.

Spot the Fool!

—for April Fools’ Day, 2025

.

I. 

Today’s the day to fox and fool.
Today’s the day to flick some fuel
On laughter with a cuckoo joke,
A wicked lark, a wacko poke
So sick Old Nick will think it cool.

Today’s the day to warp the rule,
To drape a knight in lilac tulle,
To swear Queen Guinevere’s a bloke—
__Today’s the day.

Today’s the day to play the ghoul,
To sashay through the local school
With mirrors, pills, a puff of smoke,
A pledge of joy, a wedge of woke—
Come see the pronoun hellhounds drool—
__Today’s the day.

.

II. 

Today’s the day the kooks invade
To gather at a leafy glade
With peachy moms sans balls and beard,
All small of feet and dainty-eared,
As sweet as orange marmalade.

Today’s the day the odd-bods trade
The screeching drag queens’ serenade
For harmonizing nuns—how weird!—
__Today’s the day.

Today’s the day the staid brigade
Of logic, love, and lemonade
(Those folksy freaks elites have smeared)
Will spread their merry till they’ve cheered
The flocks of teary sheep who strayed—
__Today’s the day.

.

.

Susan Jarvis Bryant is a poet originally from the U.K., now living on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets.

The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary.

16 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    It seems to me every day has become an April Fools’ Day as you have described it in your forever clever poem. “To drape a knight in lilac tulle” is just one of the exceedingly inspired and funny thoughts, at least to me, that seems to have become de rigueur. There is serious intent with present day culture bashing in your satire.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Thank you, Roy. You see where my rondeaux are going, and I appreciate you appreciating the gravity of the message behind the April Fools’ fun. I’m also glad you saw the fun side. Satirical poetry should be fun.

      Reply
  2. Mark Stellinga

    I’m laughing at – while weeping for – the crux of your April Fools’ Day dandy, Susan. How the mental illness of gender dysphoria has been allowed, almost encouraged to fester over the past few decades is such a destructive oversight. Families are typically struck with still another ‘make the most of it’ commitment if and when and long after it strikes one or more of their loved ones. C’est la Vie! 🙁

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Mark, thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed the poem. I’m glad you’ve acknowledged “the mental illness of gender dysphoria” – it is indeed a psychological problem (now forced upon children) that has led to the neutering of too many minors who now regret their naive, coerced decisions by those making money from these sick operations. And that is the issue I’m addressing by shining a spotlight of humor on the warped and wicked ideologies sweeping our society.

      Reply
  3. Brian Yapko

    Susan, your clever wit and wordplay are delightfully on display in this hilarious blast of sardonic fun. I truly believe a number of your poems should be set to music and this is one. I’ve never heard of a genre of April Fool songs so you could well start a new tradition! The repeating “Today’s the day” does not come off as a repetend so much as a chorus. Music please!

    Part 1 of your poem of course skewers the gender warping bullies who demand that we use their “zey/zem” pronouns… OR ELSE. In the poetic world you create, I’m glad to see that they only come out on April 1st as an April Fool joke. Except… we get to Part II of your poem and now, in a Twilight Zone inversion, it is the “normal” folk who are the April fools. How horrifying that what’s considered good and normal and “as sweet as marmalade” is mocked as being freakish in a world where drag queens and odd-bods rule. Here’s where your title comes into focus. Which reality are we in, which reality do we want to be in? Well, given your final lines about “lost sheep” and your clearly stated preference for a world in which children are raised by “moms sans balls and beard” we really need not wonder. Hopefully, the world is sobering up and recognizing what male and female actually mean again. And how important it is for children to have a baseline before they go off, er, half-cocked.

    Your hilarious and insightful poem leads me to a news story that I WISH was an April Fool’s joke but is not. And it’s verified across news sources. How’s this for a headline? “Toddler kicked out of nursery school for being transphobic.” https://www.foxnews.com/world/toddler-kicked-out-nursery-school-being-transphobic-this-totalitarian-insanity

    You can’t make this stuff up. Even as we fight our own culture war here on this side of the pond, I truly hope the U.K. sobers up… and soon. While it still can.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Brian, thank you first and foremost for your appreciation of the craft, and I just love the idea of putting these to music… satire needs to be out there during these dire times in every creative medium to make an impression. And you have picked up on the impression I am endeavoring to make perfectly – the sick promotion of gender ideology leading to the neutering and mutilation of minors and the mocking of traditional family values.

      It galls me as a mother who in the eighties and nineties was told to embrace dolls as toys for boys and cars as toys for girls. “Science” now tells us, if a boy chooses to wear pink and likes dolls or a girl chooses to wear blue and climbs trees, that they should change their pronouns, take puberty blockers, and get neutered before they’ve thought about marriage, sex, or a family of their own. I’ve clicked on the link to the horror in my homeland and this is precisely why I’ve written this poem. It’s for my granddaughter.

      Your hilarious “Half-cocked” term says it all – and the reason I love this term is because only humor hits home – we’ve talked until blue in the face about chromosomes to no avail. Humor draws the fools to the surface and exposes them for who they are… and they’re not on the side of women or children.

      Brian, thank you for helping me to out the cruel and foolish.

      Reply
  4. Joseph S. Salemi

    Wow, what a tour de force! Only four rhymes in the entire thing, and every single one is perfect and apt.

    Much of the diction here is truly guffaw-provoking: “sick old Nick; to drape a knight in lilac tulle; peachy moms sans balls and beard; the odd-bods”… I fancied it was composed by Lewis Carroll on a marijuana high!

    This is exactly the kind of playful, impish, in-your-face carousing that formal poetry needs, if it is not to sink into the paralysis of edification and solemnity. Great work, Susan!

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Joe, thank you! I thoroughly appreciate your acknowledgement of my linguistic gymnastics, and I just love your “Lewis Carroll on a marijuana high!” comparison. All it took was a bit of ire and fire and I was ripe to drizzle a bit of satire on those pushing a sick ideology. My poem speaks for all those minors mutilated before they’ve had a chance to work out who they are and what they want because they’re not adults.

      Reply
  5. Julia Griffin

    Today’s the day some clever type
    Will choose to take another swipe
    At targets scared and on the run.
    A sneerer’s work is never done!
    The sourest grapes are always ripe.

    Today’s the day to snitt and snipe
    And air another gloating gripe,
    And all this site will find it fun:
    Today’s the day,

    The day for anti-wokey hype!
    While Musk finds yet more aid to wipe,
    And one more bigot buys a gun,
    All set for Trump’s next White House run:
    Today’s the day.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Today’s the day each merry jest
      With lilac knights and queens addressed
      Will stoke the grief and draw the woe
      From activists with dread to sow –
      Those sour cows – forever-stressed.

      Today’s the day the trolls obsessed
      With sucking fun and sapping zest
      Will scream out, “Guns have gotta go!” –
      Today’s the day.

      My rhyme is but a joyous quest
      To seize the day and do my best
      To out the fool – expose the foe –
      Bit by bit and blow by blow.
      Thanks for adding to the fest –
      You’ve made my day!

      Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      By the way, Julia, you missed a line on your last stanza. It would be a shame to ruin a good rondeau with a silly mistake.

      Reply
  6. Joseph S. Salemi

    I don’t have the patience right now to flesh out a full rondeau, but I’ll add this response to Julia’s obnoxious insult:

    It looks like Julia’s got a bee
    In her blue bonnet. Can’t she see
    This poem that our Susan wrote
    Is useful as an antidote
    To what plagues our society?

    Julia’s “woke,” and can’t agree —
    “Drag-queen trannies must be free!”
    That’s what’s stuck in Julia’s throat
    And gets her vote.

    I’ll slip back into prose to add a final question for Julia: If you don’t like the work we produce or the opinions we express here, why don’t you just get lost, or go back to publishing at Cazzu Fimminin? (That’s Sicilian.)

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Joe, thank you for this. I will admit to being disturbed by the fact that my poem has been hijacked to rant about Elon Musk and guns when I haven’t mentioned either. I am disturbed by the fact my poem has been hijacked to dehumanize and label me and the commentors on my poem. I am disturbed by the fact that my poem has been hijacked to sling mud without one humane opinion on the sexualization of minors and women’s rights today. Women no longer have rights because no one knows what a woman is. When anyone and everyone can identify as a woman, no one’s a woman… and when boys and girls are pushed into making decisions about their gender because they’re “in the wrong body” – they get no opportunity to consider homosexuality – and there was silly old me thinking gay people were respected in the virtuous world of those who know it all.

      Reply
  7. Warren Bonham

    We need to Make April Fool’s Day Great Again (it doesn’t make a catchy acronym). With all of the craziness that you point out happening every day of the year, April Fool’s became pretty much redundant. Trump (with your help) is changing that.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Warren, you’re spot on – I want April Fool’s Day back and we can’t have that in Clown World. I saw a lilac mob of miserable clowns today and I felt a logic-love-and-lemonade flutter of hope on the breeze. Things are looking up!

      Reply
  8. Robert Nachtegall

    Don’t be disturbed Susan. As an umpire from the early days of baseball said “I calls ‘em like I sees ‘em.”

    You’re ahead in the pitch count and batters are confounded by your heater.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.