Guidelines



Submission Guidelines: Send unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com. No simultaneous submissions. Use "Verse News Submission" as the subject line. Send a brief bio. No payment. Authors retain all rights after 1st-time appearance here. Scroll down the right sidebar for the fine print.

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

A POLICEMAN'S LOT . . .


by George Held
 
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Forget about getting a job as a police officer 
in Indonesia's Papua if you have had your penis enlarged.

Coppers who would serve in Papua
Mustn’t grow their genitalia:

A penis enlarged by wearing a gourd,
Which stretches it mightily groundward,

Or wishfully wrapped in the leaves
Of the gatal-gatal (“itchy”) tree

So it swells as if stung by a bee,
Is irregular paraphernalia

And will make applicants, inter alia,
Unfit as personae non grata.


George Held has collected many of his New Verse News poems in The News Today.
__________________________________________