According to a BBC report, the White House has cancelled a poetry forum to be hosted by US First Lady Laura Bush on the works of Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman. They feared it would be taken over by anti-war protests. So much for freedom of speech...

Gosh, that sure would have been fun. The living poets that were invited surely would have come up with some gems...but now they can't. So to fill the void, allow me to present:

"The UN just did the reporting" (with apologies to Emily Dickinson)

"The UN just did the reporting;
Of missing weapons, happy thing,
Supposed that Saddam had come to tell,
And life would be all spring.

Bushie felt himself supremer,--
A raised, Texas thing;
Henceforth for he called Saddam a liar!
Meanwhile, Blix found not a thing.

Frayed slow by the opinions
His haughty, mispronounced gems,
The laughter of the people,--
And no tax on dividends!

The President fluttered, staggered,
Felt feebly for his crown,--
The people kicked him out on his head
Henceforth right out of town..

For more on the matter please see here.