Tumblevision #32

Let’s be very clear. The man was a dangerous bigot that didn’t care whose lives his toxic rhetoric impacted. Did that make him deserving of being murdered? Of course not. But I’m also not obligated to give a tinker’s damn about him just because he’s dead now. What I’m more concerned with is the facile whitewashing of the real and measurable harm his weaponised words did to the most vulnerable groups in our society when he was alive. His murder solves nothing. It only adds fuel to the fire. He’s now a martyr for the bad faith bigots out there, emboldening them to do much worse, and all in the name of intolerance. That is not a good thing and nor was he.

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025

martyrdom

woke was such a first-class word
when used to club the ones you hated
but when it meant human kindness
you told all babies to go stop crying
more bodies for your amendment
made for an acceptable trade
in your esteemed estimation
freedom to brutalise was king

‘prove me wrong’ was ever your mantra
when even you were provably wrong
had you known what this would reap
would you’ve chosen to cut out your tongue
when dogma is paved with the blood
the pain of the disenfranchised
bigotry looks a lot less like reason
& more like what it actually is

now at the end of your short life
riding vermillion neck spray
it’s a vip one-way ticket
up to your imagined heaven
but even with your mic in hand
dumb wee trophy, make no mistake
whatever your god may say
we the people still vomit you up

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025

fire, water & trumpet spiders

rains fell three days & three nights
like vertical static on a screen
obscuring the grandeur of creation
in a two-bit nature documentary

& suddenly the sun jumped in
like popcorn prancing in a pan
then orange he rose from the dead
a cameo for more residuals

applause thundered two days & nights
spotlights lanced the morose sky
sweeping like kaiju porcupine quills
in arcs of foreboding adoration

& suddenly a bollocking trumpet
as he ascended & then returned
in armani white on a horse to fight
for the christian fascist tech bro cause

coins clinked for one day & that night
ledger filled with sleight of crypto handwriting
vengeful, he smote everything in sight
& stomped with feet burnished bronze

& suddenly there was famine for all
worth about thirty pieces or less
of dignity bought & sold & told
to shut up & worship the trumpian fold

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025