COMMON-TATER COMMENTATOR

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

A book-keeper whose boss repeatedly shouted the word "potato" at her "in a strong Irish accent" has been awarded more than £23,000 by an employment tribunal after it found she had been racially harassed. —BBC, March 11,2026

Potato is

The racial slur

An Irish Ms

Got hurled at her

Repeatedly:

Her spud-brained boss

Turned out to be

An albatross.

But Bernadette,

Though sore abashed,

Refused to let

Her worth get mashed

And went to court.

Now judgment's sealed.

Long story short:

His spud got peeled!

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His poems have appeared in Current Conservation, the Ekphrastic Review, Light, Lighten Up Online, The New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, WestWard Quarterly, and several other journals. In 2025 he won the Children's Unpublished category of the Eyelands Book Awards with Flora’s Flock and Other Stories to Read Aloud.

ATTENTION SPANS

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

Ten years ago, a shocking headline captured the world’s attention: “Human beings now have an attention span shorter than that of a goldfish!” This claim, though horrifying, was totally bogus. The stat in question—that our attention spans had shrunk to a meagre eight seconds—was founded on two spurious and unverified sources and widely spread by a Microsoft Ads “study” published in 2015… Even if we haven’t quite hit goldfish levels, is there some truth to the assertion that human attention spans are dwindling? The short answer is a resounding “yes”, according to research. —Independent (UK), December 14, 2025

Attention spans in humans have declined

Tremendously since tech bros honed their apps

To deluge us with clickbait that's designed

Expressly to cause frequent mental lapse,

Necessitating countermeasures that

Try earnestly to put the genie back

Inside the bottle, but a TikTok chat

Or YouTube video resists attack,

No matter how you try to disengage—

Safari, Chrome and Edge don't miss a trick:

Psychology will keep you on their page,

And amplify your brain rot as you click...

No antidote for dumbing down is known—

Save ditching both your laptop and your phone!

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

LOGIC DOWN THE DRAIN

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

Burcu Yesilyurt said enforcement officers told her it was illegal to dispose of the remnants of her coffee in a road gully. —BBC, October 22, 2025

The morning joe

That you don't drink,

At home, will flow

Down through your sink

To later meet

The coffee poured

Straight down a street-

Drain when you board

Your bus. Their slime

Pollutes the same,

But one's a crime,

One gets no blame...

The law's designs

Are out of bounds—

For coffee fines,

There are no grounds!

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

ABORTIFACIENCE

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

The Trump administration has just sent $10m worth of birth control to be burned—rather than donate it as aid. The supplies, including pills and implants, have already been paid for by US taxpayers—and will cost another $167,000 to destroy. —The Independent (UK), July 29, 2025

Abortifacience is a word you may

Be unaware of: it's the use of meds

Or other agents to abort. Today

Republicans—who are at loggerheads

This week with global charities about

Incinerating contraceptive aid

For Senegal—have used the word without

Awareness of its meaning: what's unmade

Can not abort. The condom, coil or pill

Is saving lives, not ending them. The stocks

Expire not soon. America pays nil—

Not one red cent—to ship them to the docks ...

Can you explain why they'd be set alight—

Excepting that the reason is pure spite?

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.

WELBY

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

The archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby, on Tuesday announced his resignation, days after a report concluded that he had failed to ensure a proper investigation into claims that more than 100 boys and young men were abused decades ago at Christian summer camps. —The New York Times, November 12, 2024

Welby may have seen faith as the key 

English Church teaching: faith means to be-

Lieve what cannot be seen—

But does not also mean

You can then not believe what you see!

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.

THE MICKEY MURAL

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

Murals of cartoon characters including Mickey Mouse and Baloo from The Jungle Book painted on the walls of an asylum seeker reception centre to welcome children have been removed on the orders of the immigration minister, Robert Jenrick. The murals were painted over because he thought they were too welcoming and sent the wrong message. —The Guardian, July 7, 2023

The Immigration chief on Team UK 

Has ordered: Whitewash walls—kids shouldn't be

Encouraged to feel welcome here if they

Migrated in small boats across the sea.

In Dover, staff demurred at playing ball.

Cartoons of Mickey Mouse and bear Baloo—

Kind gestures in a mural on a wall—

Extended caring hands of friendship to

Young kids, alone. But now those pictures are 

Misguidedly effaced. What art will go

Up in their place? Cruella? Scar? Jafar? ...

Right minds must feel embarrassed, since they know

An action that's appalling and absurd

Lets Britain down—and no child is deterred.

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.

A GOD-GIVEN RIGHT

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

Giving the middle finger is a “God-given right,” Canadian judge rules. —The Guardian, March 10, 2023

A judge has ruled that if you are Canuck,

God gave to you a fundamental right

Of self-expression: use what rhymes with duck,

Deployed with off. Although it's not polite,

Good manners maketh not the man who gets

Insulted by a neighbour with a grudge

Vindictively repeating epithets

Expressing scorn. According to the judge,

No crime's committed if you flip the bird,

Rebuffing smears. In all his decades while

In court, no feebler case was ever heard:

Good sense, he said, would see the case's file

Hurled out the window——but, in Montreal,

The courthouse has no windows, none at all!

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.

LIZ THE TERRIBLE

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

Liz Truss is Brits' prime minister du jour.

Inquiry's overrated in her book.

Zetetic minds were offered Liz's cure—

The Trussonomic leap before you look.

How Kwasi's top-rate tax cut tanked the pound

Escaped her, since she didn't do the sums

That would have shown her growth plan was unsound—

Except for Liz The Terrible's rich chums.

Research on trickle-down had long debunked

R. Reagan's fantasy. Though not for Liz.

In Economics One-Oh-One, she flunked,

Believing if you just say growth, growth is...

Liz did not last: her hare-brained stratagem

Exemplified how not to be PM!

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 BIRD IN A BUSH

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

A gardener who trimmed a 10ft hedge into a hand flipping the middle finger has been warned he faces police action if he doesn’t chop it down. —The Independent (UK), October 19, 2021

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!

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.

PLAYING FOOTSIE

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

Like many people, Mr Goxx is dabbling in cryptocurrency, hoping to strike it rich. He's notable for two reasons: first, he is making money, with his lifetime career performance up about 20% –beating many professional traders and funds. Second, Mr Goxx is a hamster. The business-minded rodent has a trading office attached to his regular cage. Every day, when he enters the office, a livestream starts on Twitch, and his Twitter account lets followers know: Mr Goxx has started a trading session. By running in his "intention wheel", he selects which cryptocurrency he'd like to trade, as the wheel spins through the different options. His office floor has two tunnels nearby: one for buy, one for sell. Every time he runs through a tunnel, the electronics wired to his office complete a trade according to Mr Goxx's desires. —BBC News, September 27, 2021

Pronounce F T S E the Footsie way,

Lest others think you're too naive to trade—

Although, as Fur Topped Stock Exchange, you may

Yet stupefy them with the gains you've made!

In Germany, a hamster, Mr. Goxx,

Negotiates his treadmill like a chess

Grand master, moving pieces of his stocks

From here to there to rival the success

Of Footsie and the Dow. By racing through 

Opposing tunnels, he can buy or sell

The cryptocurrency whose trade is due

So expertly, he makes his holdings swell ...

It makes you ask why Wall Street bank elites

Earn such high pay—for trades a hamster beats!

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.

MS. SOPHIE PENDER

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

Sophie Pender started The 93% Club when she was at Bristol University for students who felt discriminated against for not being rich and from private schools. Photograph: Graeme Robertson / The Guardian, March 6, 2021.

My name is Sophie. Don't look down on me!

So what, if you talk posh, and scorn low-cost?

Since I met you, at university,

Our paths have never frictionlessly crossed!

Posh accents and the privilege they buy

Have short-changed us poor chavs for far too long.

It's time the ninety-three percent decry

Entitlement for private schools as wrong! ...

Pooh-poohing state-school kids as unrefined,

Excluding us from chances to succeed,

No longer will be suffered by my kind——

Determined, as we are, that you will heed

Elitist education taught by me:

Remember to respect the Ninety-Three!

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University. His acrostic sonnets have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, The Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, the Satirist, and The Tallahassee Democrat. His limericks have appeared in Britain’s Daily Mail.