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

Cecille Marcato
What Did You Do Last Week?

Cecille Marcato‘s poems have appeared in Leon Literary Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, Husk, Naugatuck River Review, Slipstream, and Solstice, among other journals. She holds degrees in literature and design and graduated from the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. A cartoonist as well as a writer, Marcato lives in Austin, Texas.

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

Paula Rudnick
Changed

A Delta jet landed on its roof last week,
hanging passengers upside down like bats
surveying crumbs from their last snack,
their condition changed from light to leaded,
winged to grounded, safe to dangling
at the moment they thought they had arrived.
I did 45 sit-ups this morning—
not bad for a person my age.
My body didn’t ache too much
when I got out of my organic-fiber bed.
The coffee exceptionally good today,
just the right amount of strong,
mellowed by a splash of half-and-half
sipped slowly from an antique floral mug.
The lemon-ginger scone I quick-defrosted
tasted almost like fresh-baked
and the lilies that I bought on sale
yesterday perfumed the air.
No one shot at me when I picked up the newspaper,
dropped at my front door before dawn’s light,
my life unchanged from how it was
a month ago, except nothing’s the same.
Inside my chest a heaviness I can’t cocktail-hour away,
inside my throat a rant ready to spill.
The small blue leatherette passport
I used to flash invincibly makes me lower eyelids
when border guards request my documents now
like in some vintage black and white movie
where things get bad and then there’s no escape
and I am bolted to my seat prepared for impact,
weighing who to call to pledge my love.

Paula Rudnick is the author of the poetry collection Now is Not a Good Time (self-published, 2022). Her poems have appeared in Halfway Down the Stairs, LA Jewish Journal and Kosmos Quarterly as well as in the anthologies What We Talk About When We Talk About It Vol. II (Darkhouse Books, 2020), Verdant Truth Serum Vol. 5 (Truth Serum Press, 2019), and The Place Where Everyone’s Name is Fear (Anxiety/Outcast Press, 2022). A former television producer and a mother of two daughters, Rudnick lives in Los Angeles.

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

Erin Murphy
What Did You Do Last Week?

1.  I lay in bed and thought of the AA mantra
     one day at a time and the Dolly Parton lyric
     I’ve had to think up a way to survive
     and the Becket line I can’t go on. I’ll go on.

2.  I scattered a few bucks like birdseed
     to causes I care about.

3.  I sat in meetings where there were calls
     to order and motions on motions,
     oceans of motions. Someone in the shadows
     was always taking minutes. Taking minutes.

4.  I went for a walk in a wetland preserve
     nestled between an asphalt company
     and the county courthouse. A northern flicker
     pecked for ground beetles. On its head:
     a red brushstroke like an artist’s
     afterthought. Or a warning. I wondered
     if birds have blood. I wondered if the people
     in power have feelings. I wondered
     if we’ll go on. I told myself we can’t
     not go on.

5.  I wrote this poem.

Erin Murphy is the author most recently of the poetry collections Fluent in Blue (Grayson Books, 2024) and Human Resources (forthcoming from Salmon Poetry). Her poems have appeared in diode, ONE ART, Eastern Iowa Review, Brick Road Poetry Press, Ilanot Review. and other journals. She is a professor of English at Penn State Altoona and poetry editor of The Summerset Review.

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

Birch Wiley
DEFENDING WOMEN FROM GENDER IDEOLOGY EXTREMISM AND RESTORING BIOLOGICAL TRUTH TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
an erasure of an executive order

Birch Wiley is a poet and librarian living in New York. Their work is forthcoming in Pleiades and Union Spring Literary Review, among others. Their first book, Mythweaver, will be published by new words {press} this summer.

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

Susanna Rich
Morning After the Election I Make My Bed

Sound bites and tallies
scrambled my comforter,
unfit the fitting.
This is my morning.
To grunt, tug, wrestle
the mattress cover
to knuckle under edges,
fist the corners.
I unfurl the top sheet
to complain like a mainsail
in heavy wind. The flap.
The collapse into wrinkles.
Mocking my hope of joy.
Tuck. Tuck. Everything
tucked. Folded onto itself.
Pillows, like blanked eyes.
The shams. The sham.
The blanket stretched hard
for the quarter to bounce
Washington’s profile,
check my skill, my worth.
I make my bed
to take back yesterday,
last week, summer,
wrestle the whole cloth,
hospital corners, quilted
down, the too many threads,
fluff the pillows, crawl
back in, pull the sheet
over my face.

Susanna Rich is the author of five poetry collections, most recently SHOUT! Poetry for Suffrage (Blast Press, 2020) and Beware the House (Poet’s Press, 2019). Recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright Program and the Collegium Budapest, she is a distinguished professor emerita of English at Kean University in Union, NJ. Rich presents one-woman, audience-interactive poetry experiences through her company Wild Nights Productions.

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

Margot Wizansky
In Florida, “Don’t Say Gay” Is the Law

The governor has a plan to keep children
from being infected with gay. A gay suppressant,
making the word gay illegal. We will all be silent,
eat cupcakes, tie orange bandanas around our necks,
suck the word gay from the English language.
We’ll blow the word out of classrooms, kiss it
good-bye, put it in the closet or send it off to camp,
swish the rooms clean of it. In art class we’ll
resume painting the still life of pansies and fruit,
pass by the window and look down low where
a bear has plugged the dike, go out the back door
and even now, the garden is full of zucchini ripening,
look up to see a rainbow and a chicken hawk flies by,
its prey an otter in the river or that puppy in the grass.

Margot Wizansky is the author of the poetry collection The Yellow Sweater (Kelsay Books, 2023) and the chapbook Wild for Life (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2022). Her poems have appeared in journals including The American Journal of Poetry, The Missouri Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Ruminate, River Styx, and Cimarron, among others. Wizansky edited the anthologies Mercy of Tides: Poems for a Beach House, and Rough Places Plain: Poems of the Mountains. With Wendy Drexler she co-edited What the Poem Knows, a tribute to beloved poet and workshop leader Barbara Helfgott Hyett. Now retired from a career developing housing for adults with disabilities, Wizansky lives in Massachusetts.

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

Annie Bien
Undaunted

Downpours roil cliffside,
mudslides of thought excrement
burst as waterfalls.

A match sparks in flame,
stench of saliva spat sweat,
skin pores reeking sweat.

Mute wheezy voice, flesh
pores enlarged, inside each hole:
Spoiled old man ego.

See this illusion
created on boundless lies.
Keep your mind open.

This ocean of suffering
can be sailed, watch the star paths.
Moonglows are phases:

In full moon we see
The forks and roads to travel,
In new moon we move.

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 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

Laurel Brett
Rendezvous

If I should meet you
at the summit of a snowy mountain

let us not burden each other
with our stories of how the world

has wronged us—our genes,
our histories, our disappointments.

Instead, let us each pull up a chair
and say our names.

Let one of us point
to a peregrine falcon,

wings extended in an ecstasy
of flight, without remarking

on its predatory nature. Let
the other admire

the way the white around us
dazzles without remembering

the melting on Mt. Fuji.
It’s true—at the foot of this peak

the very fabric of the earth unravels.
We each know this. No need

to speak. For this moment—
a mountain, snow, a falcon and us.

Laurel Brett is the author of the novel The Schrödinger Girl (Kaylie Jones Books, 2020) and the literary critical study Disquiet on the Western Front: World War II and Postmodern Fiction (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016). Born in New York City, she lives in Port Jefferson, NY, and teaches in the English department at Nassau Community College in Garden City.

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

John Cross
Back to the Beginning

a child with a crayon spinning through the air
of a mostly invisible universe draws trees
& mountains lifting & falling with the breeze
draws one tiny man with wispy cockroach-leg hair
waiting for the firing squad he’s ordered
that’s meandered into the suburbs selling
sovereigntist anthems door to door
paper targets where their hearts should be
& the child imagines heat in a salt mine
near the hidden deep of the earth
that keeps pushing up red orange swirls
as any child might do & she scrawls
some forgotten word for how she feels right now

John Cross is the author of the poetry collection What Bleak Angels Carried Your Bed, forthcoming from Omnidawn Press, and the chapbook staring at the animal (Tupelo Press, 2009). His poems have appeared in journals including Volt, Lana Turner, and Yalobusha Review, among others. He teaches English at Westridge School for Girls in Pasadena and lives in Monrovia, Calif., with artist Christine Kiphart and a dog named Gordon.

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.