Wow, OK

‘Wow, OK,’ said Pope Leo, ‘this chunk

Of old crystal’s your gift for the monk

Who has everything? … My

Olive branch (of the wry

Kind) gives shade to delusional bunk!’

 

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 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 In 2025 he won the Children’s Unpublished category of the Eyelands Book Awards with Flora’s Flock and Other Stories to Read Aloud. The poem was prompted by the Guardian story “The Pope gave Marco Rubio an olive branch as a gift. But could only say ‘Wow OK’ when he saw what the US brought him.”