written on the first day of June, marking the beginning of the FIRST Pride Month under the Convicted Felon, Donald Trump's authoritarian rule.
the echo, echoing
of rainbow stars shattering
my gay son's kaleidoscope
FYI: For more poems about LGBTQ+, see "Special Feature: Selected Poems for Reflections on LGBTQ+ Rights in the Era of Trumpism"
And Paisley Currah, The New Yorker, May 27, 2025: Donald Trump’s War on Gender Is Also a War on Government
Amid Donald Trump’s recent attacks on transgender people, many critics of his Administration have cited the German pastor Martin Niemöller, whose 1946 poem “First They Came” describes Nazi Germany’s progressive targeting of maligned groups. Indeed, on the first day of Trump’s second term, he signed an anti-trans executive order decreeing that the federal government recognize only two sexes, male and female; since then, his Administration’s pursuit of groups that it deems enemies—immigrants, college protesters, white-shoe law firms—has progressed rapidly. But Trump’s anti-trans actions are not just opening moves in a battle against vulnerable groups. Nor are they simply fanning the flames of right-wing moral panic. The push to eradicate so-called “woke gender ideology” is also part of the assault on the government itself....
Trump Empire, Inc, XXXII
for 238 Venezuelan men who were "disappeared" into a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador known as CECOT
at the steps
of the Statue of Liberty
each of these names
of the disappeared read out loud...
a breath, a wound, and a warning
Trump Empire, Inc, XXXIII
the Convicted Felon
alone at a White House window ...
from down the street
across the country, around the world
protesters dressed in rainbows
FYI: Ls 3&4 allude to the commencement speech by Harvard president Alan Garber, who has remained defiant as President Trump demands changes at the school:
Members of the Class of 2025 from down the street, across the country, and around the world.
Around the world, just as it should be.
