The Dear Leader Network

It's pretty obvious
that Trump doesn't like regulations

except when it concerns Google
and its presentation of news about him
in its search results

in which case
he has tweeted rather ominously
that the "Fake New Media"
"will be addressed"

presumably to make them show him
as the figure his followers see:

a man who is very rich
and must be very smart and good
because only the bad people hate him.

Perhaps this is a diplomatic gesture

meant to align the values of our country
with another one
one in which
there is no Internet

and in which the news media

presents its hipster-haircut
baby-faced killer leader
in only the most flattering light
(or else):

North Korea.


This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

Beatnik-isms

Beyond simply to destroy daily
any of the previous day's remaining positive feelings
the world has for America

the Trump administration
has taken a circuitous route
to giving us poetry

specifically beatnik poetry

for example:

"When I said I would,
I actually meant wouldn't"

because "despite the constant negative press covfefe"

"what you're seeing
and what you're reading
is not what's happening"

because "truth isn't truth"
and you "can't guarantee anything"

but "Sean Spicer
gave alternative facts"

"there is blame
on both sides"

and "the laws are the laws."

Which is to say
"You cannot defeat an enemy
you do not admit exists"

because "they were the masterminds
behind the Bowling Green massacre."

This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

Weak Link in the Chain

(Sung by Stephen Miller)
(Apologies to Aretha Franklin)

For my career
I thought "I'm just a man"

till Uncle revealed
we migrated in a chain

He said the family hates me
I'm hypocritical
Just 'cause I jail kids yeah
Just 'cause I treat them cruel

I'm added to the
Chain, chain, chain
(Chain, chain, chain)
Chain of fools


This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

Legally Totaled

Just who would Trump

via Tweet
speech
or deranged rambling to the media that he so hates

not throw under the bus
to protect himself

under the guise
of defending them?

The answer
which should be apparent by now

is no one
not even his children.

This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

An Optical Collusion

Says Rudy Giuliani
creative defender of the President
who probably due to his interesting

(if somewhat different from Trump's)

relationship with the truth

has gotten to keep his position

"Collusion is not a crime."

There you have it.

Now we can safely ignore
the words of non-liberal Department of Homeland Security Secretary
Kirstjen Nielsen who says

"Let me be clear:
Our intelligence community had it right.
It was the Russians."

"We know that, they know that.
It was directed from the highest levels.
And we cannot
and will not allow it to happen again"

as well as her creation
of the DHS National Risk Management Center

because something probably happened
and Trump and his cohorts probably helped

and it was what it looked like

but what it was
was nothing.

Whew!

This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

Women Who Shirk

Either realizing
she has made enough money already

or more likely
realizing her brand
is now a liability

that it would require
too much integrity
to hire American workers

and that it doesn't look great
that she's doing nothing
to fulfill the duties of her White House role

Ivanka Trump
is closing her namesake fashion brand

to focus again on being her father's
senior adviser

which apparently involved her
glad-handling politicians
posing in pictures

and alternating being out of touch with
and accomplishing nothing

for women and families.



This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

The Time of the Treason

Having chosen both to attend a meeting with Putin
and to make the statements that he did
following the meeting

Trump has invented a sentiment
somehow more frightening
than the "You're either with us or against us"
of the Bush days

which is
"You're either with us
or with the US."







This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

Revealing

As Trump was preparing to make
his disastrous-for-women-et cetera-pick
for the Supreme Court

true American hero
Stormy Daniels
was a mile away
at the Cloakroom strip club

helping to revive an establishment
that literally collapsed on itself in 2014

and left scantily-clad women
fleeing onto K street
in broad daylight

by removing
her pink dress
gloves
bracelets and a
feather boa

to "Big Spender" and "Material Girl"

in a 15-minute show titled
"All Things Revealed"

which absolutely of course
does not reference anything political.

Said Russian expat Irina
"“I want to see [Daniels]
in a leather dominance situation.
Because she’s dominating our president.”




This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

Declaration of Independent Thought

This 4th of July

while you're eating
engaging in festivities
and trying to ignore the news

remember that there is a reason

that these people
are called public officials

and that they can be confronted and resisted
24 hours a day
and 7 days a week.

This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

Civil Wrongs

It goes both ways.

If a bakery or a florist
can refuse to serve gay people

then a restaurant
can turn away a woman

who defends the president's
policy of child separation

and his consideration
of stripping the grown-ups
of their right to a fair trial.

And anyone calling for civility now
needs to be sure their request
goes to the people
who are denying civil rights.



This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

Lies Without a Face

Coming this summer
is a movie about laws

that have created themselves
and must be obeyed
at any cost

even if everyone
is mad at you

and says
what you're doing
is immoral and wrong.

In this movie
our Tweeting hero

only wants a compassionate border wall
to appease those amorphous laws
and solve all the problems

making him
and not the children

the real victim
in this completely-made up
and convoluted situation

that fortunately
only exists as an idea.

(Whew!)


This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

Shake-A-Spear

While we are living
in the reality
in which the American chimpanzee

did not choose to storm out
of the room
or fling anything
at the other one

and by the standards
of this chimp
that is notable

we should not get it confused
with one in which
our chimp is terribly concerned

with the other's penchant
for starvation and murder

and is prepared
or even thinks there is a need
to take him to task.

In his own words
Trump apparently took at face value
that Kim Jong-un
"loves his country very much"

and has normalized
the leader's actions
by saying

"It's a rough situation over there.
It's rough in a lot of places
by the way."

This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

Just Assume Obama Said It

“This is the part of my speech
where I share
some inspirational quotes I found on Google”

said 18-year-old
Pineville Kentucky
Bell County High School valedictorian Ben Bowling

to the 82-percent
Trump-voting audience

“‘Don’t just get involved.
Fight for your seat at the table.

Better yet
fight for a seat
at the head of the table.'
 —Donald J. Trump.”

Applause rang out
until moments later

Bowling burst their bubble
and said

“Just kidding.
Just kidding.
That was Barack Obama"

and save for a few giggles
and a solitary "Boo"
silenced the room completely

revealing not so flatteringly
that Trump's attribution
of Obama's legacy

(the parts he likes at least)

to himself

are the only way
some voters
will remember it.


This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

Conners and Consequences

As difficult as it was
for people like Roseanne Barr

to maintain both a shred of dignity
and a positive impression
of our president

a new tweet comes in
at an ABC-dubbed
"abhorrent, repugnant"
new low

soon after the show's record highs
for the network.

Despite her prior tweets
wholeheartedly embracing some measure
of abhorrence and repugnance

ABC could rightfully not tolerate
her describing former Obama senior adviser
Valerie Jarrett

as a cross between Planet of the Apes
and Muslim Brotherhood

and had to cancel
her eponymous show.

Would that presidencies
could come to such swift
and decisive ends.

This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

Kim Jong-Uh

Apparently Trump
the master of deals
(presumably good ones)

is having second thoughts
on going to meet with Kim Jong-Un
in three weeks

and is presenting the ramifications
of being basically
completely unprepared

for perhaps the most final
of final exams

as a deliberate diplomatic move
rather than as a strategy
for buying more time

(if it can't be canceled)

to have his Cabinet
find him a map
showing where North Korea is

and maybe tell him
a sentence or two from Wikipedia
depending on
his attention span.

Says he
the genius who already knows
everything there is to know

and perhaps realizing
that even someone more knowledgeable than he

is at risk to damage
to his person
if a wrong move is made

"That doesn't mean
that it won't work out
over a period of time

but it may not work out
for June 12."



This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

Enhanced Morality Avoidance

With her 33 years of experience
in the CIA
Gina Haspel is a shining example

of a leader with experience

something so sorely needed
in the Trump administration

being a bad choice
for the country

namely due to her prior predilection
for "enhanced interrogation" techniques

which is right in line
with Trump's America

in which vague promises
to "probably do the right thing
yeah yeah sure"

before immediately retracting
any handshakes signifying a promise

will win you a spot
in the dear leader's circle

for as long as you are valuable
to his whims

which hopefully include
a passing glance
at something like "American values."

It is to be hoped
that if she is nominated

which now seems likely

she turns out to be a bozo
with a conscience

who can unequivocally denounce
past versions of herself
who would condone torture

instead.

This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

Iran So Far Away

Tuesday begins
with an apology
from Senator Orrin Hatch

to Senator John McCain
for suggesting it was "ridiculous"
for him to declare

that he wouldn't want President Trump
at his funeral

(who wouldn't want to be there anyway
as it probably contradicts
his belief system

of only attending funerals
of people who weren't captured

as well as his own
when the time comes)

and a non-apology
for plunging the US
into diplomatic crisis with Iran

and inexplicably severing
any even tenuous connection
that might be made

between "Trump"
and "peace in the Middle East."

Trump is also probably reveling
in his 2013 tweet

about
once-beloved Democrat Eric Schneiderman
"Wait and see
worse than Spitzer or Weiner"

and gloating in the fact
that he technically
has the upper hand

(or rather lower)

as he has not been called out
for engaging in the now-ex-New York Attorney General's
specific form of physical abuse.

This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

To Know That It's Raining

It doesn't take Scott Pruitt
(thank God)

to notice that Trump's forecast
remains Stormy

with a chance of revelation
of dark clouds hanging over Trump
and the legitimacy of his presidency

(for reasons other
than its sheer horribleness).

Chances of nuclear clouds
increase linearly based on the degree of ill-advisedneses
of Trump's tweets towards North Korea.


This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

Kim Jong Trump

In what is perhaps
a subtle diplomatic move
on his part

in that no one
is quite sure why
he would say it

but hopes that it is interpreted
in the most diplomatic way possible

today Trump called Kim Jong-Un "honorable."

It is also hoped
that at their upcoming meeting

Kim Jong-Un
will keep in mind the remedial-level staying-on-topic-skills
of our dear leader

shake his small hand
call Trump highly honorable himself

note that denuclearization
on the part of both parties
will ensure that future generations
will be around to know
just how much this is true

and escort him out
before Trump can say anything.

This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.

Caught Red-Hannited

Despite wielding all the sheer lawyer strength
he could muster

the names on the Michael Cohen's client list
were revealed

in fact
by his own lawyer

and one of them
was Fox News' head honcho Sean Hannity.

Suddenly the man concerned
with Robert Mueller III's alleged conflicts of interest
in the investigation of President Trump

and who said of George Stephanopoulos'
secret $75,000 donation
to the Clinton Foundation

because he had just grilled
conservative critic Peter Schweizer
for his book denouncing the non-profit

in so many words
“The idea that they're saying ...
'Oh, it was an honest mistake'

I don't believe that.

I think he thought he'd get away with it
and didn't disclose it”

seems rather non-contrite

while displaying all the signs
of a stammering-
I-didn't-do-anything-wrong-
but-please-God-why-did-I-get-caught-
truly-non-guilty man.

This poem © 2018 Emily Cooper.