The following four poems are taken from the What Rough Beast anthology of poems about Trump and Trumpism, available to download here. Image above: Rise Up My Pretties, by Martin Gollan, who also made the drawings below.
Trumpet
So bashed from its last fall I can’t remove
the mouthpiece. A mouthpiece I got from a man
on the demo when mine fell out on the Tube.
I don’t need it back he said. We were ‘Trumpets
Against Trump’ and I had not been practising
so was all too easily able to get the discordant
eponymous noise the contingent was aiming for
long after some got fed up and started playing
actual music. I marched head high, proud
with my little clip-on lyre holding the notes
down Regent Street, where we were joined
by Drag Queens against Trump and Soho Radio Allstars.
By Trafalgar Square I was foot and mouth sore.
The sun shone and an orange baby floated above.
Anna Robinson
London, England
[no title]
storming the Capitol for a Facebook-tagged selfie
live-streaming on Insta in a bison-horned helmet
Rambos in the Senate cosplay with their zip cuffs
when in insurrection please do not touch the statues
where Donald J. Trump has been jumping the shark
the flayed skin of democracy as a casual jacket
a mortal last stand in the crush at the Speaker’s Lobby
a star-spangled thread count in Brian Sicknick’s lifeblood
the tear-gas hangs heavy with airborne diseases
Clay Thistleton
New South Wales
Australia
The Cursing
May your water be the spit of Mexicans.
May cheeseburgers give you cramps.
May you have diarrhoea on your gold-plated toilet seat.
May you have an obstruction every time you abuse power.
May your balls be forever in the sand dunes.
May your creosote tan give you zits.
May there be wind at your back to blow your comb over.
May you get whiplash every time you utter fake news.
May your Real Estate be taken from you to house immigrant families.
May your wealth pay towards slavery reparation.
May you take the knee to women and them take it in turn to punch you.
May transgender people queue up then to kick you.
May you become disabled and have the gait.
May every dying bumblebee sting you.
May you disappear like flu.
May you wear a soundproof mask.
May your champagne taste of Clorox.
May your small thumbs fall off, so you cannot Tweet.
May you be a dummy in Minnesota Police Training for nine minutes.
May you be interned with only Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un for company,
and may even they snub you.
Anita Gracey
Belfast, Ireland
Humpty-Trumpty
Humpty-Trumpty sat on his Wall
Humpty-Trumpty shat on us all
Not all of his money
Nor all of his hate
Should let Humpty-Trumpty
Re-inaugurate
Paul Lewen
Cahors, France
