NewVerseNews Saturday: 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

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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!

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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.