;
This heir of a blue-collar steel-working man
Will gut Grandpa’s union as fast as he can.
Unprincipled toady, political hack—
He’ll come to campaign, then he’ll never come back.
They sell you out daily, these cynical men,
And still you’ll support them again and again.

by Iris Herriot

“More than a third of UK adults have given up reading for pleasure, study finds”
—The Guardian

So what do you do with your leisure?
How could it be sweetlier spent?
You’re giving up reading for pleasure?
I”m giving up Jesus for Lent.

by Julia Griffin

Last month, the national museum of Ireland “received two 4,000-year-old axe heads, ‘thoughtfully’ wrapped in [pink] foam
inside a porridge box … [A] farmer from County Westmeath has come forward as the mysterious sender,
saying he made the ‘absolutely mad’ discovery while using a metal detector on his land.”
—The Guardian

Open the box: a tub of rosy foam
Bubbles to light, new-made and feminine,
Bathtime for Barbie! And, enwombed within,
See two gray axe heads, hauled up from the loam.

Why now, this century? A curious
Farmer, detecting metal in his ground,
Unburied them, found foam to wrap them round,
And sent them on. And so they come to us,

After four thousand years: each heavy blade
Looks threatening as ever, though less keen,
Nursed and reborn from polyethylene
(A sweeter-looking killer we have made).

by Scot Slaby

“An Oscar Mayer Wienermobile got into a pickle on a Chicago highway.”
—The Associated Press

When a Hotdogger loses control
of his Wienermobile, makes it roll
on its side, traffic’s hellish—
we drivers don’t relish
how the wait on our buns takes its toll.