the whole neurosurgery thing
and the "rising from poverty
in Detroit
to graduate from Yale" shtick
Ben Carson
has released a minute-long radio ad
with hopes of enticing
the young black vote
in Birmingham, Memphis,
Jackson, Atlanta
Little Rock,
and Houston
with "Christian Republican rapper"
called "Aspiring Mogul"
(who on his Twitter page
has a profile picture
of himself in a Where's Waldo shirt
and leaning against a wall
with a poster of Ben Carson
and coolly
looking very much
away from it)
showing off his own
rap lyrics
in between out-of-meter snippets
from Carson's stump speeches
who waxes prosaic about personal responsibility
and picking up the baton of freedom.
"Vote and support Ben Carson
for our next president
and be awesome"
he raps
and closes with
"If we want to get America
back on track
we got to vote for Ben Carson
matter of fact."
The beat is actually pretty good
and it was nice
of Carson's campaign
to support such a small-time talent
with an unspecified amount
of the $150,000 ad purchase
and yet the near-mogul
contradicts his own philosophy
as expressed
in a blog post
from May of 2013
"Politics is not based on popularity
or how cool someone is."
Whoops.
If such is the case
he should've just played up
Carson's vegetarianism
and his college scholarship fund.
This poem © 2015 Emily Cooper.
