EQUITY AND TOLERANCE

FOR STONEWALL

by Roberta Batorsky

 

 

Three days after the Trump administration removed a Rainbow Flag from the Stonewall National Monument, defiant activists hoisted the Rainbow Flag once again in front of a jam-packed crowd of fed-up LGBTQ community members who flooded the area surrounding Christopher Park.  Photo by Donna Aceto. —Gay City News, February 12, 2026

Bury the flag of empathy,
it no longer belongs here.
Turn its rainbow black—
disavow the pride it gave
commemorating AIDS victims,
lives lost as in a war.
and it was a war, unended, unwon.
 
Pull the emblem of suffering
of men, women and children,
renew the prejudice that killed
Oscar*, Alan** and others,
deliver it with its own symbol
of derision and weakness.
 
It wasn’t Ellen D***. that convinced us,
Matt Shepard’s death didn’t convince us:
something fundamentally changed then.
Now bathroom jokes, lewdness, shame,
insinuation, guilt and closeting
all shift to the front burner.
 
Bury the flag of concern for people
deep in the heart of the heart of this country.
 
See us now, re-emerging, colors blazing,
in freedom’s garb,
to shake off erasure,
proclaiming our unity:
Our city, our flag.
 
 
*Oscar Wilde
** Alan Turing
*** Ellen Degeneres

 

 

Roberta Batorsky, a New Jersey poet, has published this month her first book of poetry, Perihelion.

BIGOTS SHOWED UP TO PRIDE WEARING KHAKIS

by Chad Frame

Authorities in northern Idaho are leaving open the possibility for more criminal charges against 31 white nationalists accused of planning to riot at a weekend Pride festival. Members of a group known as Patriot Front face misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to start a riot. —NPR, June 14, 2022

and it was tacky. So, you want to send 

a message to the gays? Don't do it dressed

like you're about to solicit us all 

to open Best Buy credit cards. Don't rent 

a gas-guzzling, garish orange U-Haul 

and blare Skynyrd out the rolled-down windows

on the Interstate (I want to say I-

eighty something—which, by the way, is how 

old you look. Do you even moisturize?) 

Okay, we get it—you hate us. Still want

to get your point across? Let's start with names. 

No gay will ever repent at the sound

of the name Patriot Front. How about

Patriot Daddy? Patriot Power 

Top? Or Patriot You've Been a Naughty

Prideful Little Piggy and Here We Are 

to Set You Straight? Now we're getting somewhere.

Now, let's talk about that slogan—Reclaim 

America. We already did that 

at Stonewall, remember? That is so June

1969. You'll need something fresh, 

catchy—a real earworm. Might I suggest

Hey, Girl, That Look's Fire, and We Mean Hellfire?

Or consider Stop Trying to Make Fetch 

and Your Alternative Lifestyles Happen. 

Look, I don't know. Workshop it a little.

Christ. Do I have to do everything?

Chad Frame is the author of Little Black Book (Finishing Line Press, 2022), Director of the Montgomery County Poet Laureate Program, and Poet Laureate Emeritus of Montgomery County, PA, a founding member of the No River Twice poetry improv and performance troupe, Poetry Editor of Ovunque Siamo, and founder of the Caesura Poetry Festival and Retreat. His work appears in Rattle, Pedestal, Barrelhouse, and elsewhere, is available on iTunes, and was sent to the moon.

WE SIMPLY HAD ENOUGH(STONEWALL 50)

by Devon Balwit

Devon Balwit's most recent collection is titled A Brief Way to Identify a Body (Ursus Americanus Press). Her individual poems can be found in here as well as in Jet Fuel, The Worcester Review, The Cincinnati Review, Tampa Review, Apt (long-form issue), Tule Review, Grist, and Rattle among others.