The Brian Lehrer Show has asked listeners to submit haikus about health care reform using Biden’s faux pas as the middle line. Some submissions:

Hey, Blue Cross Blue Shield
This is a big —-ing deal.
But I’m still on hold?

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No filibuster
This is a big —ing deal
Majority rules!

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Joe to Obama:
This is a big —-ing deal
Please cover hairplugs

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Thank you for health care.
This is a big f**ing deal.
I can sleep at night.

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No health CARE reform
This is a big f&&king deal!
Parasites win big.

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We’re moving forward.
This is a big —-ing deal.
Public option next?

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Health reform is law
this is a big f-ing deal
Suck it, Tea Party!

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Subsidies for junk?
This is a big f&&king deal!
High profits secured!

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No public option?
This is a big %$@#-ing deal!
Compromises suck!

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Now we have health care!
This is a big f—ing deal?
Europe got there first.

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Opportunity
For a real big f&&king deal–
Lost to corporatism.

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Square Deal, then New Deal,
We finally fix health care
Welcome to First World

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Emancipation!
This is a big f___ deal!
Leave job, take health care

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More, Socialism?
This is a big f_ing deal.
New world order care.

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Wow, we passed our bill!
This is a big ___ing deal
Who needs the GOP?!

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Time to celebrate
this is a big —-ing deal
beer summit anyone?!

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Only in U.S.
“This is a big f**king deal”
Is a B.F.D.

No Investor or a Broker Be
by Karl Neice

No investor or a broker be
In times when future nigh
As postwar doldrums see
Us through
2025

Cash is king, long live its value
Its liquidity, and interest free
When deflation signs can tell you
What your stocky mind can’t see

Economists Agree!
by Rob George

Folks came from afar just to see
Two Economists who’d agreed to agree.
While the event did take place,
It proved a disgrace.
They agreed one plus one adds to three.

A Toast To Henry Wiggins
by Carter Henderson

At the age of forty he was known to be
A substantial holder of AT&T
He drove about in a foreign car,
And insisted his daughter attend Bryn Mawr
His wife spent her time in the social whirl,
While he paid the rent for a chorus girl.
He took up golf and bought a Great Dane,
And developed a taste for imported champagne

At sixty his life turned completely about,
The stock market crash having wiped him out,
His wife and daughter both left him,
When they discovered the fix he was in,
He eventually drifted down to Skid Row
A place where busted bankers go,
Though his purse was bare, his thirst was chronic,
This time he quenched it by drinking hair tonic.

More poems here…

Those in the know about poetry will enjoy these mannered musings even more, as many of them parody famous poets. Take, for instance, “The Plight of the Charge Brigade,” in the style of Alfred Tennyson.

I
Charge it up, charge it up,
Charge up that purchase,
Deep in the valley of Debt
Plunge the card holders.
Stuff they don’t really need!
Charge for the fun! their creed.
Into the valley of Debt
Plunge the card holders.

II
Stuff they don’t really need!
Why should they be afraid?
Their stocks are doing well
They figure what the hell.
No stops to reason why
Just buy until you die,
Into the valley of Debt
Plunge the card holders.

III
Soft goods in front of them,
Hard goods in back of them,
Goods on all sides of them
Goods without number;
Rush through the big mall store,
Scope out its sales floor,
Into the jaws of Debt,
Into the Land of More
Plunge the card holders.

IV
Why should this frenzy stop?
O what great stuff they got!
All the world marvels.
Honor the charge brigade!
Forget the int’rest paid,
Happy card holders!

Or how about “Hedging Our Bet on a Risky Merger,” in the style of Robert Frost.

Whose got the cash we think we know,
To make this shaky deal go
But rumors fly he’s often prone
To stuff his nostrils full of blow.

My firm to risk is not adverse
We know the pangs of sharp reverse
In arbitrage you take some lumps
When playing markets quite diverse.

My partners, though, now have the shakes
They think this guy makes bad mistakes
It’s said his magic touch has fled
A victim, too, of coca flakes.

So we demand a special hedge,
To take away our nervous edge.
A written, witnessed addict’s pledge,
A written, witnessed addict’s pledge.

Then there’s “The Guru Men,” in the style of T.S. Eliot.

We are the guru men
We are the pitch men
Hot tip purveyors
Spouting the obvious. Boldly!
Our pale visions, which
We parrot endlessly
Are dull and insipid
As boiled beef on toast
Or luke warm white wine in chipped cups
From screw top bottles.

Talk without thought, views without content,
Pasteurized dreams, knowledge without wisdom;

Those who have placed
In markets faith, their hopes for better lives
Bought our puff—completely—at their peril
And remember us sadly
As the guru men
The pitch men.

This is the way the boom ends
This is the way the boom ends
This is the way the boom ends
Not with a crash but a lawsuit.

Poverty Is So In
Bad economy
means no big bonus for me.
Must steal more staplers.
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Editing client papers
Government clients
please don’t learn how to write well,
lest I lose my job
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How was I to know?
Apparently, when
you interview on the Hill,
snow boots are a no.

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I guess it’s a good thing
Much to my surprise,
I wasn’t fired today.
Secretly upset.
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Haiku from Peter
Work sucks a lot, yes
Robs your soul, but worse
Is unemployment
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Untitled
A bored expression
At least the money is good
God I hate it here.
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Untitled
a bigger cube is
the excitement of the year.
eight by eight, baby!
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I live in perpetual fear
I wonder what will
happen when my boss finds out
that I’ve done no work
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The Hunt, Stealth Mode Style
Applying to jobs
while still at my current one
I’m multi-tasking
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Untitled
I’m alone at work
personal work all day
could be sitting nude
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A poem by Chris
Job cuts everywhere
some jobs are much more stable
lucky garbagemen