Commedia dell Vote-ay

In this issue

it's almost time
for the identity
of the Super Blues-day superhero
to be revealed.

Guaranteed to be
Better Than Mr. Orange (TM)
in some way

the Voting Body can rest assured
that the next four years
will feature a presidency
with at least measurably reduced levels

of fearmongering
hatemongering
scandalmaking
and Tweets
featuring said -mongerings and -makings.

After today
there will be no more voting
and the ever-changing Voting Body shall be released from ...

Wait a minute

the Voting Body

won't reveal the hero's certain identity
till almost the summer

and there's a Super Reds-day identity
waiting to be revealed too?

And this person
will likely be the hero's
arch nemesis
Mr. Orange?

And the Voting Body
in eight months

will choose between
Fine or Better and Worse Than Death

with characters like
Mr. Russian Hacker

Mr. Voter Suppression

and Mr. Slightly Embarrassing Political Moments
from Hero's Past

possibly making an appearance?

Yes to this and more.

Stay tuned.

This poem © 2020 Emily Cooper.

Truth Alone Triumphs

At a press conference
in India today

Trump of course
remained focused on affirming the rights of Muslims
to live freely without persecution in the country

admonished Prime Minister Modi
for his citizenship law

and said that he experienced
"serious regret"

after the US Supreme Court ruled in favor
of the recently-revised "public charge" rule

that now makes it harder for immigrants
receiving certain kinds of non-cash benefits
like healthcare assistance
food aid and housing subsidies 
for more than a year
to get green cards

upon realizing that it probably would've excluded
people like his grandfather
from immigrating to the US.

Then Trump woke up
from his fever dream

and back in ours
also known as reality

said of Supreme Court Justices
Sotomayor and Ginsburg

“I just don’t know 
how they cannot recuse themselves
from anything having to do with Trump
or Trump-related"

mischaracterizing Sotomayor's criticism
of the appellate process
catering to the federal government

as an attack on himself personally.

Whew!

This poem © 2020 Emily Cooper.

Commuting to 2020 (Haiku)

Fox News here's a thought.
Bring on Kellyanne Conway
to spread a new lie:

Trump's bipartisan
for commuting the sentence
of Blagojevich.

This poem © 2020 Emily Cooper.

Curb Your Understanding

There's people who don't get
well-done satire

and then there's Trump's almost satirical-seeming
misunderstanding of such

when on Monday
he retweeted an expletive-filled scene

from Curb Your Enthusiasm

in which Larry David
after almost hitting a motorcyclist with his car

puts on his MAGA hat

to de-escalate the situation.

The motorcyclist
seeing the hat
and believing the two
are politically kindred spirits

calms down and tells David
simply to be more careful next time.

Trump captioned the scene
with "Tough Guys for Trump."

But in an earlier scene

David uses the hat

as a "people repellent"

to get out of playing golf
with his manager
who doesn't want to be seen

with a Trump supporter

then wears it at a sushi bar
so he can enjoy a meal
by himself.

As for Trump supporters
who watch the show

David didn't care
too much about them
being alienated
by the episode

saying in an interview
(in almost haiku form)
“Alienate yourselves.
Go go and alienate.
You have my blessing.”

This poem © 2020 Emily Cooper.

State of the Sand Dunes

At Trump's hopefully last
State of the Union address

don't drink every time

the POTUS tells a lie

or praises himself for something good that happened
that really would've happened anyway

or remarks on his
slightly-less-than-half-the-country
approval rating

or brags about him
and the country
emerging triumphant
from a so-called "witch hunt"

or you'll get alcohol poisoning.

Instead think about how

sand dunes of the same height and volume
when put into a rotating tank
with enough water flow
to move the particles

will initially move at different speeds

due to the upstream sand dunes
"communicating" with their downstream neighbors
"I need my space."

After that
having found their places
180 degrees apart from each other

the two dunes
move at roughly same speed.

Then think about
how this applies
to American politics

and realize
that people of all stripes
and with opposite views
that will remain such

perhaps had to repel each other
before coming to the same conclusion

that someone
anyone else

should be in charge.


This poem © 2020 Emily Cooper.

Surrender Is Not An Option

Dear John Bolton

After writing in your book

that Trump tied aid to Ukraine

to his request
that the country
announce investigations into the Bidens

I still don't think
I like you
as a person

but thank you.




This poem © 2020 Emily Cooper.

Dream On

Kellyanne Conway

when asked why President Trump
was not formally celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

after saying he believed
much of what the civil rights leader stood for

said she did not believe it was
"within Dr. King's vision to have Americans
dragged through a process
where the president is not going to be removed from office"

and added

"I think that anybody who cares about
'and justice for all'
on today or any day of the year

will appreciate the fact
that the president now
will have a full-throttle defense
on the facts."

But perhaps she's right.

Because after all
who knows
what MLK really would've
thought of a man

who in a past life

kept minorities from living
in his housing units

and in a current life

takes to Twitter
and the stage to antagonize
nearly everyone
except himself?

Or maybe

just maybe

in her first statement
she's saying

that Americans will have wasted their time
putting up with this whole trial business

unless it ends with the satisfying conclusion
of having Trump removed from office?

(Perhaps not.)


This poem © 2020 Emily Cooper.

Life Sentences

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
announced today

that the House would be voting tomorrow
on a resolution
to name the impeachment managers
for the President's Senate trial

and transmit the articles
to the chamber.

Said Mitch McConnell
"It will fall to us
to do what the founders intended--
to take the long view

move beyond partisan passions
and do what the long-term good
of our institutions and our nation demands."

Since
despite any illusions to the contrary
 he is actually speaking Trump-loyalist-ese

this most likely means
Trump will remain in office

but as Pelosi reminded us
Trump is still
"impeached for life."

And as Prince told us
"That's a mighty long time."




This poem © 2020 Emily Cooper.