Nukes of Hazard

Today Hillary Clinton
in a campaign rally

in San Diego

gave us all
an un-sugar-coated assessment
of the Republican candidate.

She described his ideas
as "not really ideas"

but instead "a series of bizarre rants
personal feuds
and outright lies"

then outlined a quite plausible scenario
under his foreign policy

saying "It's not hard to imagine Donald Trump
leading us into a war

just because somebody
got under his very thin skin"

and continued to articulate
what is quite obvious
to his detractors

(and his reluctant GOP endorsers)

but probably less so
to his supporters

that Trump is "not just unprepared"

but "temperamentally unfit to hold an office
that requires knowledge
stability and immense responsibility."

As Clinton then remarked
on his "nasty tweets"

Trump fired up Twitter
and very thoughtfully
composed the rebuttal

"Bad performance
by Crooked Hillary Clinton!

Reading poorly
from the teleprom[p]ter!

She doesn't even look presidential!"

and undoubtedly thought to himself

"I just called her ugly.
That'll show her."

This poem © 2016 Emily Cooper.

Take Care of Our Own

“For us the living"
said President Obama today

at the Arlington National Cemetery

"those of us
who still have a voice

it is our responsibility
and our obligation

to fill our silence
with our love and gratitude

and not with just our words
but with our actions."

This poem © 2016 Emily Cooper.

The Big Bad Socialist

Donald Trump
who just yesterday

said he'd "love to debate Bernie"
that "it would get very high ratings"
and "should be in a big arena"

and that the networks
should donate their profits from the debate
to "women's health issues"

has today changed his mind

meaning either he no longer cares
about high ratings
or big arenas

(or about pretending to care
about women's issues)

or that maybe
just maybe

his advisers think
he wouldn't know
how to respond.

Of course Trump
as is his way

gives twist endings
to his apparent compliments

when he says
that Hillary Clinton and Deborah Wasserman Schultz

have rigged the system
to keep Bernie Sanders from winning

but still concludes
"it seems inappropriate
that I would debate the second-place finisher."

To which Bernie Sanders sees Trump
and raises him a

"What are you afraid of?"

This poem © 2016 Emily Cooper.

Wall of Confusion

Trump International
Golf Links & Hotel Ireland

has filed a statement
about building a sea wall

to protect the resort
from climate change

although Donald Trump
is still calling it a "hoax".

This poem © 2016 Emily Cooper.

Many Taxing Returns

In Trump Logic Land
(also known as his brain)

Donald Trump
can ask the leader of the free world
to reveal his birth certificate

to prove
that he was not born in Kenya

while promising that then
he will disclose his tax returns

and said leader
can reveal his birth certificate

and in response Trump says
"It’s none of your business
you’ll see it when I release"

(whenever that will be)

and adds
undoubtedly in an effort
to reassure the public

"But I fight very hard
to pay as little tax as possible"

(as was revealed
in a 1981 report
from New Jersey Casino Control Commission

which said that in 1978 and 1979
he reported a combined income

of negative $3.8 million
and paid zero dollars in taxes)

and still expects
Americans should trust him
to alleviate their tax burden.

(Well maybe he'll do that

by telling them how to trick
the federal government

and exploit
some of those same loopholes.)

This poem © 2016 Emily Cooper.

Voting Rights Amend-mints

There is now
a new flavor

of Ben & Jerry's ice cream

one which does not reference Bernie Sanders
as this poet predicted

but does use
the surmised suffix of "mint"

to call for "Empower Mint"

and it won't be long
till Donald Trump

tweets that the invention of the flavor
is a "sad" and "politically calculated" move

unlike of course
the introduction
of discriminatory voter ID laws.

This poem © 2016 Emily Cooper.

Laying the Foundation

Ivanka Trump

is putting in a good word
for her father Donald

by saying the candidate
has "elevated" the country's politics

which may be true

if she means that our political dialogue
has nowhere to go but up

or if by defining our values
against Trump's

we can build a bigger and better wall
around and above him.

This poem © 2016 Emily Cooper.

Parlez-Vous Parsey

Google has decided to pick up

where the poll
to pick the name

of the UK's new $300-million-dollar
polar research ship

left off

by calling the newly-released code
for its artificial-intelligence-based
natural language-analyzing tool

Parsey McParseface.

This poem © 2016 Emily Cooper.

Protected Classiness

President Obama

has signed a bill
that declares the bison
to be the country's national mammal.

Though symbolic
the act is nonetheless
an important reminder

to protect the species.

Meanwhile North Carolina Governor
Pat McCrory

has declared the bathroom gender attendant

(frequently a concerned man
entering a women's restroom

to ensure
that there are no men in there)

to be the state's
next protected treasure.


This poem © 2016 Emily Cooper.

Trump's Initiative

Donald Trump
now has to contend
with the fact

that he has a much higher likelihood
than Hillary Clinton

of experiencing a
legal snafu

during an inconvenient time

in that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel
has already scheduled a trial

on November 28th

for a class-action lawsuit
brought against him

by disgruntled students
of the now-defunct
(huge surprise)

Trump University

who in advance
and under expectation
of further instruction

gave his course 98-percent approval ratings
without the cloak of anonymity
and paid up to $35,000

for seminars
that wound up being
more like infomercials

and which did not deliver
the previously-promised material.

If Trump wins the presidency

may the rest of us
who are not gullible rich people

hold on to the slim hope

that he will forget to deliver
on all his campaign promises.

(And if that doesn't work
may we all remember
to duck and cover.)

This poem © 2016 Emily Cooper.

Article Nineteen

Today Ted Cruz
has decided to cruise away

from the presidential race

leaving the-only-reasonable-sounding-
adult-in-the-room-John Kasich

and what-hasn't-been-said-already-
Donald Trump

while Bernie Sanders

has won Indiana.

Coincidentally today is also

World Press Freedom Day

and if anything good
can be said of Donald Trump

is that his blanket hatred of journalists

only compels them
to work harder.

This poem © 2016 Emily Cooper.

To Seem and To Be

At his final Correspondents' Dinner yesterday
after so many instances

of doing it colloquially

(which
for the slang-uninitiated
is a good thing)

President Obama

literally dropped the mic

though it was
still on purpose
and with purpose.

Said the actress
singer and activist
Rosario Dawson

"There's a connectivity"
with the Obamas

and "it feels seamless"

and remarked on the president's work

"as a community organizer"
and "how that’s grown
into the presidency."

"We need that level of inspiration.
It’s going to be hard
to see that go."

And meanwhile Donald Trump
remains unseemly.

This poem © 2016 Emily Cooper.

An Infernal Racket

It took only John Boehner's casual remark

that Ted Cruz
was "Lucifer in the flesh"

for Cruz
to double down
with some serious "shade"

disguised as constructive criticism

retorting that Boehner
had "allowed his inner Trump
to come out".

Meanwhile in Hell
Satan decided to shed a tear

along with him.

This poem © 2016 Emily Cooper.

Teach Your Children Well

On April 25th in 1983

the Soviet Union
released a letter

that Russian leader Yuri Andropov
had written in response

to a note from an American fifth-grader
named Samantha Smith
from Manchester Maine

who asked if the Soviets
were planning to start
a nuclear war.

He answered

that Russia wanted
to “live in peace
to trade and cooperate
with all our neighbors on the globe

no matter how close
or far away they are

and certainly
with such a great country

as the United States of America.”

In this reality

Andropov invited Smith
to the Soviet Union

and she became
an ambassador for peace

until she was tragically killed
in a plane crash

in August of 1985
at the age of 13.

This event is just one
which would be rewritten
in history textbooks

via an executive order
from the Trump presidency

changing the story

to end with Smith's plane
being shot down
by the USSR.

This just makes it all the more important
for people of all ages
to learn our shared history

before we all
are doomed to repeat
Trump's version of it.

This poem © 2016 Emily Cooper.

Nothing Compared 2 U

Happy Actual
but Unofficial Birthday
(plus one day)

to the Queen

and Happy "We Acknowledge
That This is Our Shared

Even if Certain Interests
Would Rather Have it For Themselves" Earth Day

and of course

Happy First Day
of Purple Reign

in the Afterlife

2 U
the 1 and only Prince.

This poem © 2016 Emily Cooper.

A Pint of Conviction

The co-founders
of Ben & Jerry's ice cream

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield

along with approximately 300 other people

have been arrested

after participating
in the "Democracy Awakening" protests

on the Capitol steps
in Washington, D.C..

The coincidentally Vermont-based
Bernie Sanders'-supporting owners

are no strangers
to creating politically topical names
for their flavors

though "The Average Price
of Acquiring This Arrestingly Good Pint

and Coincidentally Our Only Hope
for Reviving a Democratic Govern-mint

is $27"

may be a little unwieldy.

This poem © 2016 Emily Cooper.

Rough Justice

When Donald Trump says

“The Republican National Committee
they’d better get going

because I’ll tell you what
you’re going to have a rough July
at that convention”

it's really not his fault
that most of his words

are accompanied by a thinly-veiled overtone
of tiny-handed violence

(Oh wait a minute

yes it is.)

This poem © 2016 Emily Cooper.