A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House

Susan Dambroff 
Tend to the Shattering

I search for simplicity
hang Japanese postcards—
full moon
through lacey grass
white sand
perfectly combed

Listen
to dharma talks
remember vastness
learn from the trees

I listen to Angela Davis
struggle as joy
words from Mariame Kaba—
hope as practice

I walk around my room
recentering the paintings

My love
keeps herself busy—
sweeping the leaves in front of our door
emptying the lint tray from the dryer

She strums her guitar
through sad lullabies—
Don’t this road look rough and rocky

Sings timeless lyrics
of John Lennon—
The sun will never disappear
But the world may not have many years
Isolation

We try to stay kind

I tend to children
play music with toddlers
trail colored scarves across our faces
as we hide and find each other
with a boo

My love tends to the neighborhood
picks up nails from the street
offers water to the workers
knows all the dog’s names

I collect quotes

Thich Nhat Hanh—
A cloud never dies

Du Fu—
The nation is shattered,
mountains and rivers remain

I stare at a watercolor
of soft purple light
on snow

Susan Dambroff is the author of A Chair Keeps the Floor Down (Finishing Line Press, 2021), Conversations with Trees (Finishing Line Press, 2018), and Memory in Bone (Black Oyster Press, 1984). Her poems have appeared in Rattle, What Rough Beast, Stoneboat, Birdland Journal, Kelp, and other journals, as well as in several anthologies. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Indolent Books and editor Michael Broder are back with another poem-a-day series as a creative response to the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House. The plan is to continue for all 1460 days of the 47th American presidency.

Find out how to submit poems or flash prose pieces to Second Coming.

If you like Second Coming and you want to support it, consider making a donation to Indolent Arts, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit fiscal sponsor of Indolent Books.

You can use the form below to donate as little as $1.00 (not visible in the email version of this post) or use this link to visit our donation page where you can donate as little as $1.00 or choose titles from the Indolent Books catalogue as thank-you gifts for donations starting at $25.00—The more you give, the more thank-you gift books you get, up to six books for a donation of $100 or more.

A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House

Patricia Valese
On Duty

Meanwhile, at the top of the mountain stand a few great men. Sometimes they look down and nod and say: Good, the boulder-pushers are still on duty.
—Doris Lessing

There is a way of carrying this thing
of holding up the chest,
without the chin sticking out,
of tightening the stomach
by keeping the breath in
the back straight, like ash bark
or the angle of fir.

There is a way of walking this path,
sure-foot in front of sure-foot,
of scouting the trail for ambush,
the ditches for arrowroot,
the thickets for silkworm,
of tracking the split branch of deerjack
in the still field of game.

There is a way of braving this road,
holding the boulder with both hands,
pushing the wood-mites away,
sneaking past the prisons of Mordor,
through the gray crusted dead leaves,
under the gold statue of Sauron
into the white cloak of day.

Patricia Valese‘s poems have appeared in Lips, Paterson Literary Review, Liberty St., and other journals. A retired public school teacher who taught language arts and creative writing, she lives in New Jersey.

Indolent Books and editor Michael Broder are back with another poem-a-day series as a creative response to the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House. The plan is to continue for all 1460 days of the 47th American presidency.

Find out how to submit poems or flash prose pieces to Second Coming.

If you like Second Coming and you want to support it, consider making a donation to Indolent Arts, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit fiscal sponsor of Indolent Books.

You can use the form below to donate as little as $1.00 (not visible in the email version of this post) or use this link to visit our donation page where you can donate as little as $1.00 or choose titles from the Indolent Books catalogue as thank-you gifts for donations starting at $25.00—The more you give, the more thank-you gift books you get, up to six books for a donation of $100 or more.

A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House

Lynn McGee
How to Prepare for a Looming Disaster

The Navy sent a hospital ship to drop anchor
in New York Harbor, skyline rising like crowded teeth,
Covid biting down on our city as the ship floated
in all its stoic glory, colossal red cross stocky
on its top deck, white reflection rippling.

Sirens sliced the city. A text hit all our phones,
cancelling mammograms, dental cleanings,
clearing space for medics in white hazmat suits,
refrigerator trucks idling as backup morgues,
Empire State Building pulsing red,

and turning red, white and blue four years later,
election results staggering in from Arizona,
Georgia, Michigan, disaster returning,
this time unmasked.

This isn’t our first rodeo, governors of a dozen
states, staff at the ACLU and attorneys general
reminded us. Don’t give in to fear, they told us.
Update your passport. Carry your driver’s
license, work permit.

I sat useless on my couch, a battery of active shooter
videos under my belt, the kind HR mandates—
not the mantras we grew up with; Stop, Drop, Roll,
if your sleeve catches on fire; See Something,
Say Something, if your paranoia peaks—
but a slogan that admits the corner we’ve been
backed into: Run. Hide. Fight.

Lynn McGee is the author of the poetry collections Science Says Yes (Broadstone Books, 2024), Tracks (Broadstone Books, 2019), Sober Cooking (Spuyten Duyvil, 2016) and two prize-winning chapbooks: Heirloom Bulldog (Bright Hill Press, 2015) and Bonanza (Slapering Hol Press, 1996). With José Pelauz she co-authored the children’s book Starting Over in Sunset Park (Tilbury House Press, 2021). Recent poetry publications include Naugatuck River Review, Sugar House Review, Lascaux Review, The Atlanta Review, Atticus Review, and other journals, as well as the anthology I Wanna Be Loved by You: Poems on Marilyn Monroe (Milk & Cake Press, 2022), eds. Susana H. Case and Margo Taft Stever.

Indolent Books and editor Michael Broder are back with another poem-a-day series as a creative response to the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House. The plan is to continue for all 1460 days of the 47th American presidency.

Find out how to submit poems or flash prose pieces to Second Coming.

If you like Second Coming and you want to support it, consider making a donation to Indolent Arts, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit fiscal sponsor of Indolent Books.

You can use the form below to donate as little as $1.00 (not visible in the email version of this post) or use this link to visit our donation page where you can donate as little as $1.00 or choose titles from the Indolent Books catalogue as thank-you gifts for donations starting at $25.00—The more you give, the more thank-you gift books you get, up to six books for a donation of $100 or more.

A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House

Cammy Thomas
Lovely in the Leaving

                        —from a photograph

In a thousand years
will a girl still hang shirts
on a clothesline on a roof
in San Francisco under a red sky? 

Will there still be clothes, or lines? 
Will there still be girls with long brown hair
and clogs on their feet?  Will there
still be a sky?  She will be gone,

her silky pale green nightgown,
her hair draped curly down her back,
her clothesline with its slender pole,
long, long gone under the earth

Cammy Thomas’s most recent book is Odysseus’ Daughter (Parkman Press, 2023). Three previous poetry collections were published by Four Way Books—Tremors (2021), Inscriptions (2014), and Cathedral of Wish (2005), winner of the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. Her poems have appeared recently in Naugatuck River Review, Hampden Sydney Review, Smartish Pace, and The Ilanot Review. A resident of the Boston area, Thomas teaches literature to adults.

Indolent Books and editor Michael Broder are back with another poem-a-day series as a creative response to the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House. The plan is to continue for all 1460 days of the 47th American presidency.

Find out how to submit poems or flash prose pieces to Second Coming.

If you like Second Coming and you want to support it, consider making a donation to Indolent Arts, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit fiscal sponsor of Indolent Books.

You can use the form below to donate as little as $1.00 (not visible in the email version of this post) or use this link to visit our donation page where you can donate as little as $1.00 or choose titles from the Indolent Books catalogue as thank-you gifts for donations starting at $25.00—The more you give, the more thank-you gift books you get, up to six books for a donation of $100 or more.

A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House

Elizabeth Weir
Witness to Predation

A mighty WHOMP so immediate, I duck—
a bird-slam into glass—coffee slops.

Below our window, a pigeon lies stunned, head up,
neck not broken. I fetch a cloth to mop the spill

and a robin-sized bird, butcher-beaked,
stands on the pigeon’s broad back. A merlin.

It must have harried the pigeon into our pane.
The merlin tears at the bird’s head, rip, rip,

feathers fly—eliminate intelligence first—pigeon
struggles, flops, tilts, too stunned to flee. It’s head

drops, bird dying like a dismantled democracy.
Merlin widens the wound, tears meat from bones.

Numbed passive by the pace of dismemberment,
I watch, shocked. The predator, spurred by purpose,

guts the carcass of a body, healthy and functioning,
until all that remains is the skeleton of what had been.

Elizabeth Weir is the author of the poetry collections When Our World Was Whole (Kelsay Books, 2022) and High on Table Mountain (North Star Press, 2016). Her poems have appeared in Orchards Poetry Journal, Agates, The London Reader, Gyroscope, Adanna, and other journals. Born and raised in England, Weir practiced nursing in Cape Town before settling in Minnesota with her husband and two sons. Now retired, she wrote journalism and theater reviews and was mayor of Medina, Minnesota.

Indolent Books and editor Michael Broder are back with another poem-a-day series as a creative response to the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House. The plan is to continue for all 1460 days of the 47th American presidency.

Find out how to submit poems or flash prose pieces to Second Coming.

If you like Second Coming and you want to support it, consider making a donation to Indolent Arts, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit fiscal sponsor of Indolent Books.

You can use the form below to donate as little as $1.00 (not visible in the email version of this post) or use this link to visit our donation page where you can donate as little as $1.00 or choose titles from the Indolent Books catalogue as thank-you gifts for donations starting at $25.00—The more you give, the more thank-you gift books you get, up to six books for a donation of $100 or more.

A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House

Lynn Schmeidler
The Wikipedia definition of DEI google-translated from English to Haitian Creole, from Haitian Creole to Norwegian, from Norwegian to traditional Chinese, from traditional Chinese to Amharic, from Amharic to Cantonese, from Cantonese to Esperanto, from Esperanto to Hawaiian, from Hawaiian to Jamaican patois, from Jamaican patois to Kituba, from Kituba to Māori, from Māori to Q’eqchi’, from Q’eqchi’ to Sesotho, from Sesotho back to English

The house that was right
They slept and the anger was gone

Treatment and access for all
Individuals, especially organizations

It’s a story That’s not the point
of my story for you

Evil based on power
Or wrong

These three examples
(Diversity, Culture and Inclusion)

They provide all three Tools
Think about the inclusion of DEI

Stick Introduction
The word and its meaning

His time to think was up
It’s balanced and timely

Lynn Schmeidler’s poems have appeared in The Awl, Barrow Street, Boston Review, The Los Angeles Review and other literary magazines. History of Gone (Veliz Books), was shortlisted for the Sexton Poetry Prize and a finalist for the Anhinga-Robert Dana Prize for Poetry.She also published two chapbooks, Curiouser & Curiouser (Winner of the Grayson Books Chapbook Prize), and Wrack Lines (Finalist for the Comstock Review Jessie Bryce Niles Chapbook Contest and Finalist for the Two Sylvias Chapbook Prize).Schmeidler is also the author of the award-winning short story collection Half-Lives (Autumn House Press).

Indolent Books and editor Michael Broder are back with another poem-a-day series as a creative response to the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House. The plan is to continue for all 1460 days of the 47th American presidency.

Find out how to submit poems or flash prose pieces to Second Coming.

If you like Second Coming and you want to support it, consider making a donation to Indolent Arts, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit fiscal sponsor of Indolent Books.

You can use the form below to donate as little as $1.00 (not visible in the email version of this post) or use this link to visit our donation page where you can donate as little as $1.00 or choose titles from the Indolent Books catalogue as thank-you gifts for donations starting at $25.00—The more you give, the more thank-you gift books you get, up to six books for a donation of $100 or more.

A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House

Emily Pera
Nothing But Money

In the world of dark money,
you get walloped.
You never see it coming.

They’ve got names that sound
like charities,
like Sunday school lessons,
like patriotism with a flag lapel pin.

But no one knows
who sent the check.
I’ll tell you a story
about money.

Down in Texas,
I saw a bumper sticker once:
“I’ll believe corporations are citizens
when Texas executes one.”

That’s apropos of nothing—
except everything.

Dark money moves
like a smuggler in the night.
No trail, no witness,
no one accountable.

It’s like how they ship people
across borders,
undocumented,
undisclosed,
quiet as freight.

One minute you’re here,
then you’re gone—
detained, deported,
dropped into a jail
you didn’t know existed
in a country you’ve never been.

That’s how money moves too:
in planes and shells,
in cutouts and clever paperwork,
in silence so thick
you’d think justice choked on it.

The disclosure process?
It’s a joke.
A campaign finance lawyer’s
full employment act.

Because in America,
truth costs more
than most people make in a year.
And the silence?
That’s paid for, too.

Emily Pera‘s poems have appeared in Tuck Magazine, Litro, Dissident Voice, A3 Review, Scout & Birdie, and other journals. A native of Chicago, she lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

Indolent Books and editor Michael Broder are back with another poem-a-day series as a creative response to the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House. The plan is to continue for all 1460 days of the 47th American presidency.

Find out how to submit poems or flash prose pieces to Second Coming.

If you like Second Coming and you want to support it, consider making a donation to Indolent Arts, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit fiscal sponsor of Indolent Books.

You can use the form below to donate as little as $1.00 (not visible in the email version of this post) or use this link to visit our donation page where you can donate as little as $1.00 or choose titles from the Indolent Books catalogue as thank-you gifts for donations starting at $25.00—The more you give, the more thank-you gift books you get, up to six books for a donation of $100 or more.

I’d like you to take a look at another poem-a-day series I am editing, still around our democracy under siege, but in a somewhat different vein.

About six weeks ago, I started working with poet Dale K. Nichols on a poem-a-day Substack called Never Trump Poetry. The title sort of says it all. But that won’t stop me from telling you more about it.

The poems in Never Trump Poetry are Dale’s poems—That’s right: all Dale K. Nichols, all the time. So this message is not a solicitation for submissions; rather, it is an invitation for you to take a look at Never Trump Poetry.

I call Dale a Trillinesque poet—referring, as you might guess, to Calvin Trillin, the political columnist who has written for both The New Yorker and The Nation, and who doubles as what Trillin himself calls a “deadline poet.” Like Trillin’s poetry, Dale’s poetry is usually rhymed and metered, often—but not always—in a ballad rhythm. Here’s an example from a recent Never Trump Poetry post.

The Other Executive Branch

Welcome to our Executive Branch!
The capital’s newest club
expressly for the ultra rich—
All others will be snubbed.
Invitation only, just
half a million bucks,
and you too can rub noses with
the “we-don’t-give-a-f**ks.”
In Georgetown set to open at
an unannounced location,
exclusive access you’ll receive
to Trump’s Administration.
There’s no more need to wallow in
the waters of the swamp
when you can dine with top flight wines
in circumstance and pomp.

Dale—like me, and like many of you—is a member of the Baby Boom generation, those of us born between 1946 and 1964. Dale is a Never Trumper. That means he is a member of the conservative opposition to Donald Trump.

Dale started writing poetry just a couple of years ago as a creative outlet to help fill the void left behind a 38 year career as a practicing attorney. He lives with his wife in Beverly Shores, Indiana.

Dale and I started Never Trump Poetry with three main goals:

• To build community around Dale’s poetry and its message
• To provide some entertainment during trying times
• To support the work of pro-democracy organizations

Any revenue that Dale receives from paid subscriptions goes to pro-democracy causes like the ACLU and others who are fighting in the courts and elsewhere to save our democracy. But for now, I would be very pleased if you simply became a free subscriber and enjoyed Dale’s poems and my editor’s notes.

To free subscribe to Never Trump Poetry on Substack, click right here.

A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House

Kathryn D. Temple
A lawyer enters reading Kafka

an insect on his back stirs
his legs, calls for a cup of tea

a woman undresses in the corner, taunting,
she has an artificial voice and power

eyes behind every curtain shine like
stage lights, retinal scanning, they burn holes

in a closet, men scream like girls,
silent detectives hold horsewhips and stare

the court seems like a theater, he pleads for his life,
the politicians are actors, he has seen them before 

a judge opens a gate, the sign says LAW, enter
here for what we call justice, ice blocks his way,

while someone spews, all insects are alike,
damn them, again, he calls for a cup of tea

To die like a cockroach, it was as if the shame of it must outlive him.

Kathryn D. Temple is an English professor at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Her poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction have appeared in Streetlight, Metaworker, The Examined Life, Delmarva Review, and 3Elements, and others journals. She is the author of two academic books on law and emotions and many academic journal articles.

Indolent Books and editor Michael Broder are back with another poem-a-day series as a creative response to the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House. The plan is to continue for all 1460 days of the 47th American presidency.

Find out how to submit poems or flash prose pieces to Second Coming.

If you like Second Coming and you want to support it, consider making a donation to Indolent Arts, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit fiscal sponsor of Indolent Books.

You can use the form below to donate as little as $1.00 (not visible in the email version of this post) or use this link to visit our donation page where you can donate as little as $1.00 or choose titles from the Indolent Books catalogue as thank-you gifts for donations starting at $25.00—The more you give, the more thank-you gift books you get, up to six books for a donation of $100 or more.

A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House

Josh Jacobs
For Mark Odesskiy, Aspiring US Citizen

In middle-school Civics in the 80s I learned
four score and seven wasn’t that long ago;
we counted, democracy still needed us;
plus Checks and Balances, and Russia is Bad.

At 28 I tutored Mark Odesskiy,
his name a catalog of history’s
blows: of Ukraine, raised in Moscow, exiled
again in Jersey City’s Jewish Home.

He wanted to become a citizen
at three score and ten. The Soviet Union
had fallen and the Constitution seemed
to glow unquestioned, history at an end.

But Mark, bemused, talked through Amendments, saw
a system that could change again, even
to let someone like him inside to add
his worn shirt and tallis to our tapestry.

I said goodbye, left town, and history
resumed: two buildings fell, my brother one
footnote between the Twin and Freedom Towers;
at least five distant wars; Russia returned,

its oil and gold now freed of any taint,
as of last month when our new broligarchs
publicly scrubbed Ukraine from history,
our pledges pulled down like statues in a coup.

Inside my hunkered place I look up Mark’s
children, in real estate; I join them now
in the terrible, beautiful reweaving
that must work beneath the statues to lift this land.

Josh Jacobs‘ poems have appeared in Cider Press Review, Pangyrus, Stone Circle Review, Verklempt, and other journals. He won the 2023 Common Ground Review Poetry Prize, selected by Oliver de la Paz, and was a participant in the 2024 Yetzirah Jewish Poetry Conference. Jacobs works at MIT and lives near Boston.

Indolent Books and editor Michael Broder are back with another poem-a-day series as a creative response to the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House. The plan is to continue for all 1460 days of the 47th American presidency.

Find out how to submit poems or flash prose pieces to Second Coming.

If you like Second Coming and you want to support it, consider making a donation to Indolent Arts, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit fiscal sponsor of Indolent Books.

You can use the form below to donate as little as $1.00 (not visible in the email version of this post) or use this link to visit our donation page where you can donate as little as $1.00 or choose titles from the Indolent Books catalogue as thank-you gifts for donations starting at $25.00—The more you give, the more thank-you gift books you get, up to six books for a donation of $100 or more.