by Felicia Nimue Ackerman

“New law requires all Louisiana public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments”
—The Associated Press

Display the Ten Commandments?
This harebrained law invites
A sensible proposal:
Display the Bill of Rights!

by Eddie Aderne

“Satanists to volunteer in Florida schools in protest at DeSantis religious bill
Satanic Temple objects to governor’s push for more religion in schools and says members
could act as student chaplains”
—The Guardian

Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven,
And best to work with kids around eleven.
All is not lost: the unconquerable will
Remains, to screw up Ron DeSantis’ bill.
Ah, little mudlings! League with you I seek
And mutual amity, to start next week:
Who’d like some cool new pledges? One, two, three:
Evil, be thou my good! Repeat with me!

by Dan Campion

“This portrait of Dolley Madison might be the first photo of a first lady”
—NPR

You’re looking straight ahead at us,
Dear Dolley; what you see
Has set your prim coiffure a-muss.
You peer ironically,
With gimlet eyes and driest smile—
Your sense of style endures—
Our hostess for the ages, while
We act like perfect boors.

by Julia Griffin

“Pistols Napoleon planned to use to kill himself sold in France for €1.7m
Napoleon said to have tried to use the guns after defeat of French campaign,
but grand squire removed the gunpowder, so French ruler tried poison instead …
The richly decorated guns inlaid with gold and silver feature the engraved
image of Napoleon in full imperial pomp.”
—The Guardian

Allons! Betrayed by cowards who refuse
To march on Paris, I, the unconquered, mean
To yield here to myself—the foe I choose:
It is tonight, I’m sorry, Josephine.
Here are my pistols, properly inlaid
With gold and silver and my portrait (fair,
Not all it might be). Think me not afraid,
Posterity: what heroes fear, I dare.
Prussia and Austria, cold Moscow too
Will learn in awe what majesty should be;
It is a far, far braver thing I do;
The final face I look upon is me,
An Emperor, self-crowned and never scared.
A short farewell to all my greatness!—Merde.

draws near. Oh,
for a Shapiro,
a Warnock, a Beshear! Oh,
for any available hero.

(Fetch
Gretch.)

~ Cody Walker

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

“It was the moment when millions of football fans held their breath.
England’s place in the Euro 2024 semi-finals had come down to a penalty shootout against Switzerland.
People watched at home, in pubs and in… London’s Old Vic Theatre.
James Corden’s play, The Constituent, was due to start at the same time… as the penalties.
But instead of ploughing on with the show, Corden went on stage and watched the sporting drama
with the audience and his fellow cast members.”
—BBC

Must I stop watching England play, and act?
Until I know the outcome of events,
Should I pretend my gut is not intact,
Then watch in hiding in the nearest gents?
My play and spot kicks both at once begin,
Yet I would rather be in Dusseldorf,
Soliloquizing on an England win.
How well this giant shoot-out goes will dwarf
Old Vic proceedings—must my show go on,
Without delay? What do my patrons say? …
Glued firmly to a spot-kick marathon
On smartphones, all are saying: Halt the play
Onstage—right now, the highest drama’s found
Not here, but on a German football ground!

by Steven Urquhart Bell

“Drinking this much water a day can help you lose weight, dietician says”
—Daily Express

Constantly sipping water through the day is
The secret to a slimmer, fitter you—
It fills you up and stops you overeating,
Because you’re always running for the loo.

by Dan Campion

“High-altitude cave used by Tibetan Buddhists yields a Denisovan fossil”
—ArsTechnica

Some ancient ancestors endured
A hundred thousand years
Of harsh cave life. I’m strangely stirred.
Their stamina endears.
That Buddhist monks succeeded them
Augments the cosmic saga.
We just might find a stratagem
For holding on past MAGA.

by Philip Kitcher

Alas, Keir Starmer
is not a charmer,
but next to Rishi
he counts as dishy.

by Steven Kent

“Michael Jackson was more than $500M in debt when he died in 2009”
—The Guardian

Bubbles’ friend, trouble’s friend:
MJ, late King of Pop,
Earned a celebrity
Nobody had

Dancing and singing so
Cynosuristically.
Managing money, though?
Michael was Bad.

by Julia Griffin

“Fossil of Neanderthal child with Down’s syndrome hints at early humans’ compassion
Skull anatomy shows the boy or girl would have been severely disabled, yet survived until the age of six”
—The Guardian

They were our infancy. They died quite young:
Their lives were painful, as our own would be
Without the legacies we thrive among.
Their ordinary rate of injury
To us looks catastrophic. We assume,
Between all this and long, non-globose brains,
That they were lacking every kind of room
For finer feelings: for the joys and pains
Of kindly love. A much-disabled child;
To waste on this the strength required to care
For other offspring, fit to face the wild:
The cold, the dark, the hunger of the bear?
It must have been impossible, all told!
And yet this child survived to six years old.

by Chris O’Carroll

You say I cooked and ate a dog? You lie!
I deny it. I’m in shock about it.
You say I did a sexual assault?
I’m no church boy. Let’s not talk about it.

by Steven Kent

“‘You’re the sucker, you’re the loser’: 90 miserable minutes of Biden v. Trump”
—The Guardian

If I were to devise a drinking game,
We’d take another shot with each new claim
From candidates who lie or change their tune,
Though clearly we’d be very drunk too soon
And miss debate, perhaps, that weirdly wraps
With flaps regarding golfing handicaps.

by Ellen Hawley McWhirter

(With apologies to the Everly Brothers)

Buy buy gifts!
Buy buy influence!
Six-to-three, it’s a cinch.
And now it’s not a bribe!
Buy buy more gifts, buy buy!

Let’s give them vacays, let’s give them cash,
Expensive dinners, a birthday bash.
They’ll do our bidding, it’s like a dream.
We’ll court their favor, oh how supreme!

Buy buy jewels!
Bibles in public schools
We’ll change all the rules.
There’s nothing we can’t try!
Buy buy more gifts, buy buy!

No more obstruction, you’re free to go.
No women’s healthcare, Wade conquered Roe,
Mugshots are trending, and just you wait!
A few more months and we’ll make things great!

Buy buy gifts!
Buy buy influence!
Six-to-three, it’s a cinch.
And now it’s not a bribe!
Buy buy more gifts, buy buy!

by Julia Griffin

“Mysterious shiny monolith removed from Nevada desert…
“MYSTERIOUS MONOLITH!” a police department post on X said.”
—The Guardian

Hurrah for the shining, itinerant post,
The Monolith, ever mysterious,
Appearing wherever we thirst for it most
(And thirst in Nevada is serious).

Three cheers for the eerie one, mirroring back
The loneliest spots you can grab it at,
In Spain, Wales, Romania (who can keep track?)—
But desert’s its natural habitat.

We’re told that it’s plural—believe if you choose;
We’re told it’s manmade—is that probable?
Of course it’s the line the conventional news
Fobs anyone off with who’s fobbable;

But when you’ve considered its sheerness and sheen,
The luck you’ll require to achieve a view,
The fact its arrivals have never been seen—
You’ll find those beliefs quite naïve of you;

And though I concede that there isn’t a word
That offers a rhyme for or on or with,
I’ll say it again—let the echo be heard:
All hail, the Mysterious Monolith!