Throwback Thursday: The Most Famous Sonnetations

When William fell in love, and love again,

He found his feelings weren't requited, quite.

The lady dark, he'd never see again;

The lovely boy avoided him for spite.

But in imagination, both of them,

Enraptured by his ev'ry honeyed word

Responded warmly to his charméd pen,

In such a way as all of us have heard

Who've drunk with him. Indeed, we've heard enough.

We want to tell him, man, just stick to plays.

Your wife and son have really got it rough

Just as things are. Your wand'ring eye and ways

Are getting old. Nobody wants to read

Your whiny poems, which fulfil no need!

Weird Wednesday: Inbreeding? You Decide

At last the resource needed for to learn
Important truths existed: time machines!
A grant approved, a crew was sent to burn
Their names into pure Science Legend, deans
And tenured types, and grad students, all went
Into the past, disguised as being from
A made-up planet. Subjects who'd been bent
Enough to vote for Drumpf were made to come
Aboard their "spacecraft" to be probed back there.
The study took some forty years of toil,
And when their sampling was complete, much care,
Analysis and fact-checking each coil
Of DNA thus taken did suggest
Familial links 'mongst the race's "best."

Satire Sunday: Empty Calories, Part II

"Our customers are not that foolish," said
Fegredo Beck, the Virtease CEO,
When news of shoppers' fates began to spread.
"You'll find its not our doing, as you know."
But soon leaked files proved that 'twas his idea
To phase out the fulfillment side of things --
Not outsource it, but "just axe it," as Sofia,
His majordomo, bluntly phrased it. "Brings
It all into perspective, don't it?" cried
The outraged classes. Soon, though, Virtease made
The matter go away with one great lie:
Those customers whose deaths the world had laid
At Virtease' door, themselves had not been real!
"That's just how good our tech is now, we feel."

Sci Fi Saturday: Empty Calories

We all knew VR shopping would be big,
Once all the masses could afford the tech,
Or build their own (hello there, Cardboard rig!).
But one entrepreneur, Fegredo Beck
Saw further than the others in his field.
The pleasure got from shopping was the key;
What really would increase shareholder yield
Would be to isolate this. Soon delivery
Of things to customers was taken out
Of the equation. Goods both bought and sold
Were simply in the cloud. This brought about
Some consequences, though, no one foretold:
Among the goods were such delicious food
That people starved in their apartments. Crude.

Weird Wednesday: The Right Fairy Tale

The seeds she'd planted simply wouldn't sprout,
And soon she noticed that the water's taste
Was foul straight from the tap. She asked about
And no one's garden seemed to flourish. Waste?
Pollution? Effluent? What was the cause?
No scientist could answer that; no test
Could tell just what had happened. All the laws
Protecting their environment -- the best
In any region -- all were working well.
Yet e'en the bees and butterflies had failed.
At last a chance remark -- "So this is hell" --
Revealed what had occurred. A demon, jailed
In ages ere the Flood, had broken free
And cursed the land and soil -- all it could see.

Sci-Fi Saturday: The Lowest Bidder

A brand-new suit of power armor should
Be something to enjoy, to go test out
What's possible when wearing it. A good
Corpsman would be already sure about
Its strengths and weaknesses, or so she told
Herself as she stared blankly at the thing
To which she'd trust her life out in the cold
Of space or heat of battle. Then a spring
Popped out of its left shoulder joint. "Oh, crap,"
Said Carol. And then she said more as it
Began to shuffle toward her and a strap
Fell off the helmet. "What a piece of spit!"
She checked the paperwork again and saw
'Twas made on Earth. And then it broke her jaw.

Mystery Monday: An Interesting Investment Opportunity

How had he made his money? No one knew,
But when his new consultancy hung out
A shingle, with results too great for true
Credulity, no one could talk about
One other thing. Soon nearly everyone
In their exclusive neighborhood had placed
Their finances in Bif's hands. His new fund
Had made the rich more rich still, had outpaced
The famous ones. Meanwhile, more locally,
Kidnappings up and down the coast had leant
A frisson to their days. Bif charged no fee
Which left them liquid when those notes were sent
Demanding ransoms. Never was there made
Connection 'twixt these facts, as all got paid.

Satire Sunday: Poopy Presidential Pandering: The Heloise McKenna Story

The primary was just a day away,
And per the Great Experiment, the start
Of this most silly season gave the sway
To those most loosely scattered, in the heart
Of their vast continent. Of those who sought
The paltry stand of delegates, not one
Had been to this high, cold and windy spot
The railroads made Wyoming. "This looks fun!"
Said Heloise, while her opponent, Sam,
Took up the fork (in lieu of a debate,
Real bullshit slinging was the contest). "Damn!
That stuff can fly. But boy, it sure smells great..."
Her foolish words, repeated far and wide
Led to Sam's win, by a manure-slide.