One of the pleasures of working at a place like The New Republic is that every so often, something comes in over the transom that just delights us. This poem landed on my computer screen on a December Saturday. Who is this Clement Ogden Friendly? If you know anything about a) Christmas-related poetry, b) great American twentieth-century humorous poets, and c) the history of CBS News, you’ll figure it out. Let’s just say he’s someone I’m very close to.

A Very Bari Christmas

By Clement Ogden Friendly

Things weren’t very festive at old CBS

A wasp’s nest of intrigue, a pool full of cess

Yes, spirits were low in Manhattan (the borough)

At the Tiffany Network of Edward R. Murrow.

“We’re dead,” said a wag. “On our house, there’s a pox

I mean Christ on a cracker, we’re losing to Fox.”

“Well,” said another, “we’re fated to lose

Cuz all we put on every day is fake news.”

“Piss off,” yelled wag one, who didn’t easily embarrass

At edited footage of Kamala Harris.

“You’ll see what we need soon enough,” crowed wag two.

“A strong, mighty wind will quite soon here blow through.”

The old days of Cronkite, of Dans Schorr and Rather

Were best thought of now as just so much........

© New Republic