by Steven Urquhart Bell

“MP candidates give view on assisted dying at election hustings.”
—Southern Daily Echo

You can’t let people give in to despair.
Wait for the vote—don’t do it then and there.

by Nora Jay

“Rishi Sunak is facing a growing clamour to come clean about the betting scandal engulfing Westminster …
[T]he prime minister was urged to get a grip on the drip-drip of revelations.”
—The Guardian

(After Cole Porter)

Like the drip-drip-drip of the talk-talk
As the polling numbers fall;
Like the tee-tee-hee of the BBC
As the Starmerati maul;
Like the tut-tut-tut of the party
With the case on public view,
The voice of Rishi keeps repeating “Boo, boo, boo!”—

Day and night, why is it so
That the party Whip keeps calling me up to say “Go!”
When the only thing I did
Was bet a trifling hundred quid
About a day—
One, OK?

Night and day, tempers are high,
As the temperature is likely to be in July;
Which is also when we’ll set
The date for our Election Day, you can bet—
So you see,
Why not me?

by Ruth S. Baker

“Eight-year-old pekingese Wild Thang wins World’s Ugliest Dog contest”
—The Guardian

A dog, with anomalous legs or skin,
Unseen by an orthodontist,
Has just won something which ought to win
World’s Ugliest Contest Contest.

by Dan Campion

“NASA Advances Research to Grow Habitats in Space from Fungi”
—NASA

One day the earthbound homeless may
Gaze skyward on clear nights
And know that on some Martian bay
Space tourists see the sights
And Moon-based colonists sleep snug
In cozy mushroom huts.
Earth gravity at work, they’ll shrug,
Aware this world is nuts.

by Bruce Bennett

A marble statue of the Roman Goddess of Wisdom “that greeted students at Wells College
for more than 150 years was accidentally decapitated in the scramble to close the institution
forever… an unavoidable metaphor for the angst surrounding the institution’s sudden closure.”
—The New York Times

A Lady is missing her head.
You’d think she’d be mercifully dead.
But no, She’s alive
and mad as a hive
of hornets, so you should feel Dread!

—Email from “Bird of the Week”

by Iris Herriot

But, when you’re hunting, it’s mute as a stone!
Fan of the bunting? Obsessed with the lazuli?
Soften your grunting and smile at it, cazuli.

by Julia Griffin

For Jack, the Walrus Muse, with apologies to Lewis Carroll

“[M]eet Jill, Australia’s heaviest oyster… [which] now weighs more than 3kg and is about to enter the record books.”
—The Guardian

The Walrus and the Carpenter,
Renowned for charm and skill,
Were luring guileless oysters out
With great success until
They found themselves encountering
A giant known as Jill.

“O mammals!” said this prodigy,
“How nice to see you here!
How healthy, large, and fresh you look!
My children, push me near—
I have, like many of our kind,
Myopia, I fear.”

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Stood frozen, side by side,
Renouncing silently a plan
They wished they’d never tried.
And saw too late that massive shell
Gape very, very wide …

“O Walrus!” grinned the oysterbed,
“O Carpenter! come, come:
Where are your bread and butter now?
Your vinegar? What, dumb?”
And all the answer was a belch
And deep, molluscan “Yum!”

by Paul Lander

Spank. Spank. Spank. Spank. Spank.
Spank. Spank. Spank. Spank. Spank. Spank. Spank.
Spank. Spank. Spank. Spank. Spank.

(a quadruple dactyl*)

by Alex Steelsmith

“[A] dummy passenger… earned several citations for a carpool lane driver… [An officer] discovered
something unusual about the sole passenger. ‘The [plastic] goatee was sharp… just a little too sharp.’”
—UPI

Higgledy-piggledy, jiggery-pokery,
someone who drove with a counterfeit passenger
gave the legitimate, principled drivers who
honestly carpool a reason to carp.

Reading the story, we notice a curious
semi-ironical interrelationship;
though the duplicitous driver undoubtedly
looked like a dummy, the dummy looked sharp.

* For more on this new verse form and other variations on the double dactyl, click here.

by Stephen Gold

“Woman ‘defrauded US company to buy Scottish kilt and gift cards’.”
—The Times

She took the cash, then made a dash
For Scotland’s chilly clime
(Allegedly, although her plea
Is there has been no crime).

The moral’s clear, so listen here:
When thievery’s asserted,
Don’t don the kilt, it may prove guilt—
Our laws must not be skirted.

by Steven Kent

“Rishi Sunak to face pressure to shift right after disastrous election results”
—The Guardian

(To the tune of Toni Basil’s “Mickey“)

Oh Rishi, you’re so fine,
You’re so fine—now toe the line.
Hey Rishi! Hey Rishi! (Repeat)

You think you run the show, you live at Number 10—
We tell you what to do, we tell you where and when,
And if you mess around we’ll fill your seat again, Rishi.

See, hopefuls come and go, and we don’t really care;
In Commons, on the street–we find ’em everywhere.
An empty suit like you is easy to prepare, Rishi.

Oh Rishi, better do our bidding, can’t you see,
Or wind up like Teresa May, a bitter old MP.
Show independence, and we’ll quickly set you free—
We want you, Rishi,
Oh yes it’s true, Rishi, true, Rishi—
We’re watching you, Rishi!

Election’s dead ahead—just call it, Rishi, please.
The Party isn’t well; we’re down upon on our knees,
But we believe the cure is more of the disease, Rishi.

So can you be a man? And can you make a fuss?
We’ve got a pair of traits that matter most to us:
A heart of ice and balls like Braverman or Truss, Rishi.

Oh Rishi, understand we want you in this fight–
As Labour goes to celebrate a very winning night,
You’re gonna drag the Tories further to the Right.
We need you Rishi,
You know it’s true, Rishi, true, Rishi—
Will you come through, Rishi?

Oh Rishi, you’re so fine,
You’re so fine, but stay in line,
Hey Rishi! Hey Rishi! (Repeat)

by Ruth S. Baker

“More than 1,000 sea lions have gathered at San Francisco’s Pier 39 this spring, the largest herd in at least 15 years. …
displaying themselves to the thousands of tourists who pass by the area each day.”
—The Guardian

Across that luckiest of piers
Sea lions lie in stacks,
With tails on tails and snouts in ears,
And abdomens on backs.

Or, if we’re simply counting heads,
There’s tourists by the ton,
Outnumbering those pinnipeds
By more than two to one.

by Steven Urquhart Bell

“Doctor explains how your eyes can hold clues to your overall health”
—The Independent

I show you blow-up pictures from a menu,
And if your peepers instantly go wide
At fish and chips or fries and quarter-pounders,
I might conclude that time’s not on your side.

by Eddie Aderne

“[I]n late 2022, a giant iron sword and a bronze mirror were unearthed from [the Tomio Maruyama burial mound
in the city of Nara] which date back to the late fourth century. … The discovery has raised questions among
archeologists. The sword, at more than 2 meters, is too long to be used as a weapon, so why was it made? And why
is the mirror shaped [uniquely] like a shield? Perhaps most importantly, who are the two people interred at the site?
—The Japan Times

Can bodily pride be shielded and stored
In a mirror of old Japan?
Can courage be put in an iron sword
Exceeding the length of a man?

Who lay so long in the burial mound
Where the sword and the mirror lie?
Two mighty ministers, far renowned?
A lord and his samurai?

Or was it a single man, in state,
With a sword no other could wield,
And a single woman, his match, his mate,
With a mirror the shape of a shield?

by Simon MacCulloch

“Is it time to ban gender reveal parties? The death of a pigeon recently forced the RSPCA
to warn parents-to-be to stop dying [sic] birds pink”
—Independent

A leap in human wisdom’s sum!
We’ve learnt that dyeing birds is dumb.
Be bold, and dare to hope as well
That headline writers learn to spell.