by Dan Campion

“Can’t Sleep? Try Sticking Your Head in the Freezer”
—The New York Times

I need to sleep, but at the price
Of swaddling my head in ice
And cozied up to frozen pie?
That’s one hot tip I will not try.

by Alex Steelsmith

“Maine is cleaning up its roadways by removing the flippin’ vulgarities from license plates…
[A] bunch of descendants of Puritans in a New England state ended up putting some of the raunchiest
messages on state-issued license plates. …  [E]stimatees suggested 400 offensive plates could be subject to recall…”
—AP

Flippity quippity,
vanity license plates
shock us in Maine as in
few other states;

raunchy, unruly, and
unpuritanical
Mainiacs take too much
license with plates.

Doubledy troubledy,
banning vulgarities,
though they leave civilized
people appalled,

might only add to their
memorability,
now that they’re subject to
being recalled.

by Julia Griffin

For Sophie

“A Piet Mondrian painting has been hanging upside-down for decades, art historian says”
—CNN

Poor Mondrian! This really is the end.
All these long years Fate’s chosen to abuse
Viewers, who rarely question as they ought:
Those tracks—white, yellow, blue, black, red—have caught
The experts napping. What does this portend?
We understand, perhaps, though can’t excuse

Hope that some others will be blamed. But who?
The shamed curators, caught now on the hop,
Hung upside down in universal sight (!)
That grid—red, black, blue, yellow, over white—
It may be hard to credit, but it’s true:
We’re prone to miss which line goes at the top.

by Clyde Always

“Dungeons & Dragons is Apparently Banned in Federal Prisons”
—Reason

A shakedown? That’s a lousy break.
What exactly did they take?
A pack of gum? A girlie-mag?
A shiv? A blade? A plastic bag?
Some powder or a sack of weed?
Pruno, was it? Bump of speed?
Syringes, maybe? Smack or ice?
Worse! My twenty-sided dice…

by Bruce Bennett

Did you hear what LawnStarter did?
It ranked the Best States “Off the Grid.”

The “cost of farmland,” “energy”—
Just check it out and you will see.

All States have numbers, best to worst,
from the most blessed to the most cursed.

So feast your eyes and feed your dream!
All things can be the way they seem

In visions of escape and joy
that Modern Horrors can’t destroy.

Indulge and fantasize and get
the thrill of being there and set

Forever in an Eden new
and glorious and just for you!

Me? I’ll stay put. I’ll ask you, “Is it
a Paradise?” and, if so, visit.

by Steven Kent

“Republican Senator Tom Cotton brags about ignoring Trump impeachment evidence“
—The Guardian

I have the keenest interest here
In truth and justice, I’ll be clear,
But not one fact that I might find
Could ever change my made-up mind.

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

“Staffordshire dog Cheddar rescued from rabbit hole”
—BBC News

Hounds follow rabbits anywhere they roam
Although, inside a rabbit hole, the earth
Retards pursuit. So did a burrowed home
Ensnare a dog called Cheddar—did his girth
Block passage in and out? Or did this hound
Repose at will, quite still but not stuck fast,
Avoiding fire crews digging in the ground
In vain, for six whole hours, until at last
No hope remained that they would tunnel through?
Extraction having been ruled out, the crews
Departed, thinking Cheddar must have too …
Don’t underrate a hare-brained dog you lose
Outside your home. He needs a night away.
Give him a break. He’ll reappear next day!

by Julia Griffin

“An Iranian hermit nicknamed the ‘world’s dirtiest man’ for not taking a shower for more than half a century
has died at the healthy old age of 94, state media has reported. … In 2014, the Tehran Times reported that Haji
would eat roadkill, smoke a pipe filled with animal excrement, and believed that cleanliness would make him ill.
Photos showed him smoking multiple cigarettes at once.”
—The Guardian

Come, let’s mourn the Dirty Hermit!
We shall see his like no more:
Sad Iranians confirm it:
He has died at 94.

Clean-fanatics loudly holler
Hygiene shibboleths galore:
Dirty Haji in his squalor
Lived and throve to 94,

Eating roadkill, smoking feces—
All the cigs his mouth could store;
PhDs, revise your theses!
Still he puffed at 94.

Praise him now, the great correctant
Of those myths held truths before;
Throw away your disinfectant:
You may live till 94.

by Bruce Bennett

… ‘It would be good not to demonize the snake too much,’
[a snake conservationist] suggested….”
—The Washington Post

You take their habitat. What can they do?
Their way of getting back is eating you.

by Steven Urquhart Bell

“Body of a man found in a [dumpster] at Doncaster Royal Infirmary”
—Daily Mail

Old Fred requested in his will
To have an eco-funeral.
The hospital, they did it right—
He’s going to a landfill site,

Where his remains will decompose
And make a meal for gulls and crows,
Whose guano will manure the fields
And serve to boost the farmers’ yields.

Your sandwich might be made of grains
Which fed themselves on Fred’s remains,
So say a prayer and bow your head:
“Give us this day our daily Fred.”

by Clyde Always

“At San Francisco restaurant, pups chow on filet mignon …
Dogue, which rhymes with vogue, opened last month
in the city’s trendy Mission District.”
—AP News

Slobbery, snobbery,
Dogue’s culinarians
bring the gastronomist
out of your whelp;

lauding its offerings’
palatability,
four-legged foodies are
likely to Yelp.

by Iris Herriot

“Controversy is swirling around a proposed public lavatory in San Francisco
after a city newspaper exposed the project’s eye-watering price tag of $1.7m.”
—The Guardian

(To the tune of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco“)

The lavabos of Paris seem somehow sadly cheap;
The bagni that are Rome are only fit for sheep;
My poor bladder’s been abused something rotten in Manhattan:
I’m going home to that rest room by the Bay.
I left my sense in San Francisco,
Deep in a grand WC,
To be where there’s a perfect stall to answer nature’s call!
The morning fog may turn to sleet, here’s my seat:
My loo waits there in San Francisco;
I’ll cry “Urethra!” learnedly;
When I come home to you, San Francisco,
I’ll take earth’s most expensive pee.

by Steve Bremner

“Farmers across New Zealand took to the streets on their tractors…
to protest government plans to tax cow burps and other greenhouse gas emissions …
Because farming is so big in New Zealand—there are 10 million beef and dairy cattle and 26 million sheep,
compared to just 5 million people—about half of all greenhouse gas emissions come from farms.”
—Associated Press

Classily, gassily,
Kiwis are taxing their
Cows and their sheep—will this
Just be the start?

What’s next for herbivore
Flatulogenesis?
Will they tax vegans on
Each little fart?

by Philip Kitcher

“Boris Johnson COULD still return to Downing Street
if Rishi fails to turn the polls around, allies warn the new PM”
—Daily Mail

I have cut short my holiday
to heal the wounds that part us,
knowing that I was born to play
the role of Cincinnatus.

I’m charged with straying from the truth—
my critics make up stories.
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth
to have such thankless Tories!

by Steven Kent

“Boebert tells Republican dinner guests they’re part of ‘second coming of Jesus'”
—The Guardian

Enjoy the coffee, tea, dessert, the platter full of cheeses.
Bring back to power the GOP, and we can bring back Jesus!
I’ll close with two short words tonight and say them with abandon,
Two little words that sum us up. Join with me: “Let’s go, Brandon!”