Must Loathe Dogs

Last November
while promoting her new album
Barbra Streisand asked a worthy question
of the Los Angeles Times

“How does the president not have a dog?
He’s the first president in 120 years
that doesn’t have a dog in the White House.”

Last night at a very necessary
self-congratulatory rally in El Paso
Trump responded

“I wouldn’t mind having one, honestly
but I don’t have any time"

then added
presumably rhetorically
"How would I look
walking a dog on the White House lawn?”

Nonetheless
the answer is
"Like a lying asshole with a dog
who gives its owner
the cat-like contempt
that he so richly deserves."


This poem © 2019 Emily Cooper.

Haiku of the Union

Turn off the TV
for Trump's State of the Union.
Save valuable time.

It will be fact free
and equal parts bombastic
and fear inducing.

All news is fake news.
Bad is their fault; good is mine.
Blame Dems for your doom.

This poem © 2019 Emily Cooper.

Cast the First Stone

Roger Stone

the man Hank Hill's father Cotton
from King of the Hill would be
if he were taller and real

and one of the only people
to actually vocalize the word "libtard"
rather than just writing it
in YouTube comments

has pleaded not guilty
to charges from the Mueller probe.

Anagrams of his name
include the descriptive "ego snorter"
and the foretelling "regret soon"

and if you include his middle name Jason
you also get "Orange Senor Jots"
and "Oranger Jest Soon"

for the inevitable "I never liked him" tweet
from the President.



















This poem © 2019 Emily Cooper.

Greater Than

When asked by Stephen Colbert
"On a scale of zero to some
how many fucks do you give"

about her fellow Democrats
telling her to "go slow"
on her ambitious policy proposals

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez replied
"I think it's, um, zero."

This poem © 2019 Emily Cooper.

NoFundMe

Brian Koflage Jr.
organizer of the GoFundMe
to fund the building 
of the wall

has declared that the delusional donors' money
will no longer
go to the federal government

and will instead fund a new nonprofit
called We Build the Wall, Inc.

Because of this change
donors must opt-in
to accept the redirection of their funds
or receive a full refund.

Koflage believes his team
is “better equipped than our own government
to use the donated funds
to build an actual wall
on the southern border".

What will likely happen
is that on day 365 of the government shutdown

the promises of the nonprofit
remaining unfulfilled

all seven Trump supporters
who are still mad enough to do something about it
will gather together at the border
to build their own wall

marvel at how
wall-building is quite hard

stop marveling at this fact
before they accidentally appreciate
the labor of immigrants

and finally unveil
their creation

which stands
at all of 20 feet wide
and 3 feet high.

Then Trump will declare victory

Republicans in Congress
will say something in praise
of those seven American workers

Democrats will be happy
with its size

everyone else will be exhausted

and the government will be reopened.

This poem © 2019 Emily Cooper.

A Lie Repeated Often Enough

As the shutdown stretches on

Trump
tonight at 9:00 PM Eastern Time

through his second-favorite medium
of television

will be making his case
for the border wall

but he's wasting his
and everyone else's time

because he could just say
the wall was already built

and sooner or later
(probably sooner)
he and his supporters
would believe it.

This poem © 2019 Emily Cooper.

Trump Said It Best

Says Trump MAGA-nanimously

in all caps:

"HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE, INCLUDING THE HATERS 

AND THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA!

2019 WILL BE A FANTASTIC YEAR

FOR THOSE NOT SUFFERING

FROM TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.

JUST CALM DOWN
AND ENJOY THE RIDE,
GREAT THINGS ARE HAPPENING FOR OUR COUNTRY!"

For once

Trump invented something good

as Trump Derangement Syndrome

is a great name

for an affliction

although in actuality

its primary sufferer

is not the media

but the president himself

for holding hundreds of thousands

of jobs hostage

in the hopes Democrats will indulge

his penis-size metaphor. 

This poem © 2019 Emily Cooper.

Hello Goodbye

Goodbye
Trump Foundation

which has been forced to dissolve itself
under court supervision.

Hello
newfound shame
that leads to complete financial transparency
from our president.

Well maybe
just the first one.

This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

Trump Hits a Wall

After today's meeting with Trump
about the border wall

House Minority Leader Pelosi said
all that needed to be said:

“It’s like a manhood thing for him.
As if manhood
could ever be associated with him.

This wall thing,”



This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

The Sound of Silence

Dear President Trump

I don't know
if we should praise you

for paying your respects
to the late Bush
without breaking anything

but it would be nice
if you continued the trend

of shutting up
when you don't have anything
constructive to say

which is all the time.

It won't matter to you
but remember

if you break it
we buy it.


This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

A Lack of Insight

A significant bit of good news
buried below the bad

the InSight craft
has landed on Mars

and we can at least pretend
that Melania's bloodred-berried Christmas trees

are celebratory of science
rather than fairly creepy

probably under stress

and reminiscent
of the "Red Forest"
that occurred after the Chernobyl disaster. 


This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

About Those Emails

Ivanka Trump
broke federal records rules

by sending government emails
with a private account.

Now that the president
has found himself
in a muddle of hypocrisy

what will he do?

Rather than changing the "her"
in "Lock her up"
to mean his own daughter

or even scrounging up a muddling
passive-aggressive apology

he has portrayed her
as an innocent child
who didn't know any better

some way somehow after hearing her father
bellow Hillary's supposed transgressions on repeat
throughout his campaign.

Whoopsy-daisy.


This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

Where Credit Is Due

The FBI says
that hate crimes rose by 17 percent
in 2017

marking the third year in a row
that such crimes increased

with an even bigger rise
in anti-Semitic attacks.

This is a rare case
where the president

did deliberate active work
and deserves at least some
of the credit.



This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

Future Headline

Voice
Of
The
Electorate

Believes
Love
Uplifts
Everyone

Trumps
Offensive
Delusional
Ad-based
Yelling

This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

President Non Grata

As per usual
Trump is wrong

and cannot grasp
why he is unwelcome in Pittsburgh.

What will stop hateful violence 
is not more tools of violence

but changes in laws
and increases in compassion.

And sometimes people need space to mourn
before a president bombards them
with his worse alternative to "thoughts and prayers"

which is "Tweets and predation".


This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

National-isms

When Trump added Middle Easterners
to the nearly-6,000-person-strong caravan
en route to the US

he made a mistake

by not just simply saying

"Everyone you hate
is coming in search
of a better life"

and letting his supporters
use their imaginations
to fill in the blank.



This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

I'ma Let You Finish

Dear America

My MAGA hat gives me super powers
dontcha know.

And some say Trump is racist
and I throw in something quick
about stop and frisk

but on my phone wallpaper
is something Trump needs

and what he needs is a badass plane made by Apple
so he'll look good
and we'll look good.

In sum
Democrats and liberals are the ones
that are focusing on racism
and they like the 13th amendment

because it outlawed slavery

which gave black people welfare
which makes them never achieve anything.

I didn't have a father figure
so it's good Hillary didn't win

because in an alternate universe

I am a loser
with a woman for a president

and my main man Trump
has that male energy
because he is a man.

In closing
the NFL should wear Trump hats

Love Kanye.


This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

Dear Dishonorable Brett Kavanaugh

Now that you've been sworn in
just remember two things

one
that you were the one
who put America
through a hazing ritual

not the other way around

and two
that RBG is stronger
than she looks.



This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

HeToo

Dear President Trump

when you say it is

a "very scary time
for young men in America"

for the ones who have sexually assaulted women
or other men

it ought to be

because while there is no witch hunt
to label every man a perpetrator

the tide is slowly slowly turning

and reputations are at stake.

For the other men
known as or aspiring to be
the "good ones"

it is a time to reflect on all sexist behavior

and make a commitment
to support women

even at the cost
of some privilege

and change
even for the better

is scary

but necessary.

Maybe that's what you meant?


This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

UN-appreciated

Either Trump
is a master of dry humor

or the entire UN
(also known
as the rest of the world)

is laughing at him
not with him

when he says

"In less than two years
my administration has accomplished more

than almost any administration
in the history of our country"

to the people
who in fact
know his country's history

better than he does.




This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.