A shortage of computer chips is keeping automakers from producing enough cars to meet rising demand. Used cars are scarce, too. (NYT)

 

"You gotta a car?"

"You gotta a car?"

The query echoes

near and far.

No matter what the price of gas --

America must drive en masse!

And dealerships both new and used

are feeling frightened and abused.

Those little dinky chips that we

took for granted stupidly

are scarce as hen's teeth nowadays,

leading to unfilled driveways.

Even junkers drivers crave

and caution for old lemons waive.

With passions running high and hearty

a car thief gets a necktie party!

When oh when will chips return?

When can rubber we all burn?

Woe is me, has fate decreed

returning to velocipede? 

No! It shall not happen thus --

our wheels are not superfluous!

We must have Ford and Lexus too --

while greenhouse gas goes up the flu!

Lindsey Graham pledges to ‘go to war’ for Chick-fil-A amid Notre Dame protest. (WaPo)

 

The chicken wars have started;

Lindsey Graham will recruit

thousands to his banner

where they'll march and stab and shoot.

Defending fast food fryers

that are godly and sincere

is what this Senate stalwart

sees as his agenda clear.

He wants no die-verse french fries;

he scorns the rainbow shake.

And he intends his nuggets

to not become fruitcake.

So rally 'round his ensign

and join the jubilee --

as Graham of the Bombast

proclaims faux victory!

Prose Poem: Why it's a dangerous time to be an old thing in America.

 

I had an old recliner that was taken away

and shot.

Then they came for my TV trays.

I fought them over my aged

cheddar cheese --

they handcuffed me to a 

steam calliope

before squishing the cheese

under their jackboots.

Interesting fact:

circus people pronounce the word

'kal-EE-ope.'

But of course steam 

calliopes,

however you pronounce them,

are a retro-terrorist threat,

and there are now none left.

Not even in museums.

But it all came apart when

they tried to pull down the Moon.

That thing's been around billions of years.

But when the men of liberal science tried

to pull it down with radio-magnetic waves

the Moon just went into a more elliptical 

orbit --

disrupting the tides and speeding up

global warming.

Icebergs didn't melt, exactly.

Somehow the bergs got heavier and sank

to the bottom of the ocean,

crushing the krill breeding grounds.

Then they sent men up to the Moon in

rockets to nuke it. 

Boy, they really hated that old Moon

because it has seen so much tyranny,

rape, slavery, and colonialism

and has never said a peep against it.

But here's the thing --

nuclear weapons won't work on 

the Moon --

something to do with the gravity

and atmosphere.

So they erected a statue to 

Everlasting Peace,

made out of the unexploded nuclear bombs,

in the Tycho crater.  

It's a great tourist attraction.

Tucker Carlson (from a story by Tiffany Hsu in the NYT.)

 

Tucker Carlson on Fox News

makes it plain he will not choose

any vaccination rising

from the medics he's despising.

Flying in the face of fact,

doing it with little tact,

Tucker Carlson on Fox News

is working quite a deadly ruse

on his fans who put their faith

in this television wraith.

Willful mass misinformation

could be the death yet of our nation . . . 

A new and rapidly growing Christian movement is openly political, wants a nation under God’s authority, and is central to Donald Trump’s GOP. (WaPo)

 

An apostolic reformation

now is sweeping all the nation;

mega-churches behind Trump

want to use a stomach pump,

draining sin from ev'ry belly

that has swallowed poisoned jelly

from the far left atheists --

demons full of hellish cysts!

Mercy Culture and the like

now are coming down the pike,

wielding swords of rectitude --

defying Satan's attitude.

Sharia law, based on the Bible,

they'll give to us, if only tribal.

One nation under God again --

where all must bow and say 'amen.'

I wish I felt more certitude

that Heaven is this dumb and crude . . . 

Poem on Joe Heim's Tweet About Procrastination.

 

What more there is to say

I will wait another day

on procrastinating trends

I don't have, but all my friends

are afflicted day and night --

all they ever say is 'might.'

They 'might' do a thing or not --

maybe next week if they're caught

with no valid reason why

it's not done and they can't lie.

On the other hand there's me,

full of prompt integrity;

When I say I'll do a thing

I begin on angel's wing

and 'tis done before you blink.

That includes the kitchen sink.

And the secret of my snap

I'll tell once I've had a nap . . . 

And perhaps a bag of chips

while I watch some YouTube clips.

So come back some time or other

and I'll teach you dispatch, brother.

This Poem is for John Reinan's Tweet.

 "According to several news consumers, I am dumb woke pathetic alt-left fucking trash. I plead guilty to being woke, since 6:30 this morning."

Journalists must have tough hides

and fearless consciences besides.

Since the rise of tweets and posts

reporters get more knocks than boasts.

Even mild pacific readers

call some writers mother breeders.

Civil discourse, it's well known,

has gone the way of the rotary phone.

Readers of such brutal scope

need mouths washed out with laundry soap.

I'm glad I'm not the Fourth Estate;

I don't like their attrition rate.

A Poem to Heather Long About Rent Prices.

 

"33 percent rent increases and bidding wars on rentals are the new norm in some parts of America as reopening comes with big price hikes"

Heather Long.  WaPo.  

What goes up and don't come down

is rent in any average town.

America is dispossessed

as renters become very stressed

as landlords jack the rental price

of places that would offend mice.

Housing is so tight that you

would think we're back in World War Two.

Since people can't afford high rent

and haven't got an extra cent

let's give each new born babe a tent

to live in when they're senescent. 

This Poem is for Sophie Haigney's Tweet. July 9.

 "Nothing like the extreme stress of trying to take a vacation :("

the bags are packed but I forgot

my toothbrush and my train of thought

this holiday is meant for peace

but that will take some elbow grease

eating out is still chaotic

and the wait staff still sclerotic

hotel rooms, airbnb --

there's no bath towels or soap, you see

any way you travel finds

some passengers who've lost their minds

and you'll begin to lose yours, too

with nerves that jump like kangaroo

when you travel with a crony

all you'll find is acrimony

vacationing this day and age

is stationary -- gah! -- road rage.

This Poem is for John Tevlin's Tweet.

 "Proud of myself. Managed to avoid a fistfight in the Home Depot parking lot by referring to myself as a senior citizen."

John Tevlin is a mighty man

who takes no guff at all.

Whether at Home Depot

or a poshy shopping mall.

He'd stand up to a woman;

he'd stand up to a child;

he'd stand up to a shopping cart

and not be very mild.

Toe to toe with he men,

he'd snap his fingers -- thus!

Then ask to be directed

to the nearest Senior bus.

With cane and large bifocals

he rules above the yokels.

Let us praise him

with our vocals!

Oh, that wily Johnny T.

Wish I was as old as he.

But I'm still quite young enough

to run away like scared cream puff.