Mission Accomplished in Iraq by John Pursch

We lost our best chef trying to broil a falcon.
It was the bartender's idea, a really stupid thing.
Hell of an aftermath, too:
taser didn't work on the bird, nor the mace;
couldn't get a bat on it, so we had to blow up the room.

Bicycle pump, sealing putty,
funnels, tubing, irrigation ditch,
flounders, ramjet, pulp novels,
cat pipe, flange point of the extension,
formal transition to Equation City...

At ignition, a hurricane tore off the roof,
showering every patron with our now-patented
Broiled Falcon Seafood Surprise:
lagoon fish, plankton, crab cakes, and pheasant,
caramelized in brake fluid and hot plastic.

Author bio:

John Pursch lives with his wife, Teri, and their two cats, Sky and Miles, in Tucson, Arizona. He is an IT analyst at the University of Arizona's Lunar & Planetary Laboratory, where he supports several NASA planetary missions. In 2009, John received the NASA Group Achievement Award for his role on the Phoenix Mars Lander Payload Team. John holds a math degree from Caltech and is an accomplished memorist, having recently recited the first 1,500 digits of pi from memory.