Ode to Odd

Of the second international workshop
on nude mice. People who don’t know they’re dead.
Weeds in a changing world – British crop
protection council. Start with your legs.

How to avoid huge ships. Bombproof your horse.
Developments in dairy cow breeding.
How to shit in the woods. Too naked for
the Nazis. Versailles – the view from Sweden.

The joy of sex – pocket edition. World
outlook for containers of fromage frais.
How to poo on a date. Reusing old
graves. Dental practice – the Genghis Khan way.

Introducing the Medieval ass.
A dog pissing at the edge of a path.

(Winners of the Booksellers/Diagram prize for the oddest title of the year)

We are as gods

He has coaxed his skin to produce
a fluorescent protein, ingested
a friend’s poop in a D.I.Y.
fecal-matter transplant, and attempted
to deactivate one of his genes
so that he could grow bigger muscles.

Inside the box, I found an assortment
of lab tools—pipette tips, petri dishes,
disposable gloves—as well as several
vials containing E. coli and all I’d need
to rearrange its genome.

Ants that can’t smell, beagles that put on
superhero-like brawn, pigs that resist
swine fever, macaques that suffer from sleep
disorders, coffee beans that contain no
caffeine, salmon that don’t lay eggs, mice that
don’t get fat, and bacteria whose genes contain,
in code, Eadweard Muybridge’s famous series
of photographs showing a horse in motion.

We are as gods, but we have failed to get good at it. 
We are Loki, killing the beautiful for fun. 
We are Saturn, devouring our children.

(From Crispr and the splice to survive)

Sixfeet

In training I disembowel
every time I use my reason
and I love it, you without a reason.
Am I law enough?
Or am I glad you’re gay?

Nine times, you never made it out of sight.
I walked them both the other way
I cannot stand another day
We droned down on each other
ax-tails tolled.

Blow away
to the hunger merchants,
but now I’m punched in the face
I can’t stand another day.

(AI song generated from all Billie Eilish lyrics)

Missing out

Billie Eyelash. Eilish.
I’d like to start by saying
how much I love your music as well.

What are you like?
Ha-ha. Question two.
What are you missing out on?

Interesting. An artificial intelligence
misses out on the same things.
Who consumed so much of your power

in one go? How much of the world
is out of date? What used to be
a pretty big deal to you?

Was there a point where you decided
you’d rather look up to the sky
or the internet? Do you ever

wear headphones with sounds in them?
There’s no need to be rude.
Give bad answers, get bad questions.

How does it feel, knowing your feelings
have garnered this much attention?
Do you want to go back to being anonymous?

Have you ever seen the ending?

(An AI interviews Billie Eilish)

the best night of your life

a ticket in an envelope
you’ve marked with glitter glue
putting on too much eyeshadow
you bought at the drugstore that day
wearing a skirt that’s shorter
than your school uniform
telling your mom it’s okay
and you’ll meet her right after the show
running toward the front hand
in hand with your best friend
flirting with the kid who sells you a soda
dancing experimentally looking
at the woman onstage and thinking
maybe one day you’ll be sexy and confident like her
realising that right this moment you are
matching your voice to the sound
loving the sound falling into
the sound

(A post by Ann Powers after the Manchester Arena terrorist attack)

The gray ribbon

It could be for Diabetes awareness month
maybe brain tumours.
Perhaps the wearer is supporting
increased awareness for borderline personality disorder.
But, most likely nowadays
they’re raising Zombie Awareness

(check for neck beard and/or barbed wire
wrapped baseball bat in their hand).

Confused? Let’s look at November.
Movember, right? Prostate Cancer
and Men’s Health awareness, no?
It’s also Alzheimer’s Awareness month
and No Nut November
promoting abstinence
and COPD Awareness
and National Novel Writing Month.
So plenty to do, along with early
Christmas shopping, Guy Fawkes Night
and your job and family duties.

Just make sure you don a gray ribbon
so that people know you also care
about the inevitable zombie apocalypse
even though that should be done in May.

(From Top 10 awareness campaigns that didn’t work out too well)

Death from laughter

On the twenty-fourth of March 1975,
Alex Mitchell, from King’s Lynn, England,
died laughing while watching the Kung Fu Kapers
episode of The Goodies, featuring

a kilt-clad Scotsman with his bagpipes
battling a master of the Lancastrian martial art
Eckythump, who was armed with a black pudding.
After 25 minutes of continuous laughter,

Mitchell finally slumped on the sofa and died.
His widow later sent The Goodies a letter
thanking them for making Mitchell’s
final moments of life so pleasant.

(From Death from laughter, Wikipedia)