Forbes List 2019

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon,

increased his total worth over 2018 levels

by the value of global trade in wildlife. ($19 billion)

He increases the gap between himself

and second placed Bill Gates, even though Bill’s fortune swelled

by the cost of a week of US government shutdown. ($6.5 billion)

Mark Zuckerberg’s wealth shrank

By the value of the Canadian youth sports industry,

due to Facebook privacy scandals. ($8.7 billion)

Sadly, there are 145 fewer billionaires this year.

994 of the 2,153 of them are worth less, on average,

by the takings of Finding Dory to date. ($100 million)

If all the billionaires pulled together

(if there was enough collective interest)

they could fund total global healthcare spending. ($8.7 trillion)

Louisa Kroll at Forbes said ‘Even with strong headwinds,

resourceful and relentless entrepreneurs

find new ways to get rich’.

© Simon Williams

Kylie Jenner becomes world's youngest billionaire

(figures from Forbes List 2019, as reported on BBC news site)

Simon Williams edits the large format magazine The Broadsheet, was co-producer of the PLAY anthology last year (www.paperdartpress.co.uk) and writes poems on many different subjects. He has eight published books – you can find more details at www.simonwilliams.info

'Dendrogramma Enigmatica'

First scraped off the sea floor with a sled,

the creature of the title, like a seahorse parasol,

has mouthparts down its stem

and a many-forked digestive tract

all through its bust-umbrella canopy

(there’s a notch in each of them

which lets the water  through).

If it’s to be a new phylum,

not species, genus, family, order or class,

but phylum, as researchers claim,

there’s just the edging of a wish

that, rather than a minute mushroom animal,

it could have been a gryphon.

Simon Williams

Dee sea 'mushroom' may be new branch of life

Simon Williams often writes on subjects gleaned from the BBC or Wikipedia sites and also runs a Facebook group called Poem A Day. 

Gorham’s Cave

There really is no better way

to spend an evening than the beach.

the light on the sea is like

the insides of those shells, the ones

with the tasty muscly bits.

We sit until the sun drops to the water,

before retiring with a few good friends,

the thin ones with no eyebrows, to our cave,

and under the light of oil sticks,

play a game or two of Squares.

We’re still developing the rules,

but think there should be some moves

straight and some diagonal.

We’ve carved a board into the ledge.

The Men are keen to start a tournament.

 

Neanderthal cave paintings.

©Simon Williams
Simon often writes on subjects gleaned from the BBC or Wikipedia sites and also runs a Facebook group called Poem A Day which, by coincidence, runs in April and September, so he's busy writing this month.
Twitter @GreatBigBadger