ON READING THE OBITUARY OF A “PRANKSTER WHO THREW PIES AT THE POWERFUL”

by Joan Blessing

The New York Times, September 7, 2026

Imagine America’s

most tempting target

for a slapstick attack.

 

And what kind of pie

in the face of pomposity

masquerading as populism?

 

Rhubarb is fitting

for his tartness of tongue,

pecan appropriately nutty.

 

Apple pie’s too wholesome.

A perennial favorite

sends the wrong message.

 

Pumpkin comes close,

gone with a fleeting season

and the color orange is a match…

 

On him no humble pie would stick.

More pie in the sky won’t do the trick.

Cow pie? Mud pie? What is left?

For delivery with sufficient heft

the best projectile to let fly:

four and twenty billionaires baked in a pie.

Joan Blessing is a poet living in New York City. Originally from Ohio, she spent many years in New Jersey where she raised a family, earned a J.D. from Rutgers Law School, worked in publishing and public policy, and began to learn the craft of poetry. Most of her poems evolve slowly over time but occasionally a current event prompts her to speed up the process.

VERONIKA

by Frank Conahan

Scientists have been forced to rethink the intelligence of cattle after an Austrian cow named Veronika displayed an impressive—and until now undocumented—knack for tool use. Photo: Veronika scratching her back with a stick. Photographer: Antonio J Osuna Mascaró —The Guardian, January 19, 2026

I was reading that

A cow in Austria is

Using a stick to

Scratch various parts of her

Body. She holds it

Differently in her mouth to

Reach her itchy parts. 

This is news because she's not

A chimp. They do stuff

Like this all the time, it seems. 

Animals who have

Intelligence of different 

Degrees use tools with

Different sophistication. 

Dogs and cats play with

Toys, slippers, sticks, and corpses.

Ravens manipulate

Stones. Chimps employ weaponry.

Why are we surprised?

Intelligent animals 

Use tools, look at us.

We're practically destroying 

The planet with ours.

(Intelligence is... complex.)

I hope the cow is

Enjoying celebrity.

She could be dinner soon.

Frank Conahan lives in reclusive retirement outside of Baltimore, Maryland. He follows current events with trepidation and copes by writing verse. He has recently published poems with Bards of Maryland. His collection Nothing Is Coming will be published this spring.

WHAT PEOPLE MEAN WHEN THEY SAY LATER

by Devon Balwit

The headlines scream of war and child labor,
the ways humans brutalize each other. The authors
hope to shame us out of apathy. Near
their blare gapes a book with a cow on the cover.
Her long-lashed eyes make this reader hunger
to press my face to hers. She’s been slaughtered,
one of tens of millions every year, numbers
too large to render back into individual creatures,
a fact, with our favorite and customary foods, we prefer
to ignore. We ought care more for human mothers
some argue—for farmers and workers, for the poor,
who cannot afford to eat ethically. Later
we can worry about animal welfare. Later, 
my friends, is a common synonym for never.

Devon Balwit walks in all weather. Her most recent collection is Spirit Spout [Nixes Mate Books, 2023].