by Nora Jay

“School Apologizes After Using ChatGPT to Write Email About Mass-Shooting”
—Vice

This school administration shows it cares:
It makes ChatGPT, their avatar,
Extend a panoply of thoughts and prayers,
Sincere and useful as those always are.

by Steven Kent

“Southern Baptists expel Saddleback megachurch over female pastor”
—The Guardian

Gender roles, bend her roles—
SBC bosses claim
Second to menfolk a
Sister must be.

Guess they’ve forgotten that
Theotokostically
God came from woman (a
Superstar, He).

by Jenna Le

On Netflix’s top trending show,
four men push boulders up a slope
until they’re winded, in the hope
of taking home a bag of dough.
Inside the filming studio,
an audience cheers on the group:
when one man, tired, begins to droop,
they all exhort him, “Go, go, go!”
and “Push, push, push!” In unison,
they shout, “Two, three! Two, three! Two, three!”,
encouraging the weary one
to roll his rock more rapidly.
Now, who’d have guessed that cries like these
would trigger childbirth memories?

by Steven Urquhart Bell

“Daily walk prevents one in 10 early deaths—study”
—BBC News

I take a daily walk around the town
To help prevent my premature demise;
It keeps my stress and worry levels down
To stroll beneath the spreading Tayside skies.

My house blew up while I was out—the shock!
The sense of loss and heartbreak never ceases,
But if it wasn’t for my daily walk
I think I might have really gone to pieces.

by Mia Henry

“A hidden corridor nine metres (30 feet) long has been discovered close to the main entrance
of the 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid of Giza…
The discovery… was made… using non-invasive technology including infrared thermography,
3D simulations and cosmic-ray imaging to peer inside the structure.”
—Reuters

Deep within the pyramid,
so experts have detected,
there lies a tunnel neatly placed,
capacious, and protected.

These scientists used cosmic rays
to find the hidden spaces.
Perhaps they’ll check my basement, too;
I need more storage places.

by Dan Campion

“Wayne Shorter, sage of the saxophone, dies at 89”
—NPR

I’ve put on Adam’s Apple, Wayne.
There’s something new to hear
Each time around. You said it plain,
Played every blue note clear.

by Orel Protopopescu

(with apologies to Marlowe)

“Pixelated parcels of land are being bought, sold and built upon in a market now worth $1.4 billion,
making the metaverse a new frontier for real estate builders and investors.”
—The New York Times

Come live in my safe metaverse
where all desires—repressed, or worse—
can be indulged, voluptuously,
in virtual reality.

We’ll share our pixilated food.
We’ll raise a gorgeous metabrood
of perfect children, drawn to scale,
who never disappoint or wail.

Come live in tax-free paradise,
where I have paid a hefty price
in cryptocurrency, for space
adjoining Snoop Dogg’s blinged-out place.

Our avatars will meet and greet.
Their dogs will mingle on the street!
Come live with me, my cybermate,
in my elite, unreal estate.

by Steven Kent

“‘Incredibly intelligent, highly elusive’: US faces new threat from Canadian ‘super pig'”
—The Guardian

Calamities on every side beset,
Yet we shall face our foe with no regret.
Today we take the fight right to the field,
Prepared to slay the swine who will not yield.
We’ll wait for our commander’s mighty war sign,
And then we’ll bring the battle to the porcine.
Once more unto the breech, dear friends, no fakin’;
This Crispin’s Day we’re bringing home the bacon!

by Alex Steelsmith

“McDonald’s debuts plant-based McNuggets… in Germany follow[ing] a limited-time test…
European customers have generally been more receptive to McDonald’s plant-based meat products
than those in the U.S.”
—AP

Nibbledy, quibbledy,
choosy Americans
tried the new nuggets, but
tended to scowl.

Germans more pleased with their
palatability
happily noted they
didn’t taste fowl.

by Chris O’Carroll

“We’re bringing thousands of bottles of water—Trump Water, actually.
Most of it. Some of it we had to go to a much lesser quality water.
You want to get those Trump bottles.”
–A former president visiting East Palestine, Ohio

I killed the safety regulations.
The train derailed and killed your town.
Now I show up with brand-name water
To help you wash disaster down.

by Steven Kent

“Ohio residents demand answers two weeks after toxic chemical train derailment…
but Norfolk Southern Corporation skips event”
—The Guardian

Attention, folks, we didn’t mean to hurt you;
We’re part of this community, you see.
But while we’ve no intention to desert you,
Within your midst right now we dare not be.

We plan to send some money, never worry—
Don’t publicly denounce us, do not seethe.
We’ll come in time, although we’re in no hurry
(At present, all your air’s unsafe to breathe).

So tragic, really, this big conflagration,
Creating so much damage, so much pain,
Yet heed no siren song of regulation
That costs us several dollars more per train.

by Julia Griffin

“George Santos admits being a ‘terrible liar’ to Britain’s Piers Morgan …
[He] pushed back, however, on the suggestion that he had lied about being Jewish. …
‘I’d always say I’m Catholic but I come from a Jewish family so that makes me Jew-ish.
It’s always been a party favor, everybody’s always laughed, and now that everybody’s cancelling me,
everybody’s pounding down for a pound of flesh.’”
—The Guardian

Attempting to raise his prestige from the mire
And render himself understood,
George Santos now claims he’s a “terrible liar”—
He’d seemed to be terribly good.

He wants to start over, anew, and afresh:
He never said “Jewish,” OK?
But now there’s demand for a pound of his flesh—
And wasn’t that always the way?

by Steve Bremner

“In new editions of Roald Dahl’s beloved stories… [t]he publisher, Puffin, has made hundreds
of changes to the original text, removing many of Dahl’s classic, timeless and colourful descriptions
and making his characters less grotesque.”
—The Telegraph

Ever since Humpty Dumpty bought the farm
Along with Jack and Jill, and bough and Baby,
(Cradle and all), our kids have seen no harm
In gross grotesquerie and gore. But maybe
We need an interdiction, firm and formal,
On all things crass, invidious, and cranky?
(The sort of stuff that, if said kids are normal,
They’ll read with flashlight underneath the blankie.)
So let’s give this obscenity a beating:
Let’s find some kids on suitable occasions—
Around a campfire or while trick-or-treating—
And weave them yarns of linear equations.
We direly need some frumpy farmer’s wife
To cut our tales off with a carving knife.

by Steven Urquhart Bell

“What the size of your TV says about you”
—The Telegraph

A monster telly says your family spend
More hours than is healthy on their asses;
Or else it says, my in-denial friend,
You need to buy a stronger pair of glasses.

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

“BBC News Says Presenters Can Relax Formal Dress Code As ‘Sweaty & Dirty’ Look
Is More Trustworthy”
—Deadline

Sartorially sumptuous on air
Was how reporters for the Beeb once were
Expected to appear—but dirty hair
And sweaty armpits now are de rigueur:
To win the viewer’s trust, don’t look as though
You just stepped off red-carpet duty—smell
Authentic! To distinguish you from faux
News anchors wearing suits and ties to sell
Deliberately biased breaking views,
Dress down, reflect your viewers’ garb! This norm
Is recommended for all rolling news
Reporting, to engage the TikTok swarm …
Though if you’d be like them, should you not wear
Your underwear or PJs on the air?