Topical Acrostic Sonnets

 Of Course I Do, Yes

 Of course I sympathize with Greta T's
 Frustration—blah, blah, blah is all she hears!
 Can talking fix COP26? Well, Jeez!
 Old leaders have just talked for thirty years,
 Unwilling to take action, so our youth
 Rebel ... It isn't helpful, though, to be
 So keen to vandalize—I wish, in truth,
 Extinction R would take their cues from me:
 I drive a car that runs on wine and cheese,
 Desist from meat and fish two days a week,
 Off dairy stay another day, plant trees
 Year round, and get some hydro from my creek ...
 Expect no comment, though, on Boris J—
 Since I'd regret, when king, what I might say!

 (Prompted by this article and first published in Light on
  October 18, 2021 as one of the Poems of the Week)
 The Bird In A Bush

 Throughout the lore of English countryside,
 Home topiary's an art that has been prized—
 Except by one whose eyes were mortified
 By what a green-thumbed gardener devised
 In Warwickshire: a middle-finger shrub
 Raised 10 feet high to flip the bird, in jest,
 Directly opposite a village pub
 In Warton. For two decades, it impressed.
 Now someone wants to kill the goose that laid
 A golden egg—more tourists at the inn—
 By chopping down the shrub. So calls were made
 Upon the gardener. But he won't bin
 Street art he's groomed for decades as a joke—
 His bush still flips the bird at prudish folk!

 (Prompted by this article and first published in the
  New Verse News on November 3, 2021)
 A Romp In The City

 A once polluted isle where trees were few
 Reforested and minimized its rate
 Of bay pollution. Greater green and blue
 Made Singapore the garden city state.
 Pollution meant no otter romps. Today,
 In Singapore, they roam the city streets.
 No fishpond's safe when owners are away:
 The otter is not coy—koi's what it eats!
 Home owners losing koi may be displeased.
 Ecologists, however, are beguiled:
 Concern for wildlife would be greatly eased
 If city life could coexist with wild ...
 To keep your koi from otters isn't hard—
 You just erect high walls around your yard!

 (First published in Current Conservation on 17th October,
  2022 with illustrations by Megha Vinod. Story here)
 Classic Con Game

 Come listen to the news from my red box:
 Low-income earners, you will soon regain
 A third of what last month's reduction docks
 Since, as your Chancellor, I feel your pain—
 So what if my wife's richer than the Queen?
 If you're a climate activist ... well, I
 Cut taxes on domestic flights. That's green—
 COP26 is cheaper now to fly
 Off to! ... Prosecco drinkers, you will see
 New tax relief—though if you're jobless, you
 Get no more cash. But optimism's free,
 And you'll get lots from me, from Boris too ...
 My boss distracts, your pocket's what I pick—
 Exchequers play your classic con-game trick!

 (Prompted by this article and first published in Light on
  November 1, 2021 as one of the Poems of the Week)
 Halloween Haunt

 Heathrow is where a witch will hitch a ride
 At dusk on Halloween. She'll leave the ground
 Laid flat beneath a jumbo's underside—
 Latched safely to the plane, she's Boston-bound.
 On Halloween, this witch, whose children fled
 West long ago to haunt the States at night,
 Embarks upon a trip that she'd find dead
 Exhausting if she used her broom all flight.
 Nocturnal pilots have no means to see
 Her broom and she are stowed below the rear
 And flying to America for free—
 Until they land, and then she does appear,
 Not one bit weary, whizzing through the air
 To greet her waiting grandkids with a scare!

 (First published on October 31, 2021 in the
  Creativity Webzine. Reprinted in the Ekphrastic
  Review
on 1st November, 2024 as a response to
  The Old Hall by John Anster Fitzgerald)
 Do As I Say And Not ...

 Do as I say and not as I once said:
 Old Daily Telegraphs record my sneers
 At crusties—which I hope you haven't read,
 Since I've now U-turned over climate fears!
 In doomsday terms, it's almost midnight now.
 So bike or walk, ride trains, ditch coal, don't tilt
 At windmill power. Eat more vegan chow—
 You must unstitch our suffocating quilt
 At once, or stand no chance of racing to
 Net zero well before it's far too late! ...
 Do as I say and not as I can do:
 No train can get me to my dinner date
 On time. So I will fly—and you will see
 That rules I make do not apply to me!

 (Prompted by this article and first published in Light on
  November 8, 2021 as one of the Poems of the Week)



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