POEM: NEWS OF THE WORLD #2

PINCUSHION DAYCARE! (Knit Jim Jones a mohair.)

Discount-babies sacrificed at cost.

It’s Belgian awful. No! No more waffles!

Just tell me where I can get lost.

Kim’s early warning, like that global warming,

are a bicycle that’s built for two.

We peddle faster towards a real disaster.

Either way our children’s lips turn blue.

Movie trailers of Vlad-the-Impaler,

or monsters in Hollywood hillsides?

“Slash her if she peeps, or even weeps.

We do our carving here with pride.”

Creatures in lagoons. Duelling at noon.

In colour or in old black and white.

They give us our times, no matter the rhyme.

So what is so wrong that’s not right?

Suzie Sweet-Suck, a very elite freak-fuck, says,

“Hey, ya pay for what ya gets, ya know!”

Along Aids Highway, the witch doctor, he say,

“And as ye rape, so shall ye sow.”

News from the jungle—a CNN bumble:

BLOOD FLOWERS GROW BEST WHERE IT’S HOT

War lords declare. (Really, we don’t care.)

Go find your own Camelot.

Houses burning, children are learning

hate before the recess bell.

Something in-womb? More like a tomb—

a jack-in-the-box from hell.

Lipo this fat, jury-rig, such that

suspenders will take care of the rest.

Mitochondrial? It’s not just historical!

Two-leggers are the world’s phat pest.

Snivelling polar bears. Flu season arrives there

like Jake Marley’s ghost on the twelve.

Ice-cube magnates—see them roller skate

year-round with Santa and his elves.

ATOMIC ENERGY’S A GLUE! Hey, that’s new.

(At least in Nineteen Forty-Nine.)

Those atomic pencils and radioactive stencils,

are all keeping us kids in line.

Strontium 90 dusts earth lightly.

(Bet you could see that one from space!)

An alien recall? Or a saucer U-Haul?

It’s a get-out-of-Dodge sort of race.

Little babies, so soon to be maybes.

It’s seasoning the genetic stew.

Leave it to chance? (Hey, that’s for ants!)

We need to have dibs on what’s new.

Like that Trojan horse, it’s a matter, of course,

that we wait for the other shoe to drop.

At night with stealth, we’ll loot their wealth,

being both crook and cop.

Crop mutations? Rise, Insect Nation!

Like those giant ants from Them!

Flying womb-dooms? New cars go zoom-zoom!

How did we think it would end?

Burning tires, deadly desires,

angels dance on the head of a pin.

Great War planning to retinal scanning—

What won’t we do to win?

Babies on trikes, mothers on bikes;

dads in their best Sunday best.

Pope says no go. (No latex after-glow.)

But will we still want room for the rest?

    

"Beaver is almost done, Dear. 
Nice and tender--just how you like it."

I STARTED WRITING News of the World (NoW) poems several years ago. As you might guess, some images come directly from current events I happen to be reading about, hyperventilating over or staring at, gob-smacked with disbelief. (We've all been there, fake news or not.) I try using different meters, rhyme schemes and line lengths for interest, and to challenge and discipline me.
Jim Jones, for those who are way too young, was a cult leader in the 1970's who led his followers in a mass suicide in Guyana. The "pincushion daycare", Belgian reference is about a nutbar over there who murdered a bunch of children at a daycare. (And who hasn't wanted, one time or another, to slice and dice the most precious and dearest among us?) "Kim" is that crazy old North Korean ruler Kim Jon-il (not to be confused with his even crazier son, Kim Jong-un, the current "Dear Leader"). The Hollywood hills references (at least in my potted mind) is about Charles Manson and his lovely band of followers. I'll let you work out the rest.
     Anyway, I like the format because it allows me to rant on just about any gosh-darn thing I want! By gumbies!

Cheers, Jake.