Jay Orlando

@jayorlando.bsky.social

94 Followers 77 Following

Pushcart nominated poet, trans, ttrpg nerd. Roots so deep in Appalachia I can feel the coal mines between my toes.

Photo of a poetry chapbook modeled after a pocket book of psalms, titled A Book of Queer Prayer, with the trans symbol in lieu of a cross
WHEN THE GOVERNMENT MURDERS A POET IN BROAD DAYLIGHT Crack open your pens like the shells of so many walnuts and let the ink run down your cheeks. This is your warpaint. Beckon Elijah down from his seat in the sky. Ask him to prophecy truth to power. Call down the angels, too, and their flaming swords. Call down the spirits of the ancestors and their sacred Stonewall bricks. Let all of heaven take up arms. Let my mother's ghost lead a regiment of seraphim to march on gilded Washington. We will spit tongues of fire to melt this winter of ICE. We will rain sulphur on the streets of Minnesota. Get out your grandmother's typewriter. Punch the keys like a machine gun. Fill the halls of congress with the noise of it until that noise rips through the ears of all those elected devils who pretend not to hear. Do not reserve your rage for the digital landscape when the bullets are analog. Take to the streets. Line the sidewalks with voices of protest. Monkeywrench the gears of the machinery of power. Be bold. Only when the very earth cries out for precious retribution will the work be done.
Easter 2025 Katy Perry takes a luxury cruise to space and Joanne Rowling drinks champagne head wreathed in smoke from her celebratory cigar while trans people are dying. An ocean away my own government draws red lines across a cork board to redefine the boundaries of law. Men in my small town are threatening the Queens at the Pride Gala, hiding behind masks and confederate flags and toxic masculinity and Facebook bravado. The scars across my chest smile at me in the mirror. They say "imagine having more money than God and using it to bury minorities; to legislate children into suicide pacts over rainbow flags." That teacher in Indiana that had a gun-toting mother threaten her life – is that the teacher they want to arm? "Duel’s at recess, kids, close your eyes, plug your ears." Every time a blonde white woman with a cross around her neck tells me to repent Jesus rolls his stone away and offers me his holy hands, his holy feet, still bloody from the crucifixion. I kiss his earth, I kiss his cheek. We embrace, a long and sobbing hug. There is no hell, I know this. No great lake of fire, no sulfuric scent of brimstone. "But," I whisper in Christ’s ear feeling the weight of his body, "I wish sometimes there was a place for all these devils."
screenshot of a Word document that says "Strange World, A David Lynch inspired poetry series"
Just the worst pizza you've ever seen. Bread. American cheese. I think a green pepper shrink wrapped in the cheese? It's sad. I'm weeping.