Decisions in the Right Time

Hillary Clinton has officially
entered the race

with a few controversial messages
aimed at America's non-billionaires

at the rally held
on New York City's Roosevelt Island

such as "It's time
your time

to secure the gains
and move ahead"

and "America can't succeed
unless you succeed"

and "The middle class
needs more growth and more fairness
for a lasting prosperity"

and perhaps most egregiously
"Democracy can't just be
for billionaires and corporations."

Now we await Jeb Bush's response

after he recovers
from his foreign policy trip to Estonia

a tiny European country
that led the world
by legalizing online voting
more than 10 years ago

and almost nine years ago
was visited by his brother George

who became the first sitting president
to do so.

If he is smart
he will play off
his brother's legacy

by distinguishing himself

as Future President of the Past

his "own man"
that will not have made
those same bad decisions

(or at least those
that we found less than desirable)

as George did.


This poem © 2015 Emily Cooper.

The Poetry Makers

The next US poet laureate

will be 66-year-old
Juan Felipe Herrera
from California

who has already served
as the state's poet laureate
from 2012 to 2014.

He will be the first Chicano poet

appointed to the position.

Herrera grew up in a family
of migrant farm workers

who found themselves
in various tents and trailers
in the San Joaquin Valley.

He was inspired
by his mother's spontaneous recitations

of poems she remembered
from her childhood.

He was drawn to folk music
and experimental theater

and compelled by the Chicano
civil rights movement
to learn more about indigenous cultures.

Over the years
he has written nearly thirty books

and has taught creative writing
at University of California at Riverside.

He has said
“A poem brings a way
to attain a life without boundaries”

as well as that 

"Poetry can tell us
about what's going on
in our lives

not only our personal

but our social
and political lives."

Today Sasha Obama
the president's younger daughter
turns 14.

In some timeline

her harried father
preoccupied with ISIS

has given her free rein
to plan her own birthday party.

After deliberating over the pages
of approved musical acts

she stops
and sighs

and says to herself

"You know what?
Bruno Mars is played out anyway."


This poem © 2015 Emily Cooper.

A Kardash of Reality

Why do Republicans
suddenly want their party
to Keep Up with the Kardashians?

At least so does
South Carolina Senator
Lindsey Graham

who is running for president in 2016

and has said that “I’m a pro-life
traditional marriage kind of guy.

But I’m running to be
President of the United States.

If Caitlyn Jenner wants to be a Republican
she is welcome in my party."

Well that's fine.

Just be prepared
for your friends in Congress
to pick on you

for your "Obama-style"
telegenic media campaign

influenced by acceptance
of trashy daytime TV.

This poem © 2015 Emily Cooper.

You Dropped A Bomb On Me

Ever on-the-pulse
Rick Santorum

has been getting wise
to Pope Francis's radical views
on the environment

to be further clarified soon
in an encyclical

expected to make the case
that fighting climate change is a moral
and religious imperative.

His new "Google Bomb"

is expected to be

"the frothy mixture

of bigotry and desperate appeasement

to a rapidly-dwindling base that is 

sometimes the byproduct

of GOP campaigning."

This poem © 2015 Emily Cooper.

Brute Force of Government

After Rand Paul
successfully blocked an extension

on parts of the Patriot Act
that allowed the government
to collect bulk phone records

which led to their expiry
at 12:01 this morning

he reassured his fellows

that "We can still catch terrorists
using the Constitution."

While the USA Freedom Act
has already been approved
in the House

he has also blocked immediate action
on that piece of legislation
for a few days.

Now where's the Saturday morning cartoon
of him and a motley
libertarian cast of youth voters

carting away both terrorists
and big-government freedom and privacy violators
with a We The People lasso

into the "History Machine"

decked out in the psychedelic colors
of the Founding Fathers

which are red
and white and blue
and blackish and brownish
and grayish

as found in their coats

(never minding
Hillary's calculated real-life attempt
at such a van years ago

whereas this cartoon
would be nothing but authentic)

who utter
with one last helpless breath

"And I would have gotten away
with it too

if it weren't for
that meddling Constitution"?


This poem © 2015 Emily Cooper.

His World Is on Fire

Never minding

that the Founders didn't want
an establishment of religion
in these United States

there's no reason America
shouldn't hand the mic

to Ted Cruz's
conservative Christian rapper groupies
We Are Watchmen

so they can
set ablaze "the voice of the Founding
speaking in the contemporary tongue"

in "Set It On Fire"

which starts off decently with

"It’s like we’re back
in the late ’70s

Labor force is dead
emboldened enemies"

and one can almost hear Eminem
stressing out before going on stage
in the lines

"When power is concentrated
centrally and federally

it creates dependency
that’s mentally like leprosy"

and sounding a little
like a recent grad
with an English degree

who is just so happy
to have found paying work

but okay

not bad.

And presumably
a shout-out to God's
intelligent design in

"We are the greatest nation
that’s ever been implanted on the planet"

and of course
"we never panic
when things get rough"

but rather perform
some seductive new dance move
in the name of free trade
and right-to-work laws when

"we put our hands up on the granite
and grind for righteousness."

Then finally revealing
the buried lede

we're asked to "imagine the Reagan revolution
part two
on our fingertips."

Luckily while we're doing that
the poor intern
re-checks the assignment

realizes he's short of the word count
and pens another verse

"We the people
are the future of our nation
we’ll never relinquish it

Let the American dream die?

Nah we’d never
even think of it

We’re at the brink of it
but we’ll survive.

We’re Washington and Lincoln’s kids."

It's a somewhat tortured rhyme
but it gets the point across
has some history

and is the best we can do
in Obama's America.

Then a call-and-response
for "courageous conservatives"
to "rise up and roll out."

Finally the last verse ends

"It only takes one spark to light the fire

We’re rising
reigniting the embers
that have been burning inside."

Writing is hard

and it's mean to mock
any sincere effort

but sadly

even the greatest MC
at the Grand Old Party
probably won't get the Millennial vote

as it's not the Cruz

but the destination.

This poem © 2015 Emily Cooper.

Nothing's More Interesting

Mary Ellen Mark
the iconic and prolific photographer

who captured simply
the lives of people
on the margins

for example
in a trek to New York City
in 1967

where over the next several years
she acknowledged
in black and white

the existence of prostitutes
of Vietnam War protesters

of Women's Lib marchers
of transvestites
of the homeless

of those addicted to drugs

and of Times Square

(among other folks and places)

has died at 75.

Portraying one small part of the world
"as it is"

contrary to common sense
is still an art
performed by mere humans

which means that hashtags
like #NoFilter

will never be accurate

and accuracy
is an impossible goal

but to get at anything
resembling something like truth

we need
and will always need
more filters.

This poem © 2015 Emily Cooper.

Double Rainbows Over Dublin

Congratulations Ireland

for becoming the first country

to make same-sex marriage legal
by way of popular vote

with a final tally

of 37.9 percent No
to 62.1 percent Yes.

Just like the US

(and in other ways not)

Ireland has its unfair share
of stymiers of social progress

but if God proclaims on high

His approval
of referendums passed
in the name of equality

that should convince anyone

except those
who have come around

to liking sun and rain

and appreciating everything
about them as individuals

but still get squicked out
about rainbows.

This poem © 2015 Emily Cooper.

Adult Acceptance of Transition

Robert Gates
current president
of the Boy Scouts of America

has called for an end
to the long-standing ban

on gay leaders.

When addressing the organization

during its annual meeting
he said

"We must deal
with the world as it is

not as we might wish it to be.

The status quo
in our movement’s membership standards

cannot be sustained."

There's another prominent group

that has taken the hard road
of personal introspection

as they choose to bow
to society's slowly-but-surely-changing
tide of opinion

and even say a sad farewell
to the beloved old guard

in the name
of younger
and fresh-faced leadership

which is
Worldwide Pants Incorporated.

This poem © 2015 Emily Cooper.

Six Years In

There is little
that "Bey"(once) and "Jay" (Z)
do quietly

but what has been quiet
are the couple's donations

of tens of thousands of dollars
to bail out protesters
arrested in Baltimore

at least according
to the activist "Dream Hampton"

who ghostwrote Jay Z's
2010 memoir "Decoded"

but later deleted
her original tweets
with that claim

due to a twinge
of Twitter regret.

And just as Obama
is now occasionally

tapping into his plentiful
six-year store
of accumulated moxie and chutzpah
and temerity

today he has been granted
a personal Twitter account

under the name "@POTUS"

to deal with that
of his followers.

(Luckily it's only
1.16 million so far.)

This poem © 2015 Emily Cooper.

Beale Street Blues Boy

The thrill is gone
but not forgotten.

"I never use
that word
'retire.'"

This poem © 2015 Emily Cooper.

Cultural Currency

The lobbying group
Women On 20s

is campaigning for Harriet Tubman
to appear on the twenty-dollar bill.

Not merely someone
who routed hundreds of people
out of legal captivity

during the Civil War
she was a scout
a cook
a nurse and a spy.

Other than the "politically correct"
line of reasoning

that present occupier
of the bill
Andrew Jackson

was kind of a big meanie

given that one of her nicknames
was "Minty"

(short for her birth name Araminta)

one would get to call
a wallet full of twenties
"Minty Fresh".

This poem © 2015 Emily Cooper.

We Would Live 4 U

The deliberately elusive Prince

has kicked off

his one-stop "Rally 4 Peace" tour

at the Royal Farms Arena

in Baltimore

with his new song

aptly titled "Baltimore."

His message is one

that mothers

and fathers

and just humans in general

and probably other species

have tried to rationalize

that "Nobody got in nobody's way
so I guess you could say
it was a good day"

but with the nagging feeling underneath

that "Peace is more

than the absence of war."

Still Fox News

will point out

that the line

"Let's take all

the guns away"

means he's lobbying

for Hillary

and maybe

that's only part of the solution

but then again

they've never claimed

to be part

of the solution. 

This poem © 2015 Emily Cooper.

A Rand-some Price for Freedom

To celebrate the Appeals Court
declaring illegal the NSA's
mass phone data collection program

Rand Paul reminds you

while the government
still has access to The Interwebs
(including The Facebooks)

to head on over
to his online store

and get yourself
an NSA Spy Cam blocker

for $15.00

never minding
that you can get a whole roll
of masking tape

for one-third or less
of the price

while helping your friends
block their computers' and devices' webcams
at the same time.

But to make up for that

you'll have to buy
his thousand-dollar signed copy
of the Constitution.


This poem © 2015 Emily Cooper.

She Comes Back to Me

If the debris
from Halley's Comet
is visible
in your part of the world

at approximately
nine in the morning
Eastern Daylight Time Wednesday

remember that
an uncaring universe

even at a negative
454 degrees Fahrenheit

is not necessarily
the same
as a "cold" universe

more like a "chill" one
perhaps just waiting for us
to clean up our own trash

and that Eminem's 2002 "Hailie's Song"
was about his daughter

who did not
spawn the comet

though she was proudly crowned
Homecoming Queen
in October 2013.

Dr. Ben Carson
thinks hip-hop is disrespectful
to modern values
of decency and respect

but nonetheless launched
his 2016 presidential campaign
with a gospel choir rendition

of her father's 2003 song
"Lose Yourself."

Barring any definite outside answer

one can only guess
that the universe

has just one message
for us

equal parts terrifying
and hopeful that

"Everything in the universe
that can happen

will happen

(eventually)."


This poem © 2015 Emily Cooper.

May Poll

(Sung around the May Pole)
(Adapted from old English May Day song "Padstow Hobby Horse")

Unite and unite
(Brian Russell)
and let us all unite
(Skip Andrews)

for poll-summer (Marco Rubio)
is a-coming today
(Ted Cruz)

and whither we are going
(Kerry Bowers)

we all will as-if unite
(Chris Hill)

in the Prez "Barry" scorning
(Michael Petyo) 

of May
(Michael Kinlaw).

The declared candidates
(John Dummett, Jr.)
of the GOP
they might if they would

for poll-summer is a-coming today
(Rand Paul)

they might have (Mark Everson) built a 'paign
with unkept promises

Fox News would call bold

in the Prez "Barry" scorning
of May.

The exploring maidens
(Carly Fiorina)

of the GOP and the men
(Rick Santorum)

they might if they would

for poll-summer
(Bobby Jindal)
is a-coming today
(Lindsey Graham)

they might defend the blue blood
with the stars white
(Rick Perry)
and stripes red 

in the Prez "Barry" scorning
of May
(Dr. Ben Carson).

Now fare you well
(George Pataki)
and we bid you all good cheer
(Dennis Michael Lynch)

for poll-summer (Mike Huckabee)
is a-coming today
(Jeb Bush).

Till you call still more
(Chris Christie)

unto the White House
in another year
(Donald Trump)

in the Prez "Barry" scorning
of May.

This poem © 2015 Emily Cooper.