April – A Month Dominated by Hormuz
Welcome to the April edition of the News in Review poetry series. As always, there was far more to include than I had space to fit in this piece. (Heaven knows it’s already long enough.) But I have tried to include a balance of the good, the bad, the ugly, and the fun. The month was of course dominated by the War between the US, Iran, Israel, and Lebanon, as well as the fallout that it has caused. So naturally, a great part of the poem focuses on that as well, but hopefully, the bits in between will help you forget about that for a moment, and see than not everything in April has been horrific.
I will add a disclaimer that this piece was written by me; a British poet, and as such will be recording and commenting from news in a British perspective, which might mean some events you consider important from April are not included, and some things you have never heard of are more extensively covered.
Records & Warfare!
5.
4.
3.
2.
1.
Booster ignition
And lift off
A new generation
Of spacecraft
As NASA launched a test flight
To the moon,
Hoping to soon
set foot on Mars.
April started in the stars!
It let us dream of something more
Than constant war
Between nations
And then, continued with celebrations,
The holiest of holiest of holy occasions
Where Leo voiced his condemnations
On tyrants raging war,
Which Trump of course, could not ignore.
He stacked up insults, aiming for
A man MAGA might just adore
Even more
Than they love him.
Not that there’s much dirt to fling
The only thing he had to sling
Was that the pope’s pro nuke…
It’s not even worth refuting…
Then came that whole Jesus thing
The president in robes healing
The cold and Withered corpse of Epstein
Surely he could get no more insane…
Think again…
As sounds of hate and warfare raged
All across the global stage
“Just open up the Fucking Strait
And praise be unto Allah!”
He’s off on a psychotic rave
All signs of peace had been delayed,
With threats of total genocide,
War crimes no longer just implied…
What a weird Easter…
But, somehow it seemed the
Lunacy had worked
Peace talks had been jerked
Back to the forefront
Peace, once more seemed imminent
Until the next incident
In Lebanon;
Israel firing shells again.
The ceasefire must include them
Or else the deal was off.
So Trump told Netanyahu off,
The bombing stopped… briefly
And all got back to making a peace treaty.
We saw the end of Pam Bondi
And her Ice veined ferocity
Although no doubt, she’ll shortly be
replaced by someone worse
Trump demanded more money
To rebuild the atrocities
That used to happen commonly
In Alcatraz
Not that congress really has
The means to say no
Since the courts will just go
With whatever he says
Is a matter of national security…
Like his ballroom
Suddenly seems to be…
It’s been a good month for BP,
A good year so far actually
With profits double what they’d be
Without filthy
Profiteering
A word they don’t like hearing
Cuz it implies they’re greedy dicks…
But if the boot fits…
You know, reaping benefits
From the Strait being shut,
Pushing oil prices up
And up
And up
And condoms too,
There’s not enough
Oil to fuel
Contraception and the world.
Once those price tags have been hurled
into the stratosphere
It’s really hard to see a
Situation where oil Barons
Let them come back down.
Iran turned their stance around
Declared Hormuz was open,
For a price
Which Trump thought wasn’t nice
And started a blockade to put it right.
Just when it looked like we might.
Be making ground
He brings everything right back round
To war.
Meanwhile,
Stamer tries his hardest to ignore
The calls for inquests
On the vetting process
Of Mandelson
(Who’s back in the headlines once again)
Turns out the checks all recommend
He not be hired…
A foreign office scape goat was fired
And the inquest was retired
Unlike Kier,
Who’s still hanging on there
But probably not for much longer.
Robots ran a marathon in China
(Or half of one..) and smashed the
World record
Proving that they’re faster
Than their human counterparts
And that was just the start
Of a cascade
Of record breaking accolades
That April had in store.
There were world records galore
At the London marathon.
We saw the first man to run
sub two hours in competition
The fastest time of any woman
And, the fastest time to run it blind.
The fastest time to run in crocs,
The fastest time in wooden clogs
The fastest male cheerleading squad…
The longest scarf made whilst you run,
The biggest ever marathon
The most funds raised at one single event
The fastest woman with MS
The fastest in Korean dress
And lots more using different types of clothes
The costume that’s been used the most,
(More than one hundred races… gross)
And quickest post double mastectomy.
The fastest with one hip replaced
The fastest with blindfolded face
The list goes on for many, many more….
(I warned you there were world records galore…)
But I’ll just give you one more,
Not from the marathon, This one’s cake
And the best, I think of all the breaks
A fourteen-hundred-foot tiramisu
Oh what fun must have ensued
A stroke of luck for London zoo
A donor gives the money to
Start work on a new
Come in and view vet
There’s Criticism for the met
When a bag of deadly weapons left
Outside the house
Of Sadiq Kahn was found
Melania brought focus back around
To Epstein
By saying she didn’t know Epstein
Even though we all know she did.
China blocks Meta’s bid
To buy a Chinese start up
Viktor Orban’s time is up
Kanye West is forced to stop
His European tour
As countries cancel concerts by the score
Claire’s is no more
And dragged feet in the house of Lords
Prevent assisted dying from becoming law.
A homophobic change in Senegal
Sees ten year sentences for all
LGBT acts
The UK biobank is hacked
And details sold to China.
In the Airports of Sri-Lanka
Buddhist monks were taken into custody
For smuggling cannabis into the country
Whilst unaware (apparently)
Of what they were carrying.
Trump cancelled peace talks again
The long ass flight to Pakistan
Was more than he could handle
Hamas wouldn’t dismantle
Their weapons
Without someone addressing
The pro-Israeli bias
Of enforcers,
Meanwhile Israel moved on other borders
Striking Lebanon despite the truce.
Labour ban in school phone use
Just four days after they refused
To ban in school phone use
Then scrap pizza in reviews
Of school dinner menus.
A bit of disappointing news
We learned about Netanyahu’s
Cancer… which unfortunately’s gone
As has the dress Madonna had on
For Coachella
And unlike that Orange fella
Who they once again failed to kill
In the Whitehouse.
But it’s not just about
The things that we missed
In April we were blessed
With the return
Of Tyson Fury
A new statue from Banksy
The re launch of Balamory
And naked organist Terry
Jones from Monty Python
Whose backside’s on display
As a sculpture in Colwyn Bay.
In fact, this month might have been okay,
But hatred had to have it’s say
Antisemitism made its way
Across the country,
Arson tore through the Jewish community
As terrorists stole their peace,
Their safety.
Attacks gaining severity
To cumulate with stabbing in the streets.
This is not the nation we should be
Don’t let one man stain a country,
The Jewish people aren’t the enemy!
Is this the April you remember?
Was there anything that you missed? Was there anything I missed and you think should have really been in there? Feel free to ask, share your thoughts, or reminisce with your comments.
Thank you for reading April 2026 – The News in Review. As with all poetry on my website, this piece is free to enjoy, however if you would like to thank me. Or want help make sure I can continue to write these news reviews. Please head over to my Ko-Fi. There you will be able to support me if you wish, either as a one off, or monthly. As well as purchase more of my poetry which is unavailable on this website.
A self produced digital chapbook/e-zine containing several shorter poems compiled in response to events in April. (30 pieces, one for each day) Should now be for sale in my Ko-Fi shop!
And Of course, check back next month to read May’s Review. See if you can guess what it might contain.