Gulls

Gull ability’s high stealing pie

Undetected, unless you apply

Little eyes (just one pair).

Lunch may then still be there—

Since a gull’s gullibility’s high!

 

Off The Menu

A dognapped troop

Of seven were

For canine soup

Or curried cur

Until a hound-

Sized hole got chewed

In their surround,

And they skiddooed

Behind Big Fat

The corgi. He

Is gifted at

Geography:

He led the pack

Twelve miles or more

Till safely back

At their front door …

What chance Big Fat

Could end life in

A cooking vat?

A little thin!

 

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 In 2025 he won the Children’s Unpublished category of the Eyelands Book Awards with Flora’s Flock and Other Stories to Read Aloud.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 first poem was prompted by the Conversation story “Why drawing eyes on food packaging could stop seagulls stealing your chips.” The second poem was prompted by the Metro story “Seven dogs escape meat market to embark on mammoth 12 mile journey home.”