Tuesday, January 19, 2016

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.

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