[Douglas G. Brown]

"Maybe Sirus is the reason behind Anthony Weiner's out-of-control behavior; he is, perhaps, simply more sensitive to the influence of the stars than other politicians."

Well, Weiner certainly has shown himself to be a dog (no offense to dog lovers intended) ...


The streets of New York can be mean ones, indeed,
But some things can get even meaner;
As when Anthony lowered his zipper, and freed
His great and magnificent wiener.

The cyberspace pictures of Anthony’s junk,
Though depraved, on the ’net were allowed.
“No publicity’s bad”, Weiner’s handlers had thunk,
(Which they’d learned from the Hollywood crowd.)

He aspired to heights of political clout
And entered the candidates’ brawl;
(If you haven’t seen Anthony’s wiener stuck out,
You’ve never seen nothin’ at all.)

Thus Anthony built his political base;
High praise of their leader, they’ve sung,
And prayed that New York would be granted the grace
Of a mayor so splendidly hung.

[John Whitworth]

I think I have a clue to Lucy' thinking. She gives as an example of the knd of thing she wants JBS Haldane's verse on his cancer. So I might ofer this. There is nothing as serious as one's imminent demise.

Procedure

It goes like this, the doctor said,
You must lie down upon this bed
Erected in a place apart
And we will open up your heart.
I asked, re-buttoning my shirt,
But will I die and will it hurt?
He laughed, don’t even think of it.
It will not hurt one little bit.
And for the other, my oh my,
I guarantee you will not die.
A month or two, you will be fine.
I signed upon the dotted line,
He seemed a pleasant sort of bloke.

It did hurt and I didn’t croak.

[Brian Allgar]

John, you must give up using naughty words. I'm sure that's why you get all these BANNED POSTs.

I like this, but I feel I've seen it before somewhere. Is it in one of your books? (No reason why it shouldn't be, of course - I simply wanted to know.)

[Nigel Mace]

Moved by the mighty name of Haldane, I suddenly saw this could go in very different directions, so.....

LIGHT-HEADED LUNCH

“They want to leave Europe! - a concept unsound
as draining the Channel, or renting the pound
to shore up their mortgage, or getting around
to harvesting poppies on Lord's cricket ground
and then undercutting the drugs that they’ve found
now fund Al-Qaeda! That’s what they expound!”

His Lordship was snorting – not that way, of course –
while clubmen, post lunch, came to hear his discourse
on blue water loonies who’d borrow a horse
from tabloidy totties who showed scant remorse
for hacking the mobiles of victims of force
to please a Yank/Aussie. “And now it’s divorce,”
continued His Lordship, “and rumours abound.
They’ll yet sell our birthrights… for shares in the Bourse!”

“It may not seem likely, but often I’ve found
you can’t rule it out... while this lot’s around.”

[John Whitworth]

You may well have seen it before, Brian. It's an old thing. Or at least not a young thing.

[Adrian Fry]

Should one talk of the Big C or boldly call it cancer?
The latter is the tack for me, but you’ll have your own answer.
Should Big C suit your humour, it may (just) cushion the blow
But if harbouring a tumour, it’s the truth I’d sooner know.

[Adrian Fry]

One day, I couldn’t find my keys
And went upstairs to look for these
But getting there, forgetting what
I’d come for, found that I could not.

And then, forgetting, to my shame,
What I was upstairs for, my name
And almost all worldly affairs,
I went to look for them downstairs.

On getting there, could not recall
Quite who had come, where, or what for.
To summon back my waning powers
I stood, woolgathering, for hours.

I missed, therefor, by being late,
With Doctor Alzheimer a date
At which he’d say I’d his disease.
I’d better go: where are my keys?

[Nigel Mace]

Lovely Adrian - only, how did you remember enough to write this down?

Oh - OK, I know the answer - you can't remember!

[Mary McLean]

It strikes me this might be as good an outing as any for my love poem about paramedics and Dignitas. At least for once mine won't be the rudest entry Lucy gets.

Kisses

A paramedic gives the kiss of life,
a practiced and impersonal salute
that resurrects. When backup teams arrive,
Prince Charming carries on along his route.

At Dignitas they give the kiss of death.
To dole out poison’s just a daily job.
For comfort and to ease your bitter breath
they pop a chocolate in your dying gob.

Although this may be lovers’ blasphemy,
to diss the life-and-deathness of your kisses,
just pucker up, put down that cup of tea,
come over here, and plant one on the missus.

[Nigel Mace]

Another excellent relief from all the rather sordid stuff this thread seemed set to wallow in - and rather unnecessarily I thought. Lovely punch lines.