Robert Cooperman- Three Poems

A bio: Robert Cooperman's latest collection is JUST DRIVE, from Brick Road Poetry Press.

The CEO of the World’s Largest Bank Speaks His Mind

 

Regulation?   To paraphrase the great

scene in The Treasure of Sierra Madre,

“We don’t need no stinkin’ regulation!” 

We’ve got the smartest people in the world,

why would you want to regulate us? 

 

Housing bubbles?  Bundling mortgages? 

Sub-prime loans to peons and trailer trash

who can’t possibly pay their way

into the American Dream of owning

their own homes, when they should

be living in shacks or Hooverville tents? 

All part of the great capitalist adventure.

 

We’re explorers of dark continents,

planting our flag on terra incognita,

and if we cause a few busts, then and only

then, it’s time for the government

to save us from ourselves, for if we fail,

 

the economy will crash, so it’s your patriotic

duty to bail us out when our calculations

go slightly awry, or when we need to pay

top management talent, to keep the best

and brightest working for us, not for foreigners.

 

Golden parachutes are just to make sure

those who leave their CEO positions

after a minor slip-up don’t go elsewhere,

industry secrets falling into the wrong hands.

 

By God, you should be thanking us,

for making sure the greatest country

on earth continues to be a shining city

on a hill for all the world to emulate.

 

          

The Founder of “Guns for Everyone,” After the Latest Mass Shooting

 

The real problem?  Not enough law abiding folks

have guns.  Arm everyone, and you’ll see

the murder rate plummet like a gut-shot goose.

Besides, shouldn’t maniacs have guns too?  

You say the victims, this time, were school kids?

Maybe they’d have grown up to be killers,

mass murderers, or worse, terrorists.

 

Nothing’s for certain, except that a good gun

won’t jam when you need it to fire fast

and accurate at a thug or foreigner bursting through

your carelessly open window, unless, of course,

you left it that way, to lure the felon in.

 

Gun checks?  For everyone with a last name

that don’t sound American or Christian:

and don’t let them near even a water pistol. 

 

This country was founded by Jesus-fearing men.

It makes me sick to think how upset they’d get

if they were to see we’re letting just anyone in,

and to further see how most folks aren’t armed

and run from the sight of a sacred gun as if a rat

or rattlesnake.  Folks like George and Thomas

would be mad enough to start shooting and never stop.

 

 

The Real Estate Mogul Reveals How It’s Done

 

When I sign up an architecture firm

and a construction company, and we agree

on a price, and when the job’s finished

to my exacting specifications, I tell them

I’ll pay half of what we agreed, but actually

I pay the grubby bastards half of that.

Let them sue, I got more vicious lawyers

than schools of great whites feeding on

a beach crammed with screaming swimmers,

so those pussy builders are just blood in the water.

 

So what if no one will work for me twice,

there’s plenty more firms out there,

why I put up more luxury hotels, condos,

office towers, and casinos than the pharaohs,

and every building with my name up in lights.

Little guys worship me because I always win,

as opposed to all the bozos who whine, Justice.”

 

Justice?  The joy of putting your opponent

on his back, like that loser Patterson against Liston.

You want to know what else “Justice” is? 

Having more cash, stocks, bonds, real estate, gold,

silver, precious gems, Old Masters, and other

expensive toys than the federal government. 

 

That’s why I’m the only one who knows what’s good

for America: after I’m elected, we’ll build a wall

to keep the Mexicans out, and get rid of the wetbacks here,

‘cept the ones working at my construction sites;

them we’ll keep for as long as we need them,

and hell no, we won’t pay ‘em: they make enough

as it is, from begging, and selling drugs and their sisters.