by Alex Steelsmith
“[Staff] noticed treated water being discharged into Clear Creek had an unusual pink coloration…
‘[T]he dye does not appear… to have had any adverse biological impact on Clear Creek,’ the city said.”
—UPI
Locally, vocally,
public authorities
claim that the water is
healthy to drink;
hydrobiologists’
microanalyses
show that the plankton are
still in the pink.
Seemingly, teemingly,
fish and amphibians
thrive, though the coloring
can’t be denied.
Some might consider it
counterintuitive;
everything’s living, yet
everything’s dyed.
by Steven Kent
“Latest Banksy mural smashed as derelict farmhouse demolished”
—The Guardian
We could have offered up a proper praising
With just a few more days before the razing,
But Morning’s Broken came to full fruition
Just one quick step ahead of demolition.
The artist left us little time for viewing
(A very Banksy thing that he was doing).
by Clyde Always
“A man exposing his father-in-law’s X-rated browser history
at a family get-together is being applauded online.”
—Newsweek
My father-in-law is an
interesting fellow.
His love of home projects
I can’t understand:
It seems his devotion to
wood-working’s endless:
he browses the net with
a tool in his hand.
by Julia Griffin
“Virginia prisoners who used toothbrush to escape caught at pancake restaurant…
John Garza, 37, and Arley Nemo, 43, were quickly caught after being spotted
by members of the public at a Newport News branch of Ihop”
—The Guardian
Re-caught at IHOP in a rush,
Two convicts saw their time increased.
When they’d consumed their pancake feast,
Let’s hope they flossed but did not brush.
by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
“This beer pump lets you pour a pint by reading your brain”
—Metro
To pour the perfect pint of beer, you need
Heroic mental focus, nothing more:
Electric signals from your cortex feed
Perceptions of the pint you hope to pour,
Encoded, to the reader of your mind—
Robotic barman Homer, who works out,
For you, how low the glass should be inclined,
Exactly, and how fast the beer should spout,
Correctly … but beware of drinking late:
The pint of bitter with a perfect head
Pours only if you fully concentrate.
If you’re half-plastered when your mind is read,
Neuronal signals from your EEG
Turn beer to froth—and brew catastrophe!
By Steve Bremner
“As in previous years, the Perfect Bracket intelligently selects upsets by projecting each
individual matchup from the ground up … Of course, you could also fill out 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 brackets
and guarantee a win in your pool by accounting for every possible outcome…”
—The Washington Post
Hackety brackety
March Madness analysts
Spin calculations till
They—and we?—drop.
Then again, many might
Find the alternative
Bracketologically
Over-the-top.
by Marshall Begel
“[World Wrestling Entertainment] in talks to legalize betting on scripted matches”
—CNBC
We’re going to King Lear tonight.
I’ve ranked the daughters’ merits.
I’m betting fifty dollars that
Cordelia inherits.
by Steven Kent
“NASA tracking asteroid that could ruin Valentine’s Day in 2046”
—The Guardian
From science, now some gloomy expectations:
In years to come I’m fated for frustrations.
All dashed, my hopes of intimate relations;
I guess I’ll call and cancel reservations.
by Dan Campion
“Meta to Lay Off 10,000 More Employees, Mark Zuckerberg Says”
—Variety
Who’s “Meta” in my universe?
I’ll keep my goggles on!
Dear Zuck will smile and fill my purse,
We’ll sail the Amazon,
Piranhas all around our boat,
But he won’t play the slob
By dunking me to keep afloat:
I still will have a job.
by Alex Steelsmith
“Code compliance official finds alligator in North Carolina attic…
‘The workers having lunch… kind of laughed at me when I told them…’
[the official said].”
—UPI
Happily, snappily,
skeptical contractors
saw the official as
someone to mock,
certain his finding was
non-crocodilian—
though they considered his
story a croc.
Munchily, crunchily,
lunch-eating laborers,
lucky they hadn’t been
chewed into shreds,
chewed on their sandwiches;
unmetaphorically
speaking, the story was
over their heads.
by Chris O’Carroll
“Enshrined in DeSantis lore is an episode from four years ago: During a private plane trip
from Tallahassee to Washington, D.C…. DeSantis enjoyed a chocolate pudding dessert—
by eating it with three of his fingers, according to two sources familiar with the incident.”
—The Daily Beast
Ron eats pudding with his fingers.
Where he touches, his mark lingers.
You may find his prints the next
Time you read a history text—
Book with yummy chocolate smears
Blotting out plantation years,
Shielding Florida’s white youth
From the unsweet taste of truth.
by Steven Kent
“King Charles gives Prince Edward ‘Duke of Edinburgh’ title”
—The Guardian
Prince Ed will never sit upon my throne,
So he deserves a dukedom of his own.
The job description’s really not exact—
No work’s required of any kind, in fact.
(These titles we invent as we see fit
And tell ourselves the world might give a spit.)
by Jerome Betts
“A former [government] adviser… has sparked anger after saying sheep ‘have got to go’
from the UK’s hillsides. … [Among other things, he notes that] ‘Sheep are not native to Britain.'”
—The Independent
Yes, ban the toxic bleaters,
These woolly herbage-eaters
Not native to wet islands
But sprung from arid highlands.
Crank up the propaganda
And send them to . . . Rwanda?
by Clyde Always
“Radiographic camera containing radioactive material still missing in Houston…
Authorities believe the device… was taken from a locker in the back of a construction vehicle.”
—Fox 26 Houston
A camera containing
some radioactive
material vanished
with nary a trace.
Good news for the bandits
avoiding detectives:
What’s highly unlikely?
A break in the case.
by Steven Urquhart Bell
“Great apes deliberately spin to become dizzy, say researchers”
—BBC News
It’s sort of what we used to do at school:
You birled round and round until you got
So dizzy that you wobbled and collapsed,
A helpless heap of giggles, on the spot.
I’ve never been nostalgic for my youth—
The passing of it doesn’t make me blub—
But if I was as unselfconscious now,
I’d save a bloody fortune in the pub.
