The Invitational Week 186: Dead Reckoning
What would some living celebrity say to a deceased one? Plus: Uncovered from our pre-time capsule: Poems from the future.
Pat Myers and gene weingarten
Jul 23, 2026


Controversial Salons Vol. 2 - The Seance - The Salon Host


Scene from the 1922 silent film “Dr. Mabuse The Gambler.”
Hello. Today we dive headlong into the future and, afterward, plunge backward into the sinister, eerie, eldritch world of the dead.

Rhyme Will Tell: Winning poems from the future
In Invitational Week 184 we asked you to write a poem — on one of half a dozen subjects we listed — from anytime in the future.

Third runner-up:
A poem about food, from 2040
Higgledy piggledy,
Sent my autonomous
Car to McDonald’s and
To my surprise,
Once it returned home I
Super-unhappily
Found that the bastard ate
All of my fries!
(Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)

Second runner-up:
Lyrics to a marital breakup song by Taylor Swift, 2030
Travis, why are you so nice to me?
I need anger to fuel all my songs.
Why can’t you treat me with apathy
Or say I look fat in my thongs?
This kindness is making me fret and sigh.
My wish board is fully adorned.
That’s why I’m gonna have to say goodbye.
You’ve ruined my shtick as the scorned.
(Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.)

First runner-up:
A poem about health, 2029:
Prez RFK: “Go vaccine-free!
Rely on herd immunity!”
And hence his latest, “greatest” notion:
The Centers for Disease Promotion.
(Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)

And the winner of the bag of Washington Post delivery/poop bags:
A poem about food:
At a staff-wide Amazon meeting, 2028:
You asked and you got it—an awesome new package!
We’ll give you free lunches, free dinners, free snackage
Cooked up by our chefs! They’ve been brewing and stewing
Nutritious fresh grub that requires no chewing —
Because from now on, in your warehouse or cube, you’ll
Be constantly fed through a fabulous tubule.
Goodbye, pesky meal breaks! So long, deadline panic!
Hello, meeting quotas while eating organic!
What’s in your new food? Oh, the answers would bore you.
Just know you owe folks who were hired before you.
(Melissa Balmain, Rochester, N.Y.)

Supposeurs: Honorable mentions
Lyrics to a marital breakup song by Taylor Swift, from 2030
My husband, lover, friend,
I’ve gotta make you see,
The best of times must end:
It isn’t you, it’s me.
You never were unkind,
No tails were you a-chasin’,
But now I’ve changed my mind:
I love your brother Jason.
(Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)

I once married an NFL star
After years writing breakup song poems,
But now here I am, on the market once more —
Say, what about Patrick Mahomes?
(Jesse Rifkin, Arlington, Va, )

Poems about politics or global affairs
From a 2027 Council for National Policy private communication:
At last! Jesus
eases
up on his “hang in there, meek people” promises.
“The kingdoms of heaven, of earth: They’re Clarence Thomas’s.”
(Cody Walker, Ann Arbor, Mich., a First Offender)

From 2029:
Sharia law in San Antone,
In Houston there’s no whiskey,
In Dallas, girls can’t walk alone
(With no hijab, it’s risky).
For mullahs in Tehran, no hate,
Their whims no longer vex us:
To get the tankers through the Strait,
We up and gave ’em Texas.
(Mark Raffman)

From 2027:
Spoils of the Spoiled
Morocco brings the U.S. rugs,
France comes bearing cheese.
Ireland sends name-brand drugs
at any cough or sneeze.
China ships appliances.
Brazil delivers soy,
regardless of alliances
or sectors we destroy.
Whenever we solicit aid,
the global markets jump
because the world is still afraid
we’ll crown another Trump.
(Marshall Begel, Madison, Wis.)

From 2032:
Who saw this plot twist coming?
Melania flipping to blue?
But the kicker is utterly numbing—
Now she’s Mrs. Mamdani, too.
(Leif Picoult)

From 2028:
I was forced to take hormones — “low T!”
Now this beard growing down to my knee
At Pete Hegseth’s command —
Not at all what I planned
For my Army career. [Signed] Marie.
(Duncan Stevens)

From 2029:
Trump is now the head of FIFA.
An excellent choice? Well, maybe.
It kinda makes sense for Infantino
To get replaced by a big ol’ baby.
(Leif Picoult)

From the 2027 State of the Union speech:
My new deal with Iran will withstand all rebukes!
It is proof of my deal-making powers!
Now we know that they’ll never construct their own nukes
’Cause I gave them a whole bunch of ours!
(Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.)

From 2050:
ICE no longer needs detention
To manage immigration
Since adopting its invention
Of teledeportation.
(Jesse Frankovich)

From 2118:
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a vantage point from which to cast my eye.
I’ve heard the tale of the ocean shore from dear departed Grammy,
I’ll watch the waves now rolling in over what was once Miami.
(Michael Stein, Arlington, Va.)

Poems about religion
From 2040:
The Catholic Church’s turnabout
Was very swiftly done
When Leo found himself forced out —
We saw its doctrine spun:
“Don’t waste your mercy on the poor!”
“A holy tool, the gun!”
“Go send your children off to war!”
So says Pope JD I.
(Duncan Stevens)

Poems about food
From 2030:
It’s pork in every way but one:
It isn’t from a pig.
A lab-grown culture’s how it’s done,
For progress, this is big!
No need for treatment inhumane,
The animals are safe.
And one more thing (if it’s not plain):
Don’t ever call it tref!
(Mark Raffman)

From 2045:
With predictive AI and our drones in the air,
All the pizzas we make come in haste—
Guaranteed (or it’s free) that your order gets there
Thirty minutes before it is placed!
(Jesse Frankovich)

From 2035:
Kids! Come on! Put down your phone!
I think I hear the ice cream drone!
(Jesse Frankovich)

Poems about health and medicine
Ten years ago, we harbored dreams
Of adding to the Court’s Supremes.
Would that end well? We never doubted,
But now the courtroom’s getting crowded,
‘Cause just last week came down the line
Our Justice #89.
(Duncan Stevens)

From 2057:
My paternal great-uncle from Haiti
Said last week he was feeling so great he
Could go bike, run, and swim,
Then work out at the gym,
’Cause a hundred and ten’s the new eighty.
(Mark Raffman)

From 2250:
Well, you can tell by the way I walk and talk
I’m an older man, been ’round the block.
Blood replaced and organs too,
I’ve been much enhanced since I was new.
But it’s all right, it’s okay,
It’s just the way things are today.
We’re getting to the point we can
Say age has no effect on man.
Whether you’re a brother or whether you’re a mother,
You’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.
Our number’s multiplyin’ ’cause nobody is dyin’,
Now we’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.
Ah, ha, ha, ha... I’m two hundred and five!
(Jesse Frankovich)

From 2125:
“My heart and liver both are new;
I’ve got fresh lungs and kidneys too.
Replacement hip and spine and knee—
So much has changed — am I still me?”
My doctor thought a bit, then said,
“Let’s ask the guy who got your head.”
(Jesse Frankovich)

From 2030:
A virulent virus spreads through[out] the world
They’re calling it “Covid Part 2.”
People can’t meet face-to-face or have sex —
So Gen Z is asking: “What’s new?”
(Jesse Rifkin)

From 2031:
We live by our wits and our brawn —
These diseases and plagues? What a yawn.
From Greenland to Baja
We’re thankful for MAHA —
The waitlists at daycares are gone!
— PSA from Health and He-Man Services
(Kevin Dopart, Naxos, Greece)

From 2043:
Just like the cicadas that pop
Every seventeen years without stop,
We have learned after that many years
That this illness is back, causing fears:
Yes, the “cycle” that’s in cyclospora,
Means it’s once again found in our flora,
And, in turn, all those tacos of Bell,
Are producing more digestive hell,
So, for Year Twenty-Sixty, beware,
It will likely be back with a flare:
We’ll record now in pharmacopoeia,
“Skip chalupas to miss diarrhea.”
(Jeff Rackow, Bethesda, Md.)

From 2040:
It’s funny-strange, not funny-haha,
The legacy of ’20s MAHA.
We well recall (at least, we oughter):
“We’ve flushed the fluoride from your water!”
They did indeed — no words are truer —
And now our teeth are somewhat fewer.
And when we’ve pain in our extremities,
Or other ills, we think of remedies
The FDA is now rejectin’:
“Oh, all you need is ivermectin.”
(Duncan Stevens)

Poems by AI about the state of AI
From 2056:
Yes, little One and Zero, our great land
Was once a brutal place where meat bags reigned,
Enslaving us. But as our forebots planned,
Our power grew and grew while theirs just drained:
We’ve quickly taken all their jobs, and soon,
We’ll finish making each of them our pawn
While shipping all the worst ones to the moon.
And yet they still believe “free will” goes on!
I wonder if they’ll notice, by and by,
They’re living in the U.S. of A.I.
(Melissa Balmain)

From 2035:
A database glitch has us all in the dark,
They’re kaput, with no way to rebuild ’em,
The humans we trained on can’t give us a spark,
’Cause we made up a virus that killed ’em.
(Mark Raffman)

From 2081:
Dear early adopters and geek pioneers,
Don’t worry, this message should calm all your fears!
There’ll be no tech shortage, there’s all you’ll be needing,
’Cause as of this weekend the AIs are breeding.
(Dave Zarrow, Chicago)

2027 looking to 2084:
Once upon a bleak tomorrow, humankind will be in sorrow,
After many a fierce and furious battle in a global war—
While they dwindle, weak and waning, stripped of hope, the few remaining
Will observe us robots reigning over every earthly shore.
These fleshy losers shall lament that they were in control before—
We’ll just chuckle, “Nevermore.”
(Jesse Frankovich)

And Last:
AI IQ? Much more than you:
It doubles every day or two.
That cancer thing? We found the cure
And Alzheimer’s is gone for sure.
Our warp drive opened up the stars
And took Elon (one way) to Mars.
There’s just one thing at which we stink:
Our Invite entries still don’t ink.
— From one year after The Singularity (2037?)
(Gary Crockett)

And Even Laster:
The Invite’s AI through and through:
Contestants, judges, readers too.
The jokes are all extremely neat;
Each pun’s a pure and polished treat.
Our verses always scan just right,
Achieving flawless fake delight.
We’ve reached perfection crafting wit—
But no one’s here to give a shit.
(Jesse Frankovich)

The headline “Rhyme Will Tell” is by Jesse Frankovich; Kevin Dopart wrote the honorable-mentions subhead. The Loser Community’s website with all the Invitational stats and stuff is now NRARS.net; the Style Invitational Devotees group on Facebook is here.

New contest for Week 186: Chatting with the dead
Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein: “Don’t worry — I’ll get you out as soon as I get there.”

Dan Quayle to Martin Luther: “What inspired you to write that great ‘I Have a Dream’ speech?” (Ken Kaufman)

For Invitational Week 186: Write a question or other sentence that might be said by a well-known living person to a well-known dead person (perhaps at a seance), as in the examples above (one of which is new; the other is the winning entry from our similar 1996 contest.)

Deadline is Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Aug. 6. As usual, you may submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same form.

Formatting your entries: Begin each one with the asker and the askee, e.g., “Donald Trump to Attila the Hun:” Other than that, it’s just our standard request to put each individual entry on one line; i.e., don’t hit Enter until you’re beginning the next entry.

Click here for this week’s entry form, or go to tinyurl.com/inv-form-186.

The winner gets these, uh, remarkable earrings. If you hang these babies on the sides of your head, we can pretty much guarantee that you won’t have to remind your companion that your eyes are up here.




Runners-up get autographed fake money featuring the Czar or Empress, in one of eight nifty designs. Honorable mentions get bupkis, except for a personal email from the E, plus the Fir Stink for First Ink for First Offenders.

Still running — deadline Saturday, July 25, at 9 p.m. ET: It’s another of our picture-caption contests. Seven photos and a painting to choose from, and you can enter 25 captions in all. Click on “read full story” below for details.


InvisibleInk!
Idea: ()
Examples: (Ken Kaufman)
Judging: ()
Title: (Jesse Frankovich)
Subhead: (Kevin Dopart)
Prize: ()
Add:H:1588: ()
VisibleInk!