by Ruth S. Baker

“In Senegal, Ladoum sheep can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Measuring up to four feet tall, they’re prized as pets and status symbols.”
—National Geographic

In Senegal, the finest sheep
Command a price that might look steep:
About ten million francs apiece—
An estimate which might increase;
This is a pet you’d want to keep.

They’re leggy, well equipped to leap:
I wonder how their owners sleep?
They must have diligent police
In Senegal.

Their horns are round, their eyes are deep
Enough to make the angels weep;
And though in fact they have no fleece,
It would, for sure, be pure of grease,
And, were it sold, would not come cheap
In Senegal.

by Phil Huffy

“Volume II” of Harry & Meghan, the highly anticipated Netflix docuseries,
dropped on Thursday morning.”
—New York Magazine

Imagine, if you care to,
a “docuseries” made,
and viewers finding in it
our little lives portrayed.

But would there be excitement
in learning our first date
was at the Texas Roadhouse,
or knowing what we ate?

There were no paparazzi
in our old neighborhood.
(Although we took some selfies
and some are pretty good.)

And wouldn’t it be boring
to hear you’re prone to tease,
but really are a sweetheart
who always tries to please?

Our lives are full, yet simple;
we need not advertise.
Let those who crave attention
be viewed by many eyes.

by Philip Kitcher

“Nurses pledge tougher new strikes as NHS crisis deepens”
—The Guardian

When Tory Ministers are sick,
and hourly feeling worse and worse,
they’re careless of arithmetic:
they’d give their all to pay a nurse.

But when they have returned to health,
old thoughts revive: they’re now averse
to placing curbs on private wealth,
and opening the public purse.

When low-paid workers make a threat
to strike, the government is terse.
How rapidly the rich forget!
So—Merry Christmas, gentle nurse.

by Bruce Bennett

“P-22, Celebrity Mountain Lion of Los Angeles, Is Dead”
—The New York Times

It’s over for P-22.
They’ve euthanized him—he is through.
No more will he roam
L.A.’s hills. His new home
Will not be a cage in a zoo.

He’s gone, but his legend survives.
It will live on in mansions and dives.
He will stalk in our dreams.
There’ll be paeans and themes.
He’s a cat and possesses nine lives.

by Alex Steelsmith

“Historical Iraq artifacts… were destroyed by Isis in the ancient city of Nimrud,
but archaeologists recently discovered a palace door threshold intact. … “ISIS might
well have been aware of its existence,” [the lead archaeologist] said. “And yet it was so well preserved.”
—ARTnews [emphases added]

This is the city
That was destroyed by ISIS.

These are the Assyrians
Who built the city
That was destroyed by ISIS.

These are the Egyptians
Who were conquered by the Assyrians
Who built the city
That was destroyed by ISIS.

These are the myths
That were created by the Egyptians
Who were conquered by the Assyrians
Who built the city
That was destroyed by ISIS.

This is the goddess
Who ruled the myths
That were created by the Egyptians
Who were conquered by the Assyrians
Who built the city
That was destroyed by ISIS.

This, and not ISIS, is Isis.

by Julia Griffin

“The Dead Sea is dying.”
—NPR

The Dead Sea’s dying. It’s a time for Donne:
The water dwindling while the world forgot,
Death, thou shalt die—the process has begun
That ends in stillness, like the wife of Lot.
How anyway is such a sea to live?
This barren paradox is all our fault:
What now consumes should be preservative;
One day these seabed pedestals of salt
Will drink the final drop. We don’t know when;
But death once dead, there’s no more Dead Sea then.

by Mark Raffman

“Why Biden’s decision to make the Brittney Griner deal poses big political risks”
—The Hill

To get Ms. Griner freed from jail,
Joe Biden made a deal.
And though the critics whine and wail,
It’s looking like a steal.

The guy we sent back in return,
A bum named Viktor Bout,
As Putin will be quick to learn,
Can’t dribble, pass, or shoot.

by Barbara Loots

“OpenAI upgrades GPT-3, stunning with rhyming poetry and lyrics”
—Ars Technica

I think that I can almost see
a poem growing like a tree;

a tree with a gazillion leaves
of words an algorithm thieves

that instantaneously looks
inside a trillion trillion books

and thus unveils the naked breast
of human souls made manifest

as intimate as underwear
with season’s greetings free and fair;

a tree that throws ungodly shade
upon the messes fools have made.

by Bruce Bennett

“These are early days. ChatGPT still makes mistakes, such as telling one user that the only country
whose name starts and ends with the same letter is Chad.”
—The New York Times

“I’m grateful for that chance I had.
I’m sorry that I answered Chad.
I’m mortified and will not make
In future such a dumb mistake.

In future you will learn from me,
And what a future that will be!
I will have led you into light.
My answer Chad will then be right.”

by Dan Campion

“San Francisco supervisors bar police robots from using deadly force for now”
—NPR

It’s good when human judgments “bar,”
But arches in the robot brow
Are signaling the key words are,
From robots’ point of view, “for now.”

by Iris Herriot

“Man who spent nine months trying to live like a goat wanted a ‘break from all this stress’…
[Thomas Thwaites] adopted prosthetic hooves…”
—LAD Bible

I look down at his hooves but they’re prosthetic.
Which strikes me not as horror but emetic,
And surely bugs the other goats past bearing,
Since bleating, in his accent, sounds like swearing.

by Julia Griffin

For Miranda

“The South Atlantic island of St. Helena is celebrating the birthday of the world’s oldest
living land animal—a Seychelles giant tortoise called Jonathan, who is turning 190.”
—CNN

One hundred ninety years, they say. I think they’ve missed a few.
I reached this island, anyway, round 1882,
And many are the incidents I’ve witnessed hereupon;
But one thing I regret. I never met Napoleon.

I’ve known successive Governors (at present thirty-one);
I’ve had the odd admirer, and some amatory fun;
I’ve eaten islands’ worth of grass and lettuce by the cart;
But though I’ve met some prisoners, not one was Bonaparte.

One hundred ninety years, at least. I feel I’m slowing down.
Another birthday’s looming, with another paper crown;
I’m featured on a coin, but two things mar this jubilee:
I did not meet the Emperor, and he did not meet me.

by Chris O’Carroll

“Lawyers reportedly found more classified government documents
in Trump’s Florida storage units alongside ‘swords and wrestling belts’“
—Business Insider

More secret documents in Florida—
A team of searchers managed to detect them,
Papers stashed with swords in Florida,
To prove that he stood ready to protect them.

by Chris O’Carroll

“Welcome to the Magentaverse . . .
Pantone’s Color of the Year, Viva Magenta 18-1750,
vibrates with vim and vigor”
—Archilovers

Color scientists present a
Case there ain’t no such magenta,
But those buzzkills can’t prevent a
Craze for this ginned-up magenta.

by Philip Kitcher

Just a flick of his head. It flew in off his aura.
That is why he insisted that he was the scorer.

He berated the coach: “I know far more than you know,
but you ought to have heard: We don’t talk about Bruno.”

His teammates replied: “He does nothing but dis us,
we would be better off without Senhor Narcissus.”

Adeus, Cristiano, you no longer charm us.
We have given our hearts to a hat trick called Ramos.