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.

DETACHED

by Mark Ward

There’s that meme of James Franco ‘bout to be
hanged. He smiles, asks “First Time?” The text reads “Gays:”

as if they’re asking the straights now with them
(and of course it’s him, confused peacocking),

referring to both of the viruses
I’m scared of. Their first time to be ignored,

to feel helpless and, literally, alone.
First time kept out of the hospital room,

to be told they have died, second-hand.
It’s not the same though. The world didn’t stop

for us. The summer sun showed thinned-out prides,
detached eyes staring. Now, we’re all locked down,

look at how the world has come together,
look at all we could have achieved back then.

Mark Ward is the author of Circumference (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and Carcass (Seven Kitchens Press), as well as a full-length collection, Nightlight (Salmon Poetry, 2022). He is the founding editor of Impossible Archetype, an international journal of LGBTQ+ poetry, now in its fourth year.

BIDEN MY TIME

by John Kaprielian 

The old white man enters into the fray
appeals to those scared of women
minorities, socialists and gays.
Apologizes for actions in bygone days:
legislation, hugs, touches, and words,
Anita Hill not getting respect she deserved.
You say you are woke now, claim to understand 
the lives of everyday women and men but
I can't forgive you and vote in another
baggage-laden man unless there's no 
other choice to be made come election day 
to make damn sure Donald T***p goes away.

After graduating Cornell with an esoteric and useless degree in Slavic Linguistics, John Kaprielian found work as a natural history photo editor, which he has been for over 30 years. He has been writing poetry for 35 years and in 2012 he challenged himself to write a poem a day for a year and published the poems in a book, 366 Poems: My Year in Verse (available on Amazon). He has had poems published in TheNewVerse.News, The Five-Two Poetry Blog, Down in the Dirt Magazine, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Naturewriting.com, and Minute Magazine. His poetry ranges in subject matter from the natural world to current events and politics to introspective and philosophical themes. He lives in Mahopac with his wife, teenage son, and assorted pets.

ANOTHER DEAD PRESIDENT

by Lee Patton

Just wait,
another long week of non-news—the demise itself,
long expected, the prepackaged obits, the lugubrious
commentaries on the long-gone context of his single term,
all of it muted in longing for “better days than ours,”
because the bar for presidential behavior is now so low
that all the deceased had to do was act the decent rich guy—
anything but behave like our intimate casino gangster.

But wait—
it’s just begun. There’ll be videotapes of stilted appearances,
recountings of his public service over and over and over—
with no such tributes to nurses, teachers, roadway flaggers,
restaurant servers, farmers, or home caregivers, no—
that’s not service. No, service is being vice to a treacly phony
who lied and lied to us. It’s voting against civil rights, demon-
izing minority prisoners and gays.  It’s staging bogus wars.

But wait—
there’s more, the body flown from Houston to DC
with solemn militarist salutes, the body lying in state
in some solemn capital venue, tearful attendees
and glimpses of best-forgotten dignitaries, then finally,
finally, for sure, the deposition of the body at a military
cemetery. Please, at last, let's just bury the poor old guy
to rest in peace.

Lee Patton, a Denverite, writes fiction, poetry, drama and commentary. Quarterlies that have published his work include Best New Writing 2012, The Threepenny Review, The Massachusetts Review, The California Quarterly,  Poetry Quarterly, Ellipsis, Hawaii-Pacific Review, Adirondack Review and Memoir Journal. His third novel, My Aim Is True, is out from Dreamspinner Press. "Faith of Power," a novella, appears in Main Street Rag's 2017 suspense anthology Stuck in the Middle.

THE EYES OF CHECHEN AUTHORITIES WILL NEVER LET THEM FORGET WHAT THEY HAVE DONE

by David Hanlon

A leading Russian human rights group has expressed “serious fears” that a gay pop star may have been killed in Chechnya’s crackdown on gay people. Zelimkhan Bakayev, 26, went missing in August when he left his home in Moscow to visit the capital, Grozny, for his sister’s wedding. “When a person disappears and the police force refuse to investigate his disappearance, we have serious fears for the life of that person,” Oleg Orlov, from Memorial, Russia’s oldest civil rights group, told AFP on Friday. Russian NGOs and media outlets have raised concerns about the fate of Bakayev and speculated that Chechen police may have abducted him due to his sexual orientation. —The Guardian, October 27, 2017. Photo: Some time before his disappearance,  Zelimkhan Bakaev (right) posed with Chechnya's leader Ramzan Kadyrov. —Facebook

Even when they squeeze
them shut,

they’ll bulge
like fat camera reels

turning, projecting
the images on the backs

of their eyelids –
flesh screens

a silent,
black-and-white

horror movie
stuck

on repeat.

David Hanlon is from Cardiff, Wales. He is sickened by these atrocities that are still ongoing. With a leader who claims 'no gay men exist in Chechnya,' how can gay men ever feel safe within the republic again? Outside authorities need to intervene & put a stop to this inhumanity now!

ODE TO JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA

by Jay Sizemore

A majority of Americans disapprove of Senate Republicans' refusal to consider President Barack Obama's pick to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows. —NBC, March 9, 2016. Image source: K Waghorn.

Words no longer have meaning,
nothing but interpretive jiggery-pokery
that makes flagpole sitting a fundamental right,
so get over it. Pure applesauce.

It’s a pro-abortion novelty
to uphold Second Amendment rights,
deciding it’s acceptable to execute the retarded,
the enduring Constitution of the adopted dead.

It’s a reduction to the absurd
to not harbor moral feelings against homosexuality,
much like murder. I’m not a scientist.
To my critics, I say, “Vaffanculo.”

Let 60,000 consenting adults
display their genitals to one another,
have them erect a conglomerate of the cross,
the star of David, and a Muslim half-moon.

Refuse jobs to haters of the Chicago Cubs,
to snail eaters and adulterers,
the gays don’t have special rights.
It’s fundamentally illogical to have gay sex.

States may permit abortion on demand. It’s easy.
We can’t cast a cloud on the legitimacy
of George Bush’s election.
I would hide my head in a bag.

This Supreme Court has descended
to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.
It’s attributable to racial entitlement.
Jesus Christ believed in the Devil. Case closed.


Jay Sizemore hates when you call writing a hobby. His work has appeared here or there, mostly there. He lives in Nashville, TN, though he often wonders if he really exists. This poem, written in reaction to Antonin Scalia's death, is constructed from actual phrases Scalia used in his legal writings.