Martin Parker: Sweet Extraction
Fuddily-duddily
Werther’s Originals
chewed on by old folk
with sets of false teeth
could, with embarrassing
simultaneity,
pull out their gnashers
above and beneath.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Christopher Uhl: Cognitive Test
Trump claims he's aced five in a row
He says that they're a breeze
There's really not much to them –
They're not the SATs.
Yes, he can draw a clock face
And point out giraffe and bear
But proving it so often,
He fails the test right there.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Jane Blanchard: Yet Another Project
Rollers on a window are worn out.
Hubby wants to put replacements in.
“Such an easy job,” he has no doubt.
Tolerance, for me, is rather thin.
Changes in the game plan aren’t abrupt.
Later, though, his play-by-play gets nixed.
I am rude enough to interrupt:
“All I need to know is that it’s fixed.”
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Henry Stimpson: RIP Len
I read about the death of Len.
A great fellow. Smart and witty.
We never met. That’s not a pity.
We often chatted on the phone.
Business, but a rambling tone.
Several years since we last spoke:
now no more times to share a joke.
I must say: he was, not has been.
I’ll soon join Len. Not if, but when.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
David Seddon: No Plants were Harmed in the Making of this Poem,
or How to Let a Monocarpic Plant Flower at Least Once
Sea rocket, bugloss, and agave
came home with me last year,
and now fade in the yard
near a row of pots
where the cat likes to disappear.
If I uproot the bastards
it will give me reason
to return to the spots
they’ll flower a season.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Moray McGowan: Make America Garden Again
The people begged me to stay on, no lies,
But being even more modest than I’m wise,
At the end of my triumphant second term,
I pocketed some incentives but stayed firm.
I took up gardening, and clearly not in vain.
I Made the Avocado Great Again
And my Eggplant grew so fastly fatter
It silenced the establishment chatter
And my monument, when all is told,
Will be an Aubergine of Solid Gold.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Michael Calvert: See How They Run
They run in rain, they run in heat,
they run with blisters on their feet,
a few of them are so devout
they run until their hearts give out.
And when they congregate, they boast
about which muscle hurts the most,
about the tendons they have ripped,
and metatarsal bones they’ve chipped.
If you don’t run, they’ll say you should,
because it makes you feel so good.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Joanna Bird: Jane Eyre in a Nutshell
Abusive childhood, dying friend,
True love, but wife who’s round the bend,
So wedding off – a downward trend.
Then met some cousins at Marsh End,
Kind folk on whom I could depend,
(But didn't marry the Reverend).
A voice I couldn't comprehend . . .
It’s Rochester! A true godsend!
He’s blind, though that will surely mend.
Reader, I married him. The End.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Bruce Rogowski: Courtesies
When I’m out driving in the neighbourhood
And spot a friend and slow and stop to chat,
An unseen timer trips a countdown that
Invariably ends when someone pulls
Behind me and stops, waiting: patiently,
As if graciously signalling that we
Should carry on; or seething in silence.
Which one it is I have no gift for knowing;
But either way, I know I should be going.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Paul Burgess: Young and Old
They say that greater innocence and truths
are apt to dwell inside the hearts of youths.
Yet, many stallions chief among the dolts
were also shallow, wicked little colts
who’ll later turn to elders seen as wise
for having used the years to hone their lies
and pet assumptions thought to grow more certain
because the speaker’s near the final curtain.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Felicia Nimue Ackerman: Let-Down for a Cat-Lover
(“Thousands of Mice Swarm Parts of Western Australia
in a ‘Mouse Plague’”– The New York Times, 12. 6. 2026)
To end Australia’s plague of mice
I thought that felines might suffice.
But then I learned to my dismay
That even cats can’t save the day.
Since roaming cats do widespread harm,
Which gives us cause for much alarm,
I wish that they could be precise
And target just the plague of mice.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
D. R. Goodman: After The Reading, A Trill
The poets speak of ageing, and of birds;
make wry, self-conscious jokes, their common themes
unplanned, predictable. In sculpted words
they mine a single feathered fate, it seems.
It’s standing room, a sea of silver hair
and strangers. Afterward I stroll away
alone, and hear a trilling in the air:
a Nuttall’s woodpecker! It makes my day.
