by Steven Urquhart Bell
“NHS trials using drones to deliver chemotherapy drugs”
—BBC News
A normal drone, it couldn’t cope
With all the weight of all my dope—
You’d have to use a freighter.
And when the freighter dropped the gear
I’d need a friendly mountaineer
To fetch it from the crater.
by David Galef
(with apologies to Wallace Stevens)
“Ohio State University has officially registered a trademark for the word “THE”
after a nearly three-year battle to clinch legal branding access to a word
that’s deeply meaningful to the school’s overall identity.”
—CNN
If we’re teaching articles,
Both definite and in-
Ohio State’s the school to watch:
It’s trademarked one wherein
The letters T and H and E
Are legal in their name.
The news alone will guarantee
The the achieves some fame.
by Shaun Jex
“The Star Wars Hyperspace Lounge on [a Disney cruise ship] has a $5,000 Kaiburr Crystal drink”
—Journalist Ashley Carter
Higitus figitus
Gaius Germanicus
Wasted Rome’s money on
Parties and such
But upon learning of
Disney’s new beverage
Said with a gasp “Well now
That’s a bit much…”
by Paul Lander
Ten Downing for rent
As Boris Johnson resigns.
Now that’s a Borxit.
by Julia Griffin
“The World Can’t Believe Americans Are Only Just Discovering Kettles,
As They Mock NY Times Article”
—Network 10
A saucepan serving as a kettle
Is just a mad misuse of metal.
What makes me really rant and rave?
A teacup in a microwave.
This week it somehow hit the Press
How things are done in the US:
World can’t believe! the newsroom cries;
To me, it came as no surprise.
Round here,* where taste’s in deep eclipse,
A kettle’s used for roasting chips,
And even when not wrecked with ice,
Earl Grey’s luke warm, which is not nice.
Americans! It’s not your bag?
You think it violates the flag?
Don’t drink it! Throw it in the sea!
But with no kettle, tea’s not tea.
*In the author’s adopted home in the state of Georgia
by Dan Campion
“Ketanji Brown Jackson Becomes First Black Female Supreme Court Justice . . .
Justice Jackson encountered deep resistance among Republicans on Capitol Hill . . .”
—The New York Times
After two hundred thirty-two years
A Black Female Justice appears.
With grace and persistence
She met “deep resistance”
After two hundred thirty-two years.
by Nora Jay
“With the June 24 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturns the landmark
1973 abortion decision in Roe v. Wade, the doctrine of stare decisis has fueled debate over the extent
to which the U.S. Supreme Court is bound by legal precedent. Former Associate Justice Lewis Powell once remarked:
‘The elimination of constitutional stare decisis would represent an explicit endorsement of the idea that the Constitution
is nothing more than what five justices say it is.’”
—American Bar Association
Stare, stare night:
Paint your palette full of blues:
Makes no difference what you choose—
It only shows the darkness in your soul;
Brightness on the Hill;
Sketch Pelosi feeling ill;
You’re not cheering? Carlson will,
In chorus with his Foxy-holy band.
Now I understand
What a justice ought to be:
How they regulate society,
Pushing guns to set us free;
They only listen to themselves: that’s how
The law’s decided now.
Stare, stare night:
Party picks who walk the line,
Shameless heads, no more than nine,
With eyes that watch the world they’re turning back
Like those strangers who just yak
On the glories of those days, thought dead,
When men were men and women bred,
And kids could buy a gun but not a drink;
Now I know, I think,
What began with Bush v. Gore;
What McConnell’s long been waiting for,
And what else may be in store.
We cannot stop them, we are helpless still;
Perhaps our children will.
by Steven Kent
“Bowers backs Trump despite denouncing ‘big lie’”
—The Guardian
He’s dangerous and can’t be trusted—
Planned a coup but that was busted,
Then tried to sic his mob on Vice,
Who could have died (which wasn’t nice).
Just find me votes, he kept on pleading
Back before the cops were bleeding,
The handiwork of “patriots”
Who I consider cultish nuts.
I’m glad to speak to this committee.
What we witnessed wasn’t pretty;
I pray we never face again
This kind of threat from evil men.
But though I think the Constitution
Really is our best solution,
I’ll back my party even more—
I’m voting Trump in ‘24!
by Max Gutmann
Candory-slandery,
Cassidy Hutchinson,
Trump now assures us, is
Really “bad news.”
Surely his claim’s rather
Uncontroversial.
Bad news! We see it. (We
Also see whose.)
by Steve Bremner
“Airships could offer a much cleaner and quieter alternative for some aspects
of the aviation market. … Sergey Brin turned internet search into one of the world’s
most valuable businesses more than two decades ago. Now he intends to improve
a technology which had its heyday long before he was born.”
—BBC Future
Googly schmoogly
Sergey the searchmaster
Soon may be easing our
Word-finding chore.
If he should start using
“Dirigibility,”
Hey, Hecht and Hollander,
We’ll have one more!
by Alex Steelsmith
“Ukrainian man casually shaves his beard while
a Russian missile sits in the kitchen.”
—India Times
Merrily, merrily
one brave Ukrainian
lathers, and raises his
razor, unfazed—
even while faced with the
semi-miraculous
fact that his residence
hasn’t been razed.
by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
“Panicking Putin ‘calls up OBESE 280lbs retired general, 67, to lead forces in Ukraine’
after ‘most of his best and battle-hardened senior commanders are killed’ in war”
—Daily Mail
Plump Russian soldiers who are long retired
And drink a quart of vodka every day
Now may, by Putin’s order, be required—
In huge fatigues—to head back to the fray.
Commanders of the Russians in Ukraine
Keep getting killed, or proving that they are
Inept, and getting fired from Vlad’s campaign—
Neurotic panic seems to grip this tsar.
Girth once considered far too large to fight
Protrudes from General Pavel to afford
Ukrainians an easy target site
That Putin surely couldn’t have ignored
In drafting him. What gives? … This guy will show
No stomach for the fight when told to go!
by Alex Steelsmith
“A flight attendant has claimed staff often have no clue whatsoever
when passengers ask them whereabouts they are when up in the air
and says they will usually just make stuff up.”
—Mirror
Whereabouts, thereabouts,
curious passengers
wondering, “Where are we
now?” should beware,
even if answered with
geo-coordinates:
really the answer is
up in the air.
by Steven Urquhart Bell
“The science of sleep: Why so many of us get it all wrong”
—The Observer
The secret of a really good night’s sleep
Is learning how to clear your mind of clutter.
Try meditation, reading, counting sheep,
Hypnosis, self-massage or getting guttered.
Or sex. So good, it’s almost a specific
For purging you of mental flot- and jetsam.
Though sex for me is not a soporific—
I lie awake and wonder how to get some.
by Stephen Gold
“Trials halted by barrister walkout over low pay for criminal defence”
—The Times
Justice delayed is justice denied.
Though you know we would love to be right by your side,
Be you murderer, fraudster, molester or thief,
It’s courting starvation to take on your brief.
We’re pissed at perennial poorly-paid gigs,
So what’s to be done? We’re all scratching our wigs.
But here’s one career that will keep us well fed:
We’re going to retrain as baristas instead.