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

Suzanne Osborne
Lullaby in a Time of Sorrow

          Nov. 6, 2024

The sun came up anyway
in a sky blue as 9/11.
I took a walk anyway
scuffing through leaves dead
as all my hopes.

There, there, now, now.
Don’t mope. Tomorrow
you’ll find a way to live
in this alien world
but for now feed the cat
meowing round your feet.

Musk, Hegseth, Kennedy.

There, there, now, now.
Just keep busy. Do
the crossword, do Wordle
and Spelling Bee—see?
you’re a genius, now isn’t that nice?

Greenland, Panama.

There, there, now, now.
They won’t hand over the canal.
A fairy-tale ogre’s threats, just set
them to music and sing yourself
to sleep. Tomorrow the sun will rise
as it always has, you’ll feed the cat
as you always do, take a walk as you always
do, watch the world change as it always
does, the sun will set again as it always
has and will till time runs down and all
our little hopes and fears are done.

There, there. Now, now.

Suzanne Osborne‘s poems have appeared in journals including What Rough Beast, A River Sings, Jonah Magazine, Neologism Poetry Journal, and New Plains Review, among others. After an early career in theater, a stint in academia, and too many years as a legal secretary, she now lives in Forest Hills, NY, and writes poetry.

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 the work of Indolent Books, 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

Anna Van Lenten
Inauguration Over, the Smiths, the Beatles, and Shakespeare Gather in the Gowanus Whole Foods Parking Lot

The Gowanus Whole Foods parking lot, nth family shop.
It’s February, 2025, and there’s everything to love
and to lose. (Try to remember, the genome’s predictive power
is very low—five or ten percent.)

You clasp close the safety belt, gather a chestful of air
for home. A tsunami of heat and light spills into the body of the car
and yours with it.
The windshield glass, with its loving fingers, rakes the fur of your fatigue.
Once again, you fall asleep in the Whole Foods—
              —PAUSE—
              for 11 minutes, doze as a lioness who once upon a time
              prowled the bars at a zoo, her ferocity forgiven but not forgotten.

Somewhere your spirit animal stretches, opens an auspicious eye.
Meat is Murder on the radio. Your planet’s smithy,
befouled, needs a power wash.
What did you get?
               Honey Bear $3.00
               Brown Cow $4.13
               Blue Herring $4.94
               Blood Orange $1.26
So many animals in money—blood even. Rejuvenating.
The negotiations you make to ingest one…be one.
But you were extracted from inside one
              a swaddle for a parachute.
So, it took half a lifetime to learn how to crash,
only to find all along
it was a test, dummy test.
Take five, this time with feeling.

This term’s going to be rough, kids, fasten your seat belts.
Still, even Obama killed thousands—did his dead feel less?
              Ah but he did it remote—so elegant, so fine—Michelle knows:
              Sleep pretty darling, do not cry, and I will sing a lullaby…

Above all do no harm / To live is to harm:
No math will square that circle;
descend, aliens—show us the way (telepathically of course).
Because words…sigh.
What to dream of?
Diamond-star specials in the asphalt,
the air gusts with snow-sparkle puffs…
Always, your need for out-of-body experiences;
this world puts price tags on everything
—always the need for more courage, for right words right order.
Read less.
Read more.

Exiting the lot (fault lines everywhere, and you ready to fight)
you learn BBC reporter Fergan Keane
has discovered the secret to a happy life.
Fresh memory—at the Gowanus Canal drawbridge with your daughter
              February, 2017 (that election):
              she closed her eyes for two seconds / you clicked.
              (The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, As daylight doth a lamp.)
And the Canal cruised past, oblivious—
emptying itself then re-filling,
week in, week out, like we must do now.

Anna Van Lenten is the communications coordinator at the Center for Photography at Woodstock. She curated a highly regarded series of photography exhibits at the Half King bar and restaurant in New York from 2010 to 2019. In 2016 Van Lenten founded LightField, an arts organization in the Hudson Valley, producing multimedia exhibits in New York and Dubai. Her essay about Gerda Taro and Lee Miller appeared in Musee Magazine. She holds an MFA in fiction from The New School.

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 the work of Indolent Books, 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

Guillermo Filice Castro
I Am Not Alone: Equilibrium

I am looking for balance. Steady ship
on a serene, sparrow-crossed ocean. Balance.
Avoid phone notifications though something
may slip through. My love for the world,
if I can call it that, this life, breaks my heart.
Hope the cat won’t soil the floor again, disturbed by
a different litter or who knows what. How sublime
to watch her high wire act along the edge of the sofa,
not a single misstep, while last week a runaway
dump truck smashed clean into our local store.
My little suburban world on a hill, shaken.
We had an earthquake, too. Another ICE raid.
Small & cave-bound, the best among us
would sketch hunt scenes on walls. Tomorrow
the noise of light & revision might kill off
this poem losing its footing. The glass Father
left unwashed in the sink. No matter
what I did, they, my parents, always fought,
even if I prayed or didn’t touch myself for a week,
Mother still tried to jump out of his moving car.
My favorite book as a teen was The Omen II,
turned on by what felt like sexual tension
between the young antichrist & his cousin.
I am in love with the son of the devil, something
I could say now to upset Christian nationalists.
Balance. After choir practice: a quiet room.
Then flames tore through the clutter in my school.
What can love do. Rebuild, try again.

Guillermo Filice Castro is the author of the chapbooks Mixtape for a War(Seven Kitchens Press, 2018) and Agua, Fuego (Finishing Line Press, 2015). His work has appeared in journals including Allium, Barrow Street, Brooklyn Rail, Fugue, Mulberry Literary Review, New Verse News, Pine Hills Review,and others, and is included in Best American Poetry 2023, edited by Elaine Equi. Born and raised in Argentina, Castro lives in New Jersey with his husband.

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 the work of Indolent Books, 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.

Part of a SPECIAL EDITION of several poems over the course of today in solidarity with President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine

Sarah Key
At Night I Dream of Mariupol

The city always had a special smell:
  a bitter aroma of frozen grapes
    smoke emanating from family houses
      the smell of dust settled to the ground by the long-awaited rains.

What do I do tomorrow?
  I used to have a thousand plans and a million wishes.

How many steps to the sea? 
  I knew exactly 
    how many steps 
      to the sea and how many 
        trees in the park’s central alley 
          there were.

Dark, cold room without windows or a glimpse of light.
  The walls and the floor are shaking.

Gasoline for bread
  bread for cigarettes
    cigarettes for firewood.

Tore off wooden floors and windowsills to use for fire to cook.

And we went to get water 
  stepping over the bodies of people 
    who went to get water the day before. 
      They drank water from puddles.
        Happy are those who found natural springs.

We heard a piercingly loud whistling sound followed by a loud blow.

People just lie covered with sheets. Everywhere.
  We saw blood on the children’s faces.

I saw only my neighbor’s shoe on the floor.

There was constant darkness, day and night.

Author’s Note: This poem is a quilting together of the voices of Anna Murlykina, Kristina Khodunova, Petro Andrushchenko, Hanna Drobot, Serhii Dolhopolov, Marianna Saenko, and Liubov recorded and translated from the Russian and Ukrainian by Olena Ivantsiv, Kateryna Iakovllenko and Tteiana Bezruk, journalists from Ukraine, as quoted in “What Happened on Day 45 of the War in Ukraine,” The New York Times, April 9, 2022.

Lisa Andrews is the author of The Inside Room (Indolent Books 2018) and Dear Liz (Indolent Books 2016). Her poems have appeared in Cagibi, Cordella, Gargoyle, POSTstranger, Painted Bride Quarterly, and Zone 3, as well as in anthology Braving the Body (Harbor Editions 2024), edited by Nicole Callihan, Pichchenda Bao, and Jennifer Franklin. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, visual artist Tony Geiger.

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 the work of Indolent Books, 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.

Part of a SPECIAL EDITION of several poems over the course of today in solidarity with President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine

Lisa Andrews
I’ve been meaning to thank you.

Forgive me for taking so long to thank you,
but the list—Vance knows—is so long,
and, really, how to thank you is a question
I’ve been asking myself. Is there enough ink
in this pen? Enough rare earth in this phone?
Enough blood and bone in each finger to thank you
for taking democracy to the tanning booth,
where you lie (but always with that long, red tie).
Something covers your eyes. How to thank you?
Vance, too, for helping me in this matter.
How doubly forgetful of me. The lies
are so beautiful. I have eaten them all.

Lisa Andrews is the author of The Inside Room (Indolent Books 2018) and Dear Liz (Indolent Books 2016). Her poems have appeared in Cagibi, Cordella, Gargoyle, POSTstranger, Painted Bride Quarterly, and Zone 3, as well as in anthology Braving the Body (Harbor Editions 2024), edited by Nicole Callihan, Pichchenda Bao, and Jennifer Franklin. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, visual artist Tony Geiger.

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 the work of Indolent Books, 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.

Part of a SPECIAL EDITION of several poems over the course of today in solidarity with President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine

Annie Bien
THIS IS GONNA MAKE GREAT TELEVISION or the Broken Megaphone

SAY THANK YOU
SAY THANK YOU
HE DOESN’T HAVE THE CARDS

Why don’t you wear a suit?
Why do you come here dressed like that?

YOU ARE DISRESPECTFUL BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T SAY THANK YOU

there’s a line in a lifeline that favors truth amidst lies that lies dormant in the liars and though it is not immediate the impact of the subsequent karmic reaction of lie after lie burns into the future, cruelty comes as care only for a self that is made by layer after layer of prevarications

MAKE A DEAL OR YOU’RE OUT
SAY THANK YOU
YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO PLAY CARDS

SAY THANK YOU

At night one pair of eyes squeeze shut but not shut, a mind filled with molten unfinished sentences—constantly step on another, thoughts to unlisten—no one no one talks to me that way because I’m great I’m great—I’m great I’m great—I’m great I’m great—I’m a king a king

Another pair of eyes, hears air raid sirens, people silenced, buildings collapse, a refrain from the lies, thrown out from room with flags and press publicly shamed, but his stride more noble than the suited men in overly long red and blue flapping ties. An owl stares from a branch unblinking:

доброї ночі
доброї ночі
друзі
доброї ночі
вороги
доброї ночі
на один день, коли ми помремо
Я не буду шкодувати, але щодо вас, навіть якби ви це зробили, це було б брехнею.

good night
good night
friends
good night
enemies
good night
for one day when we die
I won’t regret it, but for you, even if you did, it would be a lie.

Annie Bien is the author of the poetry collections Under Shadows of Stars(Kelsay Books, 2017) and Plateau Migration (Alabaster Leaves Press, 2012). Her story Earthen Sky won the London Independent Story Prize for flash fiction (2020). Bien’s translations of Tibetan Buddhist texts appear in the digital repository 8400. Her poetry and flash fiction have appeared in The Wild Word, The Banyan Review, MockingHeart Review, WordCityLit, Autumn Sky Poetry, and other journals. She lives in Brooklyn where she teaches meditation and qigong.

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 the work of Indolent Books, 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.

Part of a SPECIAL EDITION of several poems over the course of today in solidarity with President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine

Lou Orfanella
Back in the USSR

Where have you gone King Richard?
Your ill-advised surreptitious reel-to-reel recordings
Were at least kept under lock and key
Until there was no damage left to be done
Never did you publicly malign a foreign leader
Or throw one to the curb like a lover scorned
You continued to seek “peace with honor” abroad
While sinking amid chaos on the home front
And you stepped aside rather than
Attempting to masquerade as a president
While striving for a dictator’s throne

Lou Orfanella is the author of the poetry collections Radical Acceptance and Unexpected Guests among many other books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. His essays, columns, reviews, and poems have appeared in periodicals including The New York Daily News, College Bound, English Journal, World Hunger Year Magazine, Discoveries, Teacher Magazine, and New York Teacher. He holds degrees from Columbia University and Fordham University. (And as his college floor mate, I can attest that he is an inveterate Beatles fan. —Ed.)

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 the work of Indolent Books, 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.

Part of a SPECIAL EDITION of several poems over the course of today in solidarity with President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine

Tree Smith Benedikt
I Will Invite President Zelenskyy to Shabbat Dinner

I will put out the antique silver,
and hope I can find a tablecloth without any stains,
I will bring up from the basement the good china.

I will give him a seat of honor at our table,
which will be laden with sympathy and food.

We will light the candles in honor of the children stolen by Putin.
We will break the bread and drink of the vine
while democracy falls around us.

In between bites of food, I will pray the Mi Shebeirach
for the healing of his people and of my broken heart.
We will not talk of the past,
but maybe, instead, read poems out loud
as a bulwark against the coming storm.

Tree Smith Benedikt‘s poems have appeared in journals including Glacial Hills Review, Ritualwell, and Jewish Literary Journal, as well as in the anthology Proof of Life: An Exploration of Conflict, Survival, and the Human Spirit Post October 7th (OneFamily Fund, 2024). She is the founder of Jewish Poets Collective and the Elul Poetry Reading Challenge, and lives with her family in Southern Ohio.

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 the work of Indolent Books, 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.

Part of a SPECIAL EDITION of several poems over the course of today in solidarity with President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine

Ina Roy-Faderman
In the Room With Death

Three men facing Death.
Only one sees
the scythe and ivory beak and the black feathered wings and the grin
he has seen so many times hovering over
bodies, so many bodies,
as if they all are his,
and in some sense they are.

Shouting won’t scare him away,
someone should tell the second man,
so look Death in the face, in case it comes at you
as a noose or a guillotine,
and hope that your wife was once right,
back when she believed in herself,
that we’ll all be reborn to learn our lessons,
maybe you’ll be a sea star,
learn that you can regrow, though never be the same,
if you’re torn apart
limb from limb from limb from limb
from limb

As for the third,
his time is up.
People who can see it count his time in months, not years,
Even wrapped and mummified in gold, Death will find him.
His hourglass is shattered and its calcaneus grinds into
the shards as it steps nearer and nearer.

Watch me failing my test of goodness,
of moral rectitude:
I hope I can watch when the scythe reaches him.

Ina Roy-Faderman’s work can be found in Pigeon Papers, The Rumpus, Trash Panda, and other journals. A first generation Bengali-American, she was born in Nebraska, lives in northern California with several mammals (some human), and drinks a lot of coffee. She teaches biomedical ethics and humanities philosophy of technology, and serves as a poetry editor for Right Hand Pointing.

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 the work of Indolent Books, 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

Please send me poems ASAP about the Oval Office meeting today between Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and Volodymyr Zelensky.

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

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.

If you like Second Coming and you want to support the work of Indolent Books, 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.