On December 15, 2017, as reported in the Washington Post, the Trump Administration gave a directive to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that official documents being prepared for the 2018 budget were not to contain the following words:  Vulnerable, entitlement, diversity, transgender, fetus, evidence-based, science-based.

it’s more than a haircut, no clue in the clothes, our life and times are loaded, identity locked in binary, while the whole world is playing at drag

our position is unstable, from birth we are contradiction, looking different is one thing, a dangerous interdiction — not being clear is unwise, cross-wise

we’re careless with androgyny, insouciant with psychology that’s non-specific with inventions of desire both tactical and strategic

transgender is transcendence, vulnerable multiplicity — in cross-dressing we show intention, providing evidence-based intervention

it’s in the foetus and the embryo — our conviction that variety is more than in the binary… our entitlement is diversity

ambiguity is chameleon, identity is fluidity, science-based incorruptibility highlights truth — that’s in the evidence… it’s all something etymological

the words-based imbroglio of jeopardy in heterogeneity sees our queer bodies as vulnerable to the evangelical

we’re pushing back with queer, at odds with norms spelling false legitimacy, an unaligned body is gender-queer, what’s queer is clear— ambiguity

queer is bright in the spotlight, what are you looking at? what are ya? a straight forward, chameleon, interdiction

Note: interdiction is a military term for the act of delaying, disrupting or destroying enemy forces or supplies enroute to the battle area (Wikipedia)

in the year of the angry, old white men
they vote because of people like her—
in Rochester Cemetery the queue wraps
twice around her grave
like the line to vote

one side of the road chants his name
the other outrage, they vote for racial
patriarchy— this campaign is not poetry

she is bleeding from her eyes, bleeding from her ‘wherever’ …
his vindictive natural register —

Susan B turns in her grave
she knows these angry old white men—
their fortress against the other,
their mandate for misogyny

( Susan B Anthony voted illegally in 1872. She was tried, fined but refused to pay any penalty. )

it is the season when one woman’s wherever
rises on the vitriol
as an election issue

the bloody eyes, bleeding, bloody wherever
of one woman
is every woman

it is the season when hatred and sleaze
Trumps civility
kills off women

Io Europa Ganymede Callisto: from our Earth we can see the moons of Jupiter, the Jovian moons, held by a gravitational tide, providing the dust that creates Jupiter’s rings—not all celestial bodies revolve around the Earth… in this company, is a gun a small thing?

from our Earth
we see the moons of Jupiter —
can they show us how
to know ourselves as bigger
than we seem

on our Earth
our freedoms consume themselves
race, religion
sexuality, guns, collide
and fracture in Orlando

on our Earth
politics is too afraid
of lgbti
to say yes
so everyone can marry

from our Earth
we hear your daily insults
free speech
twitter and facebook ugly—
hear your guns between us

from our Earth
we turn the other cheek
respond to hate
with weeping— how long must we
restrain our rage?

it’s the way we ask the question, creating guilt and mystery, cementing dogma and righteousness… we know the guilty are full of questions, even when they believe they are right.  one of the questions is are we also the guilty?

buying clothes
for Eid peace celebrations
—buying guns and coffins
that is what a gun is for/
—why else do you pick it up?
you know that when you hold a gun you must be expecting to kill someone… it’s your action; your bringing of death…

how easily
the gun comes to hand
brain disconnects—
hand gun, assault rifle
who is in your sights?

one: an orderly queue to jump,
two: it’s illegal, asking for asylum
three: we’re preventing deaths at sea—
boats are safer if you can’t trust your country

things are not what they seem tonight
the population reaches twenty-four million
how many of the millions grieve for their parents?
how many for their children?
the grief of children counterbalances the grief of parents
they are with their children on the plane to Nauru

he said ‘In the moment I am going
I am already on my way back to you’
he told me ‘I am amazed to be here today
to see happiness and peace
so different from my life’
(my son suffers from dislocation)
the moment before the bullet hits me
only the sea is between us