Stephen Miller Dishes the Dirt on the Controversial New Trump Arch
On Friday, deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller met with reporters to give the low down on the proposed Donald J. Trump Independence Arch. Comparisons with the world famous Arc de Triomphe, in Paris, have led to designating the new arch as the Arc de Trump.
Miller drew parallels between the French arch and the Trump Monument. To begin with, the Arc de Triomphe was conceived in 1806, after the victory at Austerlitz by Emperor Napoleon at the peak of his fortunes.
Trump’s arch will mark a victory as well, said Miller. “It will celebrate The Dear Leader’s victory over the goddamned Democrat Party,” shouted Miller, interviewed at the construction site of the proposed monument, on a Washington roundabout across from the Lincoln Memorial.
Asked if the design had been finalized, Miller grew cagey and said that the “final dimensions could change at any moment.” Although the proposed Arc de Trump, at 250 feet, is almost 90 feet taller than the Arc de Triomphe, Miller called attention to the Gateway Arch, built in the mid-1960s.
Originally known as the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial and erected along the Mississippi River in St. Louis, Missouri, it was built to mark the expedition of Lewis & Clark in 1804.
“The St. Louis Arch,” snarled Miller, grinding his teeth, “is effin’ 630 feet tall and somehow it doesn’t seem right that the president’s arch should be smaller. I mean, who the hell were Lewis & Clark and Thomas Jefferson anyway?”
Miller said he has become quite an expert on arches over the past year that consideration has been given to the project. He explained that the Paris arch is a typical triumphal arch, which is a monumental, free-standing archway. It often spans a road. It’s origins date to ancient Roman architecture.
The Gateway Arch, in St. Louis, Miller explained, is built in the form of a weighted catenary arch. It is the world’s tallest arch, a fact which does not sit well with Miller. Miller has chosen a different template for the Arc de Trump.
“Our arch,” boasted Miller, “will be modeled after the Golden Arches in the McDonald’s restaurant logo. While McDonald’s dropped the physical arches from nearly all of its restaurants many years ago, the Golden Arches have remained in the logo, and as a commonly understood term for the company.”
President Trump has a well known fondness for McDonald’s sandwiches. Miller went into greater detail about the origins of McDonald’s arches. “The McDonald’s logo was established in the 1960s on advice from psychologist Louis Cheskin.
“Cheskin likened the arches to ‘mother McDonald’s breasts,’ invoking Freudian elements for consumers. President Trump is very much into female breasts,” declared Miller proudly.
And whereas the Arc de Triompe is composed of limestone, and the St. Louis Arch is made from stainless steel, here again Trump opts to be different. “The Arc de Trump,” said Miller, “will be made of gold.”
He hastened to add that it would not be gold through and through, but rather, gold-plated. If the final version of the Arc de Trump is in fact equal in size to the Gateway Arch, then it will require some 3,840 pounds of pure gold.
And with gold running to $29,560 per pound, this means that gold-plating the arch will cost $1.13 billion and change. “It will all be paid for by GOP donors,” Miller hastened to add, “so it won’t cost the American citizens a penny.” Miller was asked if possible vandalism of the gold-plated monument was a concern.
“Got it covered,” snapped Miller, pausing to point and laugh at a stray dog that was run over by an ICE vehicle on Memorial Drive. Miller immediately came back to Earth, describing in detail the turrets which will be appended to the arch. “Sharpshooters will take care of any mischief makers,” he said soberly.
As the press event began to wind down, Miller noted that the Arc de Triomphe has a staircase extending to the top of the French monument. “There are 284 steps leading upwards,” said Miller, who went on to say that the Arc de Triomphe would have not stairs, but a golden escalator to the top. “First class all the way,” boasted the Reichsfuhrer, crushing an anthill under his jackboot.
When you peel back a Type-B woman, beans that sprouted upon dust spring forth. With every sound of a rolling bean, a corner is carved out. A corner: a place seen only when you kneel and bow your head. A place where tilted heads— those nearly missed—begin to bud. Therefore, shell the beans gently, as if stroking them soft. Such is the counsel of the corner.
Scattered sincerities are gathered onto the dining table. Within the husks, hollowed by heartache, the rank regrets of things that lunged away lie in a row, once-sunken pits.
Repeating mistakes cast far off in shallow sleep, she opens her eyes to the morning sun. From the woman’s listless calves, now a layer lighter, baby mice flee in a frantic line.
“Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth”— a fitting night resides within each bean pod. Beans, born but a moment ago, leave their hulls one after another to simmer intimately, bubble-boil. Every bean is nurturing its own grain of a corner.
Profile
Poet Yeon Myeong-ji began her literary career in 2013 with the poetry collection 『Gashibi』, published in the Minerva Poetry Series.
Her published works include the poetry collections 『Sitting Like an Apple』 and 『Where would the House of the Sorry’ be? 』 the e-poetry collection 『Seventeen Marco Polos,』 and the travel essay 『Step by Step, Walking the Camino.』
She has received the Tolstoy Literary Award, the Homi Literary Award, the Cheongsong Gaekju Literary Award, and the Aviation Literary Award. In 2025, she was awarded the Bronze Prize in Poetry at the Literature Asia Awards.
Her poems have been translated and published in local languages in India, Pakistan, Kosovo, Italy, Egypt, the United States, and Belgium,Greece,and Iraq.
With these words, a door slams shut in a distant wood.
The fire flickers for a moment,
a thoughtful face brightening and dimming.
With these words, the planet quickly splits into many more.
On one side lies a desolate sea,
on the other, a barren desert.
Quadrilateral light rises in the night sky,
compressed by an inner reflux,
shifting among several possibilities.
Streets keep branching out from where he stands,
branching more and more
past every monument they meet.
Night falls like a curtain around his feet,
he is a statue waiting to be unveiled,
magma glowing inside him.
Refuse to Wake
In the south of the Yangtze in March, grass grows and warblers fly,
yet I still feel no warmth.
My heart remains like a block of chemically infused ice,
I have tried every means to thaw it,
all in vain, wine no longer ignites passion.
I have nothing to say to anyone, save for teaching
and going to the cafeteria. I lock myself away indoors,
drawing all curtains to block the unkind light.
I know the outside world is still the same outside.
Nature runs by a cruel law—
no mercy, no love, only mutual devouring.
A magpie pecks a soft thing on the lawn,
flies up to the bare branches of a parasol tree,
its tail vibrating to keep balance.
All things kill one another to survive,
The universe drifts toward heat death.
I hurry to read on the south balcony while daylight lasts,
I read only books written by saints—
they murmur in deserts, on pillars, or in caves,
words no one can make out,
yet I possess endless patience for this.
Sunlight occasionally illuminates a fragile sentence,
like a spotlight framing an actor fainting in slow motion.
My longing for spiritual experience overwhelms all other needs,
yet those words and logics still bring no warmth,
sunlight reveals more dust.
I believe there is One who governs human history,
I believe local evil may be global good,
I believe when I turn the final page of the book,
something unprecedented will happen.
Yet my heart still tightens. I refuse to wake
to the still heavy reality.
I have spent my whole life in escape.
Late Night in Early March
Deep into the night of early spring,
darkness and spring water flow down the southern slopes of Purple Mountain,
only silent cars occasionally glide past on the street.
I carry Whitman’s heavy Moments of the Soul,
and a bottle of hometown liquor long out of production.
A full decade has passed,
and eight years since you journeyed north to the capital.
Everything has changed, yet nothing seems to have changed at all,
haggardness lingers, unhidden by white hair and night,
two crabs raise their claws and touch,
they will cross the vast starry sky, one after another.
Ancient Town of Tongli, our wandering with two kitchen knives,
Yancheng in Changzhou, frogs croaking amid our rain filling shoes,
the golden glow of rapeseed blooms hides in remote mountains,
the moon and fireflies of Linggu Temple—
I have never seen them again since that day.
This is not our hometown after all,
but where on earth can we call home?
At a small Hot Pot inn, only the two of us remain,
bright lights hang empty, midnight has long passed,
I feel uneasy, time and again, for the inn owner’s toil.
One more drink, brother,
those scattered lights of our conversation
are a silence growing deeper in the dead of night—
concerning faith, like the faint chill of early spring nipping at my shoulders,
ten years ago I came here, at the very age you are now.
Nothing has changed, the earth turns gently,
I watch the taxi’s red taillights flicker and fade away,
a cool wind brushes my fevered forehead,
I stand long on the empty street,
Staring up at the bare treetops of plane trees
rising higher and higher against the stars.
Evening at Longhill Lake
Wooden villas, sounds crystallized with fragrance,
abstract murals pieced from small blocks of wood.
Lake before, hills behind—
wild expanse, high sky.
Here one may drink and sing aloud,
or keep silence with the wilderness.
The sun sinks west;
a soft breeze drifts like a ship’s wake.
Heaven and earth seem to wait
for a solemn rite to begin.
I need not speak, nor think at all—
abide in a happy, plant-like state:
swaying with the wind, yet still in time.
Twilight falls quietly like a fishing net,
autumn crickets chirp,
dried cow dung glows with its last light,
like pale yellow window paper
soaked soft into pulp,
breathing the scent of paste and raw flour.
The Final Room
You write poems in your final room,
I translate poems in mine,
between us lies the silence of a whole continent,
and a gray, early winter.
You look up now and then toward the far shore,
shadows of trees, an overturned boat,
the deep-yellow roof of a temple,
gradually, you lose track of which afternoon it is—
much as my writing hand moves slower.
Has your Keatsian unease and the fog-shrouded plain,
vanished for a moment? As I set down these lines—
no man is an island, entire of itself or sufficient alone,
as I hesitate between two versions.
By now you must have finished that afternoon poem,
rising, you step onto the balcony to smoke,
glance back at the emptied room,
then gaze long at the wrinkled surface of the lake.
When I pause my work, twilight floods the window
like crowds of murmuring ghosts,
scattering and hiding in rooms that recede one by one,
turn on the light, brother—we are far apart.
Ma Yongbo was born in 1964, Ph.D, representative of Chinese avant-garde poetry, and a leading scholar in Anglo-American poetry. He is the founder of polyphonic writing and objectified poetics. He has published over eighty original works and translations since 1986 included 10 poetry collections. He focused on translating and teaching Anglo-American poetry and prose including the work of Dickinson, Whitman, Stevens, Pound, Amy Lowell Williams, Ashbery and Rosanna Warren. He published a complete translation of Moby Dick, which has sold over 600,000 copies.
I write these lines with a sense of احترام and inner gratitude, as a translator who had the privilege to bring his poetic voice closer to Albanian readers.
On March 12, 2026, the world of poetry lost a noble and gentle soul—Rohini Kumar Behera, a poet from Odisha, whose verses carry a rare purity of thought and a quiet spiritual depth. His poetry became part of my literary journey during the preparation and translation of the anthology White Fog, where, among many distinguished Indian poets, his voice revealed a sincerity that is both disarming and enduring.
I also recall with deep respect his life companion, the poet Swapna Behera, whom I had the pleasure to meet twice in India, during poetic festivals. Those encounters remain for me not only memories, but moments where poetry stepped out of the page and became human presence.
This homage is written in my name—as a reader, as a translator, and as someone who believes that poetry builds invisible bridges between cultures.
Peace For Mankind
Peace is sweet and adoring
A world of peace is endearing
A daring venture in present commotion
I dream of a World of Peace
Happiness is more a choice
Peace is kindliness of divine care
A heart comprehending each other
A soul reaching out to one another
Peace is where everything is silent
Peace is a petite gift from God
To nurture for the entire Mankind .
This poem unfolds as a lyrical meditation on peace—not merely as an abstract ideal, but as a lived, spiritual condition. The repetition of the word peace functions as an anaphora, reinforcing its centrality and transforming the poem into a quiet incantation.
Through metaphors of tenderness and divinity, peace becomes “a petite gift from God” and “kindliness of divine care,” elevating it from a human desire to a sacred value. The imagery of “a heart comprehending each other” expresses empathy as the foundation of harmony.
Message:
Peace is both divine and human—something to be nurtured within and shared universally.
My Gratitude
Happiness is my gratitude of veiled wish
Is the key to a life of hallowed bliss
Each moment with love , grace and generosity
A tender feeling of cordiality and positivity
Blessed are those who give without remembering .
Gratitude is riches , complaint a poverty
It can turn a negative into positivity
Is a secret door to ultimate happiness
Is a magnet to all life’s loveliness .
Gratitude can turn a meal into a feast
A house into a home , a stranger into a friend
Has a mission for tomorrow’s Vision .
Grace heals the heart that aches
Mends the wounds and patches the scrapes .
Let us embrace gratitude as our maxim
To express splendour of divinity in true axiom .
In this poem, gratitude is elevated into a life philosophy. Through extended metaphors—gratitude as “riches,” “a magnet,” “a secret door”—the poet reveals its transformative power.
The antithesis “Gratitude is riches, complaint a poverty” captures a profound ethical stance. Everyday realities are reshaped: a meal becomes a feast, a house becomes a home—clear metaphorical transformations that show how inner perception creates outer meaning.
Message:
Gratitude is the essence of happiness and spiritual richness, capable of healing and transforming life.
Nature Is Often Queer Magical
Nature is often queer magical
Present to us transcendental
A miraculous scene of allure
Seldom found in blue yonder
At horizon Sun takes farewell
The Moon bids being celestial
A rare view of holy Communion .
This brief yet evocative poem reflects Behera’s contemplative vision of nature. The phrase “queer magical” suggests mystery beyond logic, while the horizon becomes a stage for a cosmic ritual.
The meeting of sun and moon is rendered as a “holy Communion”—a powerful metaphor of unity, blending the physical and the spiritual. The imagery is minimal, yet deeply symbolic.
Message:
Nature reveals the sacred through its silent, eternal rhythms, inviting the human soul toward reflection and transcendence.
Rohini Kumar Behera’s poetry is marked by simplicity, sincerity, and spiritual depth. His themes—peace, gratitude, and nature—form a universal triad that speaks to all humanity.
This homage, bearing your voice as translator and witness, is not only a tribute to his passing but a celebration of a poetic spirit that continues to live through his words.
Yesterday, your smile still moved through the air.
Now the room a quiet of unfinished sentences, glances that stopped halfway.
On the side table, a glass of tea gone cold. Your room, refusing time, keeps a trace of your warmth.
I wish you a heaven, mother.
Let the earth be light above you. Let the wind pass without knowing you.
Mountains should remain untouched. The sky, unbroken. The sea free of all urgency.
At night, may moonlight find your pages.
Let there be no distance between you and the names you carried.
Let longing lose its language.
And happiness no longer a thing that must survive.May your tea never grow cold
The Sign
By Barbaros İrdelmen
Ah, how long I have been waiting for a sign from those alluring, colorful eyes!
If only it came…
Ah, then would crumble, collapse into dust, all the civilizations that have ever been.
A Conversation with Yesterday
By Dr. Barbaros İrdelmen
When our eyes first met we fell in love.
What day was it when we were married? You haven’t forgotten, have you?
The children— their graduations, their going off to the army, their weddings…
Then the grandchildren.
“Can such things ever be forgotten?” we had laughed the day I retired.
That grandchild in high school now— when was he born?
Tell me, do you remember all of it?
Or was all of this just yesterday, truly?
Dr. Barbaros İrdelmen is a Turkish poet, writer, translator, and retired specialist in internal medicine and nephrology, lives in Istanbul. With 19 published poetry collections to date, his works have been included in numerous national and international anthologies, poetry festivals, and selected literary compilations. Currently a poetry columnist for Edebiyat Magazin Newspaper and TV, also contributes actively to prominent literary journals such as Pazartesi14 NEYYA Edebiyat, Kirpi Edebiyat ve Düşünce Dergisi, writer for the Papirus Magazine, Literature House writer. As a member of the Writers Syndicate of Turkey, he is not only known for his original poetry but also as a leading figure in the translation of world poetry written in English into Turkish. He is also a member of the poetry translators community, part of the ITHACA Foundation (Spain), building cultural and literary bridges across borders through the power of poetry.
