The American of the Year

Either Senator Orrin Hatch
(also known as
as a kind-of-similar-looking person

who would volunteer
to play Jeff Sessions
in a movie

were the latter
perhaps involved
in a legal incident)

is a master of dry wit

or did not do the reading
when he said it was an honor
to be named
"Utahn of the Year"

by the Salt Lake Tribune

in an article
that eviscerates him

for his role in dismantling the Bears Ears
and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.

his role as Chairman
of the Senate Finance Committee

which facilitated Congress
making a major
overhaul to the tax code

and "his utter lack of integrity
that rises from his unquenchable thirst for power."

The author of the article
pleads that he not run for re-election
to an eighth term

and that if does
that voters should the do the right thing
and not vote for him.

A third possibility
is that Hatch was borrowing from the Trump school
of what could loosely be called "thought"

namely the one of
"When you have some haters

even and especially
when they have very good reasons
to hate you

assume their words are a cover
for 'I love you
always and forever

but am too scared
and jealous to say it.'"


This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

Seven Dirty Words

Were he still alive
George Carlin would be grateful
that the Trump administration

has helpfully written a sequel

to his famed bit

now called "Seven Dirty Words
You Can't Say at the CDC"

which are

"vulnerable"
"entitlement"
"diversity"
"transgender"
"fetus"
"evidence-based"

and "science based."

Similarly to the ones listed by Carlin

these are concepts
that are deemed offensive

and not suitable for the public.

Dissimilarly
they are offensive to the same people

who voted for Trump
for his outspokenness

because they mistakenly thought
he wasn't making fun of them.



This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

Show Them Who You Are

Dear Mr. Trump

Keep talking
keep tweeting
keep disparaging
keep silencing women

keep claiming that Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

was "'begging' for campaign contributions
not so long ago

(and would do anything for them)."

Keep talking.

Someday they will believe you.



This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

Do the No Collusion

(Apologies to Little Eva)
(Sung by Vladimir Putin)

Everybody's doing a brand-new dance now
Come on Flynny
do the "no collusion"

Talkin' with the Kremlin to improve Donald's chances
Come on Flynny
do the "no collusion"

The Trump brothers and their sister can do it with me
Easy as unraveling democracy

so come on
come on

Do the "no collusion"
with me.

Make up
Retract

You know I think
you've got the knack.





This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

Hindsight is Not 2020

Whether using a speech
honoring Navajo code talkers

as an opportunity
to mock
with his tried-and-true insult "Pocahontas"

Elizabeth Warren's
purported heritage

(which is worth a discussion
but not then
and never by Trump)

in front of a painting
of Andrew Jackson

or semi-regularly risking war
with North Korea

or defending Roy Moore
in the name of his party

even at huge cost
to his party

John McCain
sums up the heart of the man
when he says

he lacks “principles and beliefs”
and “takes advantage of situations.”

It may sound obvious
to many or most Americans now

but all of us in fact
are capable of recognizing the obvious

the difference being
before or after
we get blindsided by it.

This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

The Malevolent in the Room

Kellyanne Conway
is trying something new

namely the art of speaking something truthful
about the disgraced Roy Moore
and implicating other men

with as-yet-unknown (to us)
records of sexual harassment or abuse

while simultaneously ignoring
the very well known
behaviors and actions of her boss.

Said she to ABC News on Sunday
with a straight face
“If there’s anyone currently in public office
who has behaved that way
to any girl or woman

maybe they should step aside."

Though to be fair
she did say "public office"

and Trump has no intention
of serving the public.

This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

Indecent Exposure

One year ago
Trump felt close
but comfortably far away.

Today Trump's opponents
are saying of his actually real actions
in reality
"I told you so"

while former supporters
are claiming "I didn't know"

and Trump is the open secret
and the open wound
that is now
impossible to hide.

As for a year from now

well at least sunlight
is a natural disinfectant

and the possibility of eventual justice
or an least an airing-out
of dirty laundry

is something a little like hope.





This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

Go Flake Yourself

Dear President Trump

One of your earliest Republican critics
Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona
today announced his retirement
in January of 2019

and true to his name
among a lot of other complete sentences

declared wimpily
 "These offices that we hold
are not ours to hold indefinitely"

and thesaurus-ly
"It is time for our complicity
and our accommodation
of the unacceptable to end"

and unabashedly others-consideringly
"I have children and grandchildren to answer to,
and so, Mr. President,
I will not be complicit"

and cowardly
"I rise today to say:
Enough."


This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

Put A Corker In It

Dear President Trump

as insensitive as it was
for Mitt Romney
to offer a $10,000 bet
to Governor Rick Perry

(now your Energy Secretary

and happy to be so
once he knew the department
had to do with nukes)

at the 12th Republican debate
in Des Moines
back in 2011

at least Romney
had the $10,000 to spend

were he wrong about Perry's
prior support of health care mandates.

You want an IQ test

but we know
you would not do very well
because the way you responded

to Rex Tillerson
calling you a moron

or more accurately
a "fucking moron"

was not to respond
by doing something smart

(or at least the presidential equivalent
of coloring inside the lines

while your staff
closely supervises the crayon)

but to challenge him
to a numbers game

when we know
what you like to do with numbers

particularly small ones
that apply to you

like crowd sizes
and approval ratings.


This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

Viva Las Vegas

Just as how Barack Obama
as candidate and later president

both relaxed and built good PR
with a game of pick-up basketball

a genuinely loved hobby of his

in a visit today to the territory

President Trump built his PR with "PR"

when he

showing off
both his athletic prowess
and his penchant for entertaining the public

threw a pack of paper towels
into a crowd at a church.

Also in that adventure-packed day
he told the American citizens
that compared to Katrina
Hurricane Maria wasn't a "real catastrophe"

and that the severely-and-needlessly-delayed aid
(also known as a
perhaps Juggalo March-inspired "miracle")

was throwing the country's budget
"out of whack."

This trip follows yesterday
after the largest mass shooting
in US history. 

While Trump on Monday successfully read from a teleprompter
without giving in to the temptation
to ad-lib

(at least until today
when he found a home
for another ill-placed "miracle")

Sarah Huckabee Sanders
made clear there was no haste

to force the president
into a real role as unifier

and good-change-bringer
on gun control

calling it “premature to discuss policy"
(unless it's a travel ban
for Muslim-majority countries)

"when we don’t know all of the facts.”

Point taken

and besides
the American people already know
that no matter how the president speaks or acts

he is always ready to give away
his best golf trophies.






This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

Around His Ego in 140 Characters

In long-overdue news
that is still nonetheless welcome

women in Saudi Arabia
will be able to get driver's licenses
in 2018

and Americans get to remain covered
by the Affordable Care Act.

And with the ostensible aim of encouraging
more verbose users
to Tweet their thoughts

but in reality
perhaps making a last-ditch effort

to save the world
by hopefully making Trump more articulate

Twitter is considering increasing
its character limit
from 140 to 280 characters.



This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

Melani-ugh

Unlike her husband

Melania knows how to communicate
with the camera

and not just at it.

And today at the United Nations

she very clearly communicated

"I can't take this
and I can't take him."

And the world agrees.









This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

His Excellent, Wonderful, Very Good Day

On September 11 2001

Donald Trump
couldn't resist noting
in an interview with a New York television station

that his building at 40 Wall Street
after the attacks on the World Trade Center towers
was now "the tallest."

This year
going easy
on the honoring of lost lives

and heavy
on the military strength

he said
"America cannot be intimidated
and those who try

will join a long list
of vanquished enemies
who dared test our mettle.”






This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

Up Trump Creek

For the pardoning
of former Arizona Sherrif Joe Arpaio

Donald Trump
apologizes to the country

for the insensitive timing
of the act

inasmuch as it did not make
for good television.

Says the president
who did away with Obama's regulation
that would have required planners

to create a provision of infrastructure
for increasingly strong storms

and thereby mitigate their damage

“Actually in the middle of a hurricane
even though it was a Friday evening

I assumed the ratings
would be far higher
than they were normally.”


This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

May Cause Lasting Damage

For months ahead of the solar eclipse
scientists warned Americans

about the dangers of gazing
at the life-giving celestial body
without special glasses

when it is anything less
than completely obscured
by the moon

articulating what it would say
if it could talk
which is
in short

"If you look at me
you're gonna get burned."

Far be it from anyone of decency
to wish partial blindness

on someone who deliberately disobeyed
the repeated warnings

Donald Trump's eyes
which he nakedly exposed

for several seconds
before he was yelled at to stop

may at least
finally face a consequence
for their reckless behavior.




This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

The House Un-American

Dear Mr. Trump

while you were blaming "all sides"
for the violence in Charlottesville

you were also making
a 2020 campaign ad

which claimed that your "enemies"
don't want you to succeed.

Even those people

and you know
who they are
as do they

tried while living under your shadow
to muster up the strength

to wait for you
to at least pretend to care.

It's time for you
to go back to where
you came from.




This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

Making the World Safe For Trump

Dear Environmental Protection Agency

in Donald Trump's safe space
for precious snowflakes

in which he is
enshrouded by an imaginary "wall"

"climate change" is not real
and must not be discussed.

Your leak
of the Draft of the Climate Change Report
is insensitive to his feelings

and a direct violation
of the President's well-being.

Please submit immediately a public apology
for the facts contained therein

or be at risk
of permanent closure.

Signed
President Donald Trump's Guardians


This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

Rhyming the Unreasonable

The words of Anthony Scaramucci
did not scare Trump muchly

though he would've preferred
another dialect.

And Trump's love for military
swells most bigly
towards the marching band's direction.

But only time will tell
if a general

can sway his boss
from duty dereliction.


This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

Misplaced Maverickism

Welcome back to the Senate
John McCain.

You gave the deciding vote
to advance a bill
that even with major changes

will deprive millions of people
of their health insurance.

In your speech
you said some good words

calling for bipartisan cooperation

and saying you would not vote
for the "shell of a bill"
in its current form.

But even your proposed amendments
will sooner or later
leave working Americans at the mercy
of their bank accounts

when deciding how much life-saving treatment
they can afford.

If you still have principles
like you used to

pretty soon would be
an excellent time
to use them.



This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

Live and Let Fail

Dear Donald Trump

knowing who you are
and what you are stand for

by far the best thing you can do
to ensure quality health coverage
for millions of Americans

is to encourage Republicans
to "let Obamacare fail."

You'll be waiting
for a while

and in the end
you can forget what happened

praise yourself
and blame Obama

for what you did
and what he didn't. 


This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

All in the Family

How can you tell
when your little ones
are all grown up?

Maybe it's when your daughter
sits in your place
at the G20 Summit

or when your son
is contacted by one of your former business partners
bearing information he received
from a Russian government official

and in response
enthusiastically agrees to meet with
Kremlin-connected lawyer
Natalia Veselnitskaya

and to bring with him
your then-campaign manager Paul Manafort
and your current-son-in-law Jared Kushner

in order to do his darndest
to scrounge up
from an enemy government
whatever dirt he can
about your political opponent.

Meanwhile another son
is embarking on his own path

by Tweeting that Democrats
are "not even people"

and being the proud owner
of a foundation
that has funneled donations

from contributors
who believed they were
helping kids with cancer

to organizations
with ties to the Trump family.

And your other son
is playing with relatable fidget spinners

and is too small right now
to do much of anything
but worry about Kathy Griffin

but who thankfully nonetheless
is continuously learning appropriate behavior
from you.


This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

Delaying the Death Party

Senate Republicans
have postponed a vote
to replace the Affordable Care Act

until after the July 4th recess.

As it turns out
if you call yourself pro-life

hordes of angry voters
among them those who gave Trump his power

will rudely presume you meant
"post-conception."

This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

In Like Lynne Patton

When selecting an appointee
for a critical department of government

Trump has a few important criteria
for determining which individual

is most prepared
for the job at hand.

The individual in question
must be

a friend

a former employee
of someone in the family

or a random Republican
of whom he has heard

and more than anything
must be either dangerously incompetent
or purposely malicious

or both.



This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.

Deplorable Wealth Snare

There was a time

in the not-too-distant past

when Republicans in Congress

would openly and shamelessly present

their atrocious Affordable Care Act

replacement bills

to the floor

their mean and life-threatening suggestions

on full display

to the public.

Now trapped as they are

in the self-created Trump unreality vortex

the emotion they feel is

(to be gracious)

the meek first step to shame

namely having been caught

creating another terrible bill

and feeling too cowardly

to release the evidence

of any wrongdoing.

And in a bizarre twist

even the man

who just yesterday was unanimously placated

by a creepily sycophantic cabinet

calls it "mean."

This poem © 2017 Emily Cooper.