Alan Millichip: Myth?
In the light of a harvest moon,
Slaughter lurks in valley and tor;
The creature has never been seen,
Which leaves carnage but no trace of spoor.
But legend is good for the tills,
Never mind the blood and the gore;
It's important that people believe,
In a Beast of Bodmin Moor.
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Paul Burgess: A Hipster's Tasting Notes
This lovely wine contains some notes
Of nut-encrusted mountain goats;
A touch of dainty lemongrass
Atop a cracker served at Mass;
A dash of bikes collecting dust
With reddish coats of peeling rust;
And drops of softly falling rain
That soak a melancholy Dane.
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Bruce McGuffin: Oops!
I was walking upstairs, but I’m on the wrong floor.
My apartment's like yours, it's the very same door.
And the door was unlocked. I'd say that's a mistake.
You don't know who'll walk in. Could be some kind of flake.
I know this is all kind of, well, creepy seeming.
I'll just back out now, there's no need for that screaming.
Sometimes these things happen. That's just how it goes.
But me, when I'm cooking, I like to wear clothes.
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Steven Kent No, It's Fine
I never send back food
It seems a little rude,
And some young kitchen dude
With too much attitude
Could choose to throw a fit on it
Or maybe go and spit on it;
Heck, he could try to sit on it,
Or, worse still , even . . .
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Paul Burgess: How to Be an Oligarch
If wealth is what you're hoping to amass,
then kneel and kiss the leader's wrinkled ass
until you've left a rosy hickey mark,
and that's the way to be an oligarch.
(The riches won by being Leader's fan
are only for the wealthy gal or man.
The rest receive the gift of taking pride
in being pawns on Mighty Leader's side.)
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B. N. Faraj: He Even Fired The Chicken
The Tesla mogul let her go
because she laid one egg a day.
You wouldn't think he’d stoop so low
and rush to send her on her way.
No moulting was allowed, no breaks,
no sleep, no resting in the pen.
You’d think that one is all it takes –
instead of one, he wanted ten!
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Tracy Davidson: A Household Rule
Of course you can play on your phone . . .
once all your chores are completed.
Don't glare at me now, and don't moan.
Of course you can play on your phone,
as soon as you've proved you are grown.
My husband retreats, defeated.
Of course he can play on his phone,
once all his chores are completed.
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Alan Millichip: A Half-Hearted Protester
I struggle to feel the passion,
I don't think my heart's in the fight;
These things are best left to others,
I really can't tell wrong from right.
Looking closely at the picture,
I remember how my heart sank;
I found the issues quite complex,
Which is why my placard is blank.
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Tony Peyser: Thomas Alva Edison
All of the things he came up with changed
Everything in sight:
The phonograph, the motion picture camera,
The electric light.
But Edison, significantly hard
Of hearing, made
A mistake not also inventing
The hearing aid.
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Alex Steelsmith: Larger Than Death
(When William the Conqueror died,
his body famously became so swollen
it didn’t fit into his stone sarcophagus
in the Abbey of Saint-Étienne.)
Prominent, dominant
William the Conqueror
died, but his bellicose
spirit remained;
still an expansionist
post-existentially,
even in death he could
not be contained.
