Second Coming No. 402 — February 25, 2026
A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by Donald Trump and his fascist regime
Diane Ray
Now
imagine a Ripley’s Believe It or Not
where to test your incredulity, you walk on by
the shrunken heads and two-headed rats
to check out the Trump II Rumpus Room.
Observe sculpted head of America First shrunken down
to Trump First. Read his recent Blurt Out on display:
as Renee Good’s Dad: was a TREMENDOUS Trump fan,
I hope he still feels that way.
Visit The World Embarrassment Stage where time-machined
back to toddler, Trump trumped Trump—mean-faced, throwing
fistfuls of sand in the eyes of, guess who? The Norwegians!
Because they MADE HIM NEED GREENLAND, because
THEY DENIED HIM HIS NOBEL! Confabulating
two-headedly the Nobel committee with a country,
incidentally, NOT Denmark.
Mad king strutting and fretting the world stage,
supported by his scheming claque, hits his
$ bullseye squarely under obfuscating
flak-filled skies of shoot-’em-up
scapegoating, confounding
confusion, terror—a bevy
of handy distractions.
Suckers!
His graft-of-grafts, world record quality POTUS Olympic
Gold: 1.4 billion dollars that we know of, surely scads
more poured in his coffers just within Trump II, Year I,
wrapping-papered in presidential role.
Sing: the sun never sets on the gilded name Trump,
stand by for his name on a Qatar golf magnificence,
Sing: Where shall a tower Trump poke its gilded phallus next?
Hint: tarnishing a hard-won sky? Would even Ripley believe this one?
An oddity of history: it’s Ho Chi Minh City! Where 50+ years post defeat,
to a POTUS despot accrue the spoils. Roll over in your grave, Ho!
While America roils across divides, so many blue and red scream No!
to our new Gestapo’s murders, to tots abandoned in apartments, cars,
when a parent is ICED away, or babies plucked and disappeared,
the register of our self-kinged king night and day sings
ka ching, ka ching.
Diane Ray‘s poems have appeared in Canary, Sisyphus, Cirque, The Jewish Literary Journal, Voices Israel, and other journals, as well as in several anthologies, and her scholarly essays have appeared in academic journals. Ray, a native New Yorker and a retired psychologist, lives in Washington State.
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Excellent.
Ka ching indeed! Well done!