I’M UNDOCUMENTED

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

Metro UK, November 25, 2024

I pass you on the street. I can't be missed.

My presence is as real as yours to see,

Until you tell me that I don't exist:

Not dead, and not unborn, but sans ID,

Denied a passport by officialdom—

Officialdom whose rules insist that I'm

Called immigrant, and hence that I am from

Un-British parts where I've spent zero time.

My twenty-six long years of legal non-

Existence in my country will retard

Not only me: a nation prospers on

The worth of all, like me, who can work hard...

Except that I'm undocumented, and

Don't qualify—nor do I understand.

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His acrostic poems have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Better Than Starbucks, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Daily Mail, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, The New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, the Satirist, The Washington Post, and WestWard Quarterly.

JORGE BERGOGLIO

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

Pope Francis on Saturday inducted 20 cardinals from around the world, choosing men who mostly agree with his vision of a more progressive and inclusive Church and influencing their choice of his eventual successor. —Reuters, August 27, 2022

Pope Francis [born Jorge Bergoglio] says he wouldn't live in the Vatican or return to his native Argentina if and when he ever retires. ABC News, July 12, 2022

Joe Ratzinger's a marvel. He gets ten

Off me for walking when his sun had set—

Retiring from his job as pontiff when

God told him he was past it—though he'd get

Eleven if the saintly fellow would

Be called, not Benedict, but Joe the Pope

Emeritus, and twelve if Joseph could

Remember his white cassocks are a nope!...

Go back to Argentina, or be found

On Vatican estates, if I step down?

Good heavens, no! Don't let me hang around,

Let Jorge hold confessions in the town

If he retires... But I'm not going yet—

Or you'll get some hardliner I'll regret!

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His acrostic sonnets have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Better Than Starbucks, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Daily Mail, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, The New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, the Satirist, The Washington Post, and WestWard Quarterly.

THE GOOD SAMARITAN

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

An athlete, who cleared hurdles with great ease,

Got ready for the most important race

Of his career by streaming melodies

On board a bus to take him to the place

Decided on. But he relaxed too good!

Soon he was miles from where he should alight

And, if he took official guidance, would

Miss any chance of setting matters right.

And then a Good Samaritan appeared,

Re-routing him and stepping in to pay ...

In life, for certain hurdles to be cleared,

The stranger's kindness proves the only way,

As this man, with Olympic gold to own,

Now tells. He did not win his gold alone!

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University. His acrostic sonnets have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Better Than Starbucks, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Daily Mail, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, The New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, the Satirist, the Washington Post and WestWard Quarterly.