His Holy Shame

According to a CNN caption
that was on-screen
for about thirty seconds

"Pope has gained
weight in office"
showing that even male leaders

with influence
over one billion people

are subject to unwarranted
body speculation
if only briefly

so leave Francis alone.

Besides it being none
of our business anyway

for all we know
(and there's a lot
that's surprised us already
about the Pontifex)

he may also be incubating
the Second Coming of Christ
and we must show Him

that this world
for all its troubles

is in fact
a nice one.

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Impeachable Offense

Fox News
if your well
has run dry

feel free to quote
the following.

The only time
which Democrats
progressives and just liberals
in general

feel happy to be citizens
of our country

is when we win 2 to 1
(and what kind of tiny
winning score is that?)
at a sport

invented in Europe
and played internationally

which we don't
even call "soccer"
but rather "football"

against citizens
of a country
just a 4,000-mile

hop skip and a jump
away from our
beloved president's homeland

(assuming being a "birther"
is still cool
this late into Obama's
second term).

Because there
is no such thing
as a soccer-loving Republican.

So with your flair
for creative reporting

with these above facts
as a solid foundation

this could be
an absolutely scandalous story
that unseats all Democrats
in Congress

and makes Obama retire
in sudden embarrassment
"due to unrelated issues".

Maybe call it
"soccer Benghazi"?

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Method to His Manliness

Behind every great man
is a great woman

the saying goes
(and of course women
know how to lead
from the front)

but behind him
should also be the man
who is good

who can call out
the bad behavior
he senses is coming

who can risk
having the general
disown him

because he's
used his own strength
his own status

to defend the concept
of community

in the world
in the nation
in the household.

He knows
he can be a father
he can be a brother
(blood or not)

while supporting
his mothers and sisters

and he knows
that this is what it means
to be a man.

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Not Ashamed to Admit

Now granting the fact
that expressions
of explicit homophobia

have only relatively recently
started to become "gauche"
in mainstream American opinion

and "gauche" means "left"

and Texas Governor Rick Perry
was just one in a line

of perfectly solid
and erudite conservative challengers
vying for President in 2012

maybe he really did think

that the case
for gay reparative therapy
because of its striking similarities

to rehab
for people with alcoholism

(how did Democrats
never notice this?)

was a compassionate and sensitive
topic on which to expound

in San Francisco.

He acknowledged
a bold-by-GOP-standards

fact that homosexuality
may have
a genetic component

leaving hope for the possibility
that his and others'

simultaneously self-serving
and self-defeating lifestyle
of petty and obstructionist

and downright harmful
Obama-one-upmanship

can one day be cured

(or at least
have its symptoms
kept in check).

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Brat-Worst Case Scenario

Conservative Republican
members of Congress
have feelings too.

If there were a time
to feel sorry for Eric Cantor
this is it.

On Tuesday
the second-most-senior
Republican in the House

was beaten
in the primary

by Tea Party professor
(any double-takes
are most certainly forgivable)

Dave Brat
who teaches economics

at Randolph-Macon College
in Ashland Virginia.

His fancy book-knowledge
certainly came into play
in his campaign

having been both fiscally
and socially shrewd enough

to win over constituents
by spending only
$122,000 on advertising

compared with Cantor's $1 million.

We will see
if Brat lives up to his name
in his actions

more so than Cantor

who not even once
ever united the House
through the healing power

of sacred Jewish song
(what a shame).

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Surveying the Century

With the concurrence
of bad food
an at-risk natural world
and modern medicine

today it's fashionable
to want a satisfying
healthy life

rather than one
that is merely long.

Probably a positive trend overall
in terms of self-
and other-awareness.

but yesterday the oldest man
in the world
111-year-old
New Yorker Alexander Imich

died after evading
the Nazis in Poland

learning five languages
getting a Zoology degree

and writing books.

He was once asked
how he lived so long

and answered
"I don't know.
I simply didn't die earlier."

He did take physical care
of himself
by eating well
and exercising

but there's something to be said
for sticking around
with a slightly beat-up machine

doing what you can with it
but also

just being around to see.

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Tracy Morgan Bona Fide

Tracy Morgan was injured
in a six-car pileup

and is now
in critical condition.

Having a net worth
of 18 million dollars

a playful and robust
sense of humor

the ability to bounce back
from ill-thought-out comments

having the inimitable
"hot lady nerd
from next door" Tina Fey
as a fake and real boss

and even a close
supportive family
with whom to share it all

will pull you a long way
from pain
but not all the way.

Please recover soon
Tracy Morgan

and please show
that you are invincible.

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Not Just on the Day

For tomorrow
this 70th anniversary
of D-Day

you don't have
to be pro-war

or think America
has been blameless
in every global 
(or domestic) conflict

to respect
and listen to
the soldiers
who gave their lives

and yes they still gave

even if they were
lucky enough

to come
back home to us.

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Training Up A Child

While it's true
that if Hitler hadn't done

all that
orchestrating-mass-murder stuff
he'd be more widely-regarded

as a hero today
for first lifting
millions of Germans
out of poverty

it's still ill-advised
to quote him

(and even Gandhi
had a few questionable views

though he did stick to
that whole "deliberately avoiding
senseless violence" thing

which certainly
helped his image)

and probably most especially

if you're running
a Christian children's ministry
in Alabama

that aims to help
impoverished kids

even if that quote says

"He alone
who owns the youth
gains the future."

Luckily they did
recognize their mistake
after three days

but they probably
need a better
outdoor advertising publicist.

Even "Hussein" Obama
is probably a better
more moral person

from whom to pluck
an inspirational quote.

(The Son of God
may be everywhere

but frankly
after two thousand years
he's tired of doing ad copy.)

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Used to Be a Time

At the three-day
Republican Leadership Conference

the Republican National Chairman
Reince Priebus asked

"Why does the party 
of Abraham Lincoln

not get more credit
as the party of tolerance?"

Lest we forget
Lincoln's calculating pragmatism
that conveniently brought down

the institution of human ownership
in the process

it's still true that those
who cannot remember

the past of thirty years
fifteen years
six years
or even six days ago

are condemned to repeat it

and those that have never listened
to Janet Jackson's 1986 hit

"What Have You Done
for Me Lately?"

are doomed to hear
a larger and larger proportion
of society

blast the infectiously
forboding tune
and leave the Old Party.

(It was Grand
while it lasted.)

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

For the Love of Christie

Chris Christie's career
is dead.

Long live
Chris Christie's career.

The petty low-level mobster
who still believes
he's found refuge in politics

has not completely
ruled out
running for President in 2016

and yesterday
made appearances
in Tennessee

attending a fundraiser
for Republican Senator
Lamar Alexander

and speaking
at a state Republican
dinner in Nashville.

Even the President
of Nashville's Tea Party
Ben Cunningham

called the speaking engagement
"extremely unfortunate"

but he did crash
a bachelorette party
and the ladies loved him

though they probably
didn't bring up
too many

deep political questions
and he didn't make them

so it's really too bad

because were he
not embroiled
in a few too many scandals

the poor guy
would make
a great politician.

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Vetting Our Affairs

President Obama
"with considerable regret"
today accepted

Eric Shinseki's resignation
as Secretary
from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The president described
his "commitment to veterans"
as "unquestioned"

and his "service
to our country"
as "exemplary"

As with other
behemoth institutions
it's usually the case

that neither genuine mistakes
nor "on-purpose accidents"

can be squarely placed
on the shoulders of one figurehead

but regardless
seeing that figurehead

take responsibility and do
what he or she perceives as honorable
is noteworthy.

And may those Republicans
who in February rejected a bill

pushed by Senate Democrats
to expand veterans’ benefits

when the bill turns up
again next week

be able to do the same.

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Words Mean More

Maya Angelou's life
was her own

but she gave
to us pieces

describing 
and standing by
to continue to describe

through ink on paper
or waves in the air.

So what does it matter
that she spoke and wrote

and taught college
and marched
and researched and sang

and reported and acted
and inaugurated

in her one life?

What does it matter

one more Renaissance woman
growing up black and poor
in the South

and becoming a figurehead
of what one person

can do and overcome
and walk through?

What does it matter
that you didn't always
think of her

but she was just there
doing what a literary
fixture does

being present

and that now any tribute
to her

comes out feeling
like a cliche
not nearly as well written

as the one life was lived?

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Infallible Deniability

There once was a church
run by big Catholics

who taught God's Word
in the form
of outdated semantics.

Responses to child abuse
were neither swift nor profuse

until Pope Francis said
he had had it.

So the pissed-off Pope
decided he'd rally

and meet with
Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley
(of Boston).

His tolerance sits
right at zero

which really shouldn't
make him a hero

but it gives dear
old Holy See some
desperately-needed "vitale".

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

Out of Memory

Maybe there's something
the anti-war people
are missing

because even as technology upgrades
to do the dirty work

of more and more troops
on the ground

even as information
we can know
about a country

is so up-to-the-minute
minutely small
that we miss
the blurry big picture

even as the old guard
rightly becomes

more accommodating
to historically ignored
or shunned demographics

they still find reasons
to protest it.

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.

To the Republic

Congratulations Petro
"Chocolate King" Poroshenko
the billionaire confectioner

for winning
the presidential election
in Ukraine today
with 67 percent of the vote

and of course to the voters
who turned out

in record numbers despite
"Russian-backed separatist groups"

who "sought to disenfranchise
entire regions"
with "provocations and violence"

as written by Obama
in a statement today

a president whose victory

was only possible
because ceaseless calls
from citizens like him

from people who were
not running for office
just wanting a voice

were answered with laws
to reduce the degree of untruth
between America's

flagrant bellowing proclamation
of democracy

and its practice.

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.