by Stephen Gold
“Meta officially launches Twitter rival Threads.”
—CNN
It seems that Threads (you may have heard)
Has given Elon Musk the bird.
How happy for the human race
That now we have another place
To ululate, harass and spit,
And all the hate that we transmit
Has one more pipe down which to flow.
So thank you Threads, for all you’ll sew.
by Alex Steelsmith
“[T]he most grating and disruptive sound in the entire athletic ecosystem right now might be
the staccato pop-pop-pop emanating from America’s rapidly multiplying pickleball courts.”
—The New York Times
Poppity
pickleball!
Eardrums can’t
hack it.
Newfangled
sport, it is
played with
a racket.
by Julia Griffin
“In Tuna-Obsessed Tunisia, a Favorite Food Becomes a Lot Less Affordable”
—The New York Times
In Tunisia, there is trouble with the tuna.
In Paraguay they’ve problems with the pay;
Holland’s apt to lend a hand;
When in Greenland, take a grand—
But in Norway there’s in general no way;
In Germany it’s positively germy;
In Freiland you can’t really find a friend;
In Denmark there’s the dark,
And in Sark there’s—well, there’s Sark;
But in England!—just be ready for the end.
by Steven Urquhart Bell
“Spilled milk closes the M6 motorway after tanker crash”
—BBC
The Police appeal for patience as commuters grow irascible,
But as of now the motorway is udderly impassable.
by Steven Kent
“The housing community that will require ‘patriots’ to fly the US flag”
—The Guardian
We built a ‘burb where patriots will be
Required by law to demonstrate they’re free.
by Alex Steelsmith
“Police were called about strands of hair hanging out of a woman’s trunk,
assuming it was a body. Turns out, it was her wig…”
—Insider
Worriedly, hurriedly,
dutiful officers
might pull you over for
wigs on display.
Try not to dangle them
unconscientiously;
tucking them in is a
small price toupee.
by Geoffrey Basking
“A tech firm and a university in Tokyo have teamed up to produce an app trained on thousands of cat photos
that they say can tell you when your pet is in pain. … [The firm and university gathered] 6,000 cat photos,
in which they carefully studied the positions of the animals’ ears, noses, whiskers and eyelids. They then used
a scoring system designed by the University of Montreal to measure minute differences between healthy cats
and those suffering pain due to hard-to-spot illnesses. Now the app ‘has an accuracy level of more than 90%’…”
—The Japan Times
When your cat is aching,
When your cat’s just low,
Trust the epoch-making
Minds of Tokyo
And of Montreal.
Their rare expertise
Appertains to all
Feline maladies.
Modestly submit:
Offer up a pic
Of your cherished kit;
Learn how it is sick
From a narrowed pupil
Or a furrowed brow,
Proof, beyond all scruple:
Not some mere MIAOW!!!
by Marshall Begel
“A funeral firm is … offering custom-made coffins, which includes a casket designed like a Greggs sausage roll.”
—Sky News
To be endlessly admired
Even after you’ve expired
There’s a place, you might have heard,
Where they craft the box interred.
Cobblers might select a boot.
Astronauts, their NASA suit.
Backyard grills might please a cook.
Poets may prefer a book.
As for me, I can’t deny
Where I’m heading when I die.
So I’ll choose to make my casket
Woven like a hand-held basket.
by Ruth S. Baker
“South Koreans get younger as traditional age system dropped…
‘It feels good,’ said Lee, a Seoul-based housewife.”
—The Japan Times
This makes them two years younger? How absurd
To give such value to the written word!
(Though shopping somehow gratifies me more
Since what was once Size 10 became Size 4.)
by Julia Griffin
In the Duma, they keep dumb (so would you) but
They mutely hum that best of hits:
Putin on the Fritz.
Like some latter-day Count Fosco,
Bad Prigozhin aims at Moscow: Fortune quits
Putin on the Fritz.
Dressed up like a billionaire contractor,
Trying not to look a real bad actor (malefactor),
Acts like he’s the big defence key,
Till Volodomyr Zelenskiy dreams he’ll blitz
Putin on the Fritz.
If you’re Pu and the days bring nasty news in,
Why don’t you sing a song that fits?
Putin on the Fritz
Putin on the Fritz
Putin on the Fritz …
by Chris O’Carroll
“The far-right US congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene
appeared to say she thinks she is being spied on through
her television, possibly by the US government, and that
someone may soon try to kill her. In a tweet on Sunday,
the Republican from Georgia said: ‘Last night in my DC residence,
the television turned on by itself and the screen showed someone’s
laptop trying to connect to the TV.’”
—The Guardian
Now MTG says her TV
Surveils her surreptitiously.
What explanation could there be
Except left-wing conspiracy
Against the life of MTG?
(Obama did it, probably.)
Stay tuned for live-streamed lunacy.
by Julia Griffin
For Mary, with apologies
“Police officers jail their toddler for struggling with potty training”
—The Washington Post
Back to the wall, kid! Drop that plushie now!
Stop! Is that diaper loaded? Can those sobs:
We’ve heard it all before. You’re booked, and how.
Doin’ our jobs, just here to do our jobs.
Cuffs not your size? Put both hands in. Too tight?
You shoulda thoughta that before your goof.
You wanna lawyer? Sure, you’ve got the right,
But trouble is, kid, we got all the proof.
This is one habit you’d be smart to quit.
Cops in the FPD don’t take no shit.
by Laura J. Bobrow
“Dolphins use baby talk when communicating with calves, study finds”
—CBS News
What is she saying, do you suppose?
This is your tummy. Where is your nose?
Don’t be afraid of the humans out there.
You’re certain to see them when you go for air.
You’re my dear little snookums. Oh yes. Yes you are.
Go swim with the calves, but don’t wander too far.
Stay right by my side while I whistle and squawk
and teach you the grammar of bottlenose talk.
“A bear broke into a Colorado [resident’s home while he was away] and feasted on pork chops…”
—UPI
Furious
homeowner
notifies
cops:
Curious
burglar is
licking his
chops.
by Eddie Aderne
“Outcry after tourist carves name on wall at the Colosseum in Rome
Italy’s culture minister has called for the man who defaced the site
with ‘Ivan+Hayley 23’ to be identified and prosecuted”
—The Guardian
Ivan + Hayley 23
Has raised an outcry; not from me.
The marks unseen are those I shun:
Lion + Christian = 1.