Running Azuck

Happy 30th birthday
Mark Zuckerberg.

Sorry if virtually every
news outlet

from amateur plebeian commentators

(on websites
such as Facebook)

to veteran
at-least-still-nominally credible
media networks

(on websites
such as Facebook)

has blamed you
for everything from wasting corporations
(except Facebook)
billions of dollars per year

to the hastening
of humanity's demise
by shortening our attention spans

and making us selfish
oversharing bullying narcissists

looking for ever-infinitesimally-smaller
and more frequent
means of sugary gratification
from so-called "friends".

That really mostly is unfair
for people will do
good or ill unto others

with or without enabling technologies

and regardless of what ideas
you "borrowed" from your peeps

you're a precociously
bright guy
with billions of dollars

but when lovable
Tom from MySpace
became everyone's friend

he still seemed
a little less clingy

when we
(moderately archaically
by now)

finally clicked away.

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Measure of a Man

Hey Fox News
if you're recruiting
from the School
of Fairness and Balance

(the only school
that has any place
in our society)

and looking for an intern
to not-pay
to help write headlines

look no further
than here because

"Clay Aiken's
Republican Opponent

(well actually
he was an old white male

who like Aiken
was registered as a Democrat

and was actually
running against him
in the primary

but our viewers
need a controversy

so let's assume in his old age
he forgot to change
his registration)

in Race for Congressional Seat
Keith Crisco Dies

from Aiken's
Gay Waves of Subduction
That Caused Crisco to Fall and Die

at around 1:30 PM
in His Own Home."

So what if Aiken
is suspending
all his campaign activities

to pray for the man's
family and friends?

That's just code for
"Give me a sec

to catch the next
rainbow broomstick to Tijuana."

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

One "Bad" Mother

Don't be afraid
to be a mama's boy

like LeBron James
Bill Clinton
or Barack Obama.

You may develop
a healthier respect for women

responsibility
sensitivity and empathy

and may everyone
go through life
with one mama figure
or more

birth or adopted
female or male

and today
tomorrow and after give props
to Anna Jarvis

who as a young woman
in 1908 started Mother's Day

(yes grammar nerds

with emphasis
on the apostrophe)

to honor her mother
after her death from cancer.

A religious social activist
she was against

the commercialization
of the holiday

so the iconic Beatles tune
"All You Need is Love"
is most fitting

(but she was curiously silent
about unauthorized and embarrassing

"throwback" pics
on social media).

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Spangly Banners

Arkansas you see
by the city of Light

(an unincorporated community
in Greene County)

dear old Uncle Sam
got a bit gayer tonight.

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

He's Not an Eggplant

We love you
John Boehner

and yes Obama's
"orange is the new black" joke

at the Correspondents' Dinner
probably stung you

but is the best response
to your mean Republican peeps

really to start
a Benghazi committee?

This mistake and tragedy
has been probed

in 13 hearings
25,000 pages of documents
and 50 briefings

and trying to implicate Obama

any more
than he already has been
seems like a good way

to squander Congress's 
sweet vacation
from passing bipartisan legislation

with busy work.

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Have It Your So Good-Lovin' Way

Fast food workers
the world over
want a little extra cheese.

On the 15th of May
expect to see employees

from thirty-two countries
on five continents

hold solidarity protests
at McDonald's
Burger King and KFC franchises.

Given these corporations'
other recent efforts
to modernize their facades

for a pretentiously concerned
generation of aloof Millennials

who seem to like companies
that "care" and whatnot

maybe they thought
that sustainable living wages
were just too trendy.

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Primary Colors

In North Carolina
the primary has ended

with red sides and blue sides
and debate over which side

has been tainted more
by yellow journalism.

Red and blue
with an overlap of green

a crude but necessary accessory

(hopefully not to any
nasty scandals or crimes)

in the glove compartment

of the wisely-futuristic smart car
or boldly-defiant SUV
we travel to success

blend together
to put white in the middle
of it all

or not.

Tedious as it gets
sometimes to follow

the color model does change
for every election

and even the properties
of the base colors
are perpetually in flux.

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

May Polio

The World Health Organization
says that the promising
downward trend

of polio infections
could soon reverse itself
as polio has re-emerged
in 10 countries

including war-torn
Central African Republic
and South Sudan.

The organization's
new rules require Pakistan
Syria and Cameroon

to vaccinate anyone
traveling abroad
at least four weeks in advance
of his or her departure

but it's good advice
for the rest of us

to "Don't hate
but rather
vaccinate

for it ain't the polio
that made FDR great

and if you don't like FDR
then 'Win one for the Gipper'

by taking a deep breath
turning off Fox News

and keeping your mind alive
by ruing that Obamacare

somehow didn't
make you sicker."

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Once He Had a Love

(Apologies to Blondie)

At Club Odyssey
he was "Mona Sinclair"

then took off his dress
and lost all his flair.

Had no hunch "Steve Wiles"
would be so un-fun 

when he turned all GOPpy
and yessed Amendment One.

You're a real man now
but maybe you're blind

if you think you can leave
all your friends behind.

Ooh ooh ooh-ahh
ooh ooh ooh-ahh ...

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Head Start

Researchers in the UK
have some bad news

for the parents of babies
with flat-topped heads

a phenomenon that has increased
in recent years

(due to that weirdly
commonplace paranoia

of hoping they will
not die suddenly
during the night

because they weren't
sleeping on their backs)

which is that

costly "helmet therapy"
will probably not help them

so luckily
you can still treat
their malformation
with noninvasive physical therapy

but not before
your next get-together

so that useless baby
can pull its ever-increasing weight

by crawling around
and serving your guests

from a small tray
of hors d'oeurves
balanced on its head.

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Paradise by the Carriage Light

Today is the National Day of Prayer
so make sure
that wherever you are

be that in a private home
a place of work
an institution of higher learning

or even maybe
in a place of worship

(if your pastor or preacher
or minister or reverend
is cool enough)

to amplify Obama's now clandestine
and nominal 
acknowledgement of Christ

by blasting that classic
Bon Jovi tune

because when you're
livin' on a prayer
you're "halfway there"

but if you should observe
concurrently
a man or woman
who carries on

like some
blind flying mammal
who has the potential
to be saved

but keeps using
the deceptively secure
deep black cover of night

to deny God's everlasting love
and fly "back into Hell"

to receive the short-term pleasures
of bodily sin

you can in fact
"go all the way tonight"

by doing what the Founder Fathers
did to false prophets
and wayward sinners

(and there's even
a special badge

with all attendees
to the 1787 Constitutional Convention
lovingly realized
in polyester thread)

and leave them be

(for Richie Sambora's awesome light
will dawn on them
one day).

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

When the Street Begins

It is 5 o'clock somewhere
but the hangover
is somewhere too

and there are places
where the bad news
has been learned from already

so the people
from the recent past
can wise up

learn from the headache
and not make
the same mistake

of underestimating
their bad reaction

and having to clean up
way more puke
than they expected

once they and their bar buddies
have parted ways

and find themselves
too alone again

and this is all in fact true
not one of those
wild ideas

a couched-in-humor
serious idea

that seems only to come up
when 5 o'clock rolls around
in our time zone
when you're channeling Shel Silverstein

and catching a glimpse
of that adult world
in some far-off land

which is a healthy mix
of logic and compassion

and is in fact
still happy to break your fall

when the sidewalk ends.

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Silent Star

We still call natural disasters
acts of God

and tornadoes come
out of nowhere
and leave with everything

so it is an apparently
vengeful God

one that won't show
Him- or Herself

one that

outside of the destruction
left behind

won't be talked about
on the news for weeks

and put on trial
for crimes against humanity.

God isn't vengeful

though He feels relieved

off the hook
in a sense
but not really.

Tornado country
is not well-off

but there's no one
around to blame

just a moment to give thanks
for what and whom
He left on Earth

and nothing to do
but rebuild.

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Special Rites

Sarah Palin said something
and what she said was sensational

and it was about
President Obama's failings
as a leader

and who should care

since she's just a quitter
who can't settle graciously

for living under Obama's
race-baiting socialist rule

and she is ageless and perfect
in every picture

which is actually bad
because a politician's job
when done with a measure of nuance

not typically found
in a fascist

(same difference
you elitist) dictatorship

is very hard
on the hair and complexion.

She said "Well if I
were in charge

they would know
that waterboarding
is how we’d baptize terrorists"

a statement that
is accidentally brilliant

in that it just may settle
the debate

between so-called "secular progressives"
and so-called "traditionalists"
(thank you Bill O'Reilly)

which is "Is Sarah Palin
an affront
to basic human decency?"

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Bless This Ness

After a satellite image
appeared on Apple Maps
showing Nessie
the Loch Ness Monster in her

(or "his" or "its"
or maybe "their"
since the beast could have

multiple rational
and free-thinking heads)

first major sighting
for more than a year

which is the longest gap
between confirmed reports
since 1925

businesses all over Scotland
are preparing marketing campaigns

around that creature of myth
and late-night binge drinking.

Naturalist Adrian Shine
sees cynicism behind this
direct marketing campaign

saying "The whole point
about the Loch Ness Monster

is that it has not been promoted
in this official manner."

No doubt that commercial
interests have exploited
real people's holy days

exaggerated and even invented
seasonal marketing mascots

but some of these
crass adaptations

have been reabsorbed
into the culture

even becoming
folk heroes along the way.

But in reality
marketing is nothing new
for regular people

who tell stories
that increase social cohesion
while limiting independent thought

or condone new stresses
and new diseases
in their fellow men and women
(which may or may not
include themselves)

trading one means
of feeding a family for another

while relying on
real-time daily mythmaking

through the sincere and unified
adoption of new routines

that "fingers crossed"
are self-fulfilling prophesies

that will make those
fuzzy daydreams come true.

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Phoning It Home

If you find yourself
wandering and delirious
in New Mexico

approaching the landfill
near the town of Alamogordo

and you rue your judgment

because that imagined oasis
on second glance
is not as such

maybe you were right
the first time.

No it's not water
(which only
comes in bottles anyway)

but a truckload
of Atari's abandoned

"E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial"
video game from 1983

of which the company
was forced to dispose
during that year's
"video game crash"

after having spent millions
to get the rights from Spielberg.

Those who actually played it
would remember it

as one of the worst titles
of all time

but you could finagle
a few dollars from nostalgic gamers
with "ironic" collections

of terrible vintage stuff.

A desperate venture
to be sure

but a bit more moral
than going into meth.

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Blown His House Down

Contrary to that old
cautionary tale
the Three Little Pigs

a straw house can last
one thousand years
so long as it's
fortified with mud

and the longest
ongoing arguments

for why Cliven Bundy
should be considered
a patriotic hero

and not an ungrateful moocher
who let his 900 cows
munch for 20 years
on federal grasses

and presumably would not
breathe a sigh of relief

at the cessation of his
government oppression

were he suddenly
rounded up and consigned
to a fun life
of truly "free" ranching

can survive unchallenged
until the spirit of his life

is betrayed by his utterance
of the letter.

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.