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

Rosanne English
The Skull

I lit the skull candle
with the intention

of burning it down.
It’s been waxing

on the console
a year. The wick

is charred. I turn
the record player on

and listen to Brat
by Charli xcx—

wonder about green,
apples, girls,

and meaning.
I can vote early

today if I want
in Orangetown.

But maybe I want to wait
for Election Day. To feel

the atmosphere at Grace Church.
The flame is high.

My dog licks her inner thigh.

Rosanne English holds an MFA from NYU and is working on her first collection. She lives in the Hudson Valley. 

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 whom to call to pledge my love.

Paula Rudnick is the author of Now is Not a Good Time (independently published, 2022). Her poems have appeared in Halfway Down the Stairs, LA Jewish Journal and Kosmos Quarterly, as well as in several anthologies. A former TV producer whose credits range from late-night rock-and-roll shows to Emmy-nominated movies, Paula 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

Susan M. Craig
Today the sky

ineffably blue—all while I’ve read the fires are only
five miles distant—five miles in these Blue Ridge mountains
dense with brittle hardwood, underclad with contorted

mountain laurel—deep green rhododendron budded, not yet
bejeweled in fuchsia. I walk with the dog across the little river
bridge—a river which seems more like a trickling

dream. Rain has been scanty the first of spring.
The bridge rails are crafted of laurel branches—mountain ivy,
the longtime locals call it. How I love this art

of imperfection, no twig the same, no call for straight lines.
A white-haired man comes out of his cottage and waves a welcome.
Come closer, he motions, points to his right ear.

We amble nearer—his cheeks are ruddy, his smile
alive with gumption—his fleece vest burred in leaf fragments,
detritus of bark, shed hair of a yellow dog.

I ask if he plans to evacuate—he responds with a rousting negative.
He exhorts me not to panic, says he’s a retired fireman.
This is no fire! he exclaims; scoffs at smoke like a little brother.

These hardwoods, he declares, will not burn like California.
He gestures to the lush looming forest, our common haven.
I notice his red ball cap’s white letters “Make America…”

I do not lean closer to finish the sentence. Even so, his proclamation
leaves me momentarily reassured, held in sway by some old
generational bravado—and yet there are truths

belying words—that winds can roar like dragons—
that Helene downed limbs and scattered brush, perfect tinder.
That we live in a different day.

He said last night his wife was desperate to leave.
We’ve got nothing to worry about, he assured her.
I smile wordless, the dog and I stroll off like silent siblings.

Today the sky ineffably blue—and yet
some odd quality of light I remember, this
oblique tone of a looming giant.

Today—the sky.
I leave with the dog and our belongings
just before the mandatory order comes through.

Should I worry for them, this couple of an ages-old paradigm?
He so certain he has nothing to fear—not the inferno,
not the smoke, not the earth’s

undoing.  Today the sky—ineffably blue.
Ashes float like pieces of feathers. On my way home,
the valleys are swallowed in smoke.

Susan M. Craig is the author of the chapbook Hush (Seven Kitchens Press, 2023). Her poems have appeared in Poetry South, Mom Egg Review, Kakalak, Quiet Diamonds, Jasper and other journals. She is a visual artist and lives in Columbia, SC.

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

Ruth Nicholson
Sonnet for the Absent Poet

Diminished by the threat of winter’s harm,
the ceremony still involves a throng
of luminaries, special guests who charm
with tributes, reminiscences, or song.
But notice, there’s no poet here today—
no chance to greet a new prophetic voice.
No hand placed on the Bible to affirm
a covenant with all who made a choice.
The dais groans with men of property.
A musky scent hangs heavy in the air.
The leader who has promised unity
instead spews insults, proves he does not care.
Burned featherless by hatred, choked by lies,
democracy’s canary slumps and dies.

Ruth Nicholson‘s poems have appeared in Persimmon Tree, Emrys Journal, Kakalak, Fall Lines, and American Journal of Nursing. A Pennsylvania native now retired from a long career as a public librarian, she lives in West Columbia, SC.

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

Davidson Garrett
Clobbering Culture

          Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell.
          —William Shakespeare

On many glorious occasions
I embarked on pilgrimages 
to the iconic Kennedy Center

located in the heart of Washington 
to hear the magnificent soprano
Leontyne Price in recital.

In the sold out Opera House
this legendary Diva of All Divas
(considered an American treasure)

poured forth creamy halcyon sounds
from well known classical composers 
such as Strauss, Puccini & Verdi 

mesmerizing rapt audiences
with a distinctive golden/bronze voice 
sent to planet Earth by Almighty God. 

At the end of these special concerts
I always dashed down the aisle
tossing red roses to Miss Price

begging for more encores—
aware I was in the presence
of Art Incarnate.

And now, a crass classless felon—
spoiled brat hatched in Queens
famous as a reality TV showman  

begins to abruptly dismantle
a beloved cultural institution
appointing demonic nitwits 

to its Board of Directors
governing this hallowed landmark
naming himself—Chairman.

Surely Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
must be spinning in her grave
at Arlington National Cemetery.

Davidson Garrett is the author of the poetry collections King Lear of the Taxi (Advent Purple Press, 2006) and Arias of a Rhapsodic Spirit (Kelsay Books, 2020) as well as of the chapbook Cabaletta (Finishing Line Press, 2022). A Manhattan-based actor and former New York City taxi driver, he trained for the theater at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts and graduated from City College.

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

Kryssa Schemmerling
Coming of Age

Flashback: California, 1980.
I’m in the car with my mother
who’s running late to cast a ballot
for Carter. We turn on the radio—

he’s already conceding.
This is the moment I learn
that the bad guy can win
and keep on winning,

that a B-movie actor who named names
and unleashed the National Guard
on student demonstrations
was the beginning

of an end where a reality TV star
ascends to the White House, not once
but twice. I grew up trying
to rewrite this script with

my feet. March, knock on doors.
Call politicians who don’t
pick up their phones. Wring, wring, wring
my hands. Still, the plot

unfolds against our will. The protestors
got old, People’s Park has fallen
but Grover Norquist
is alive. We are living

his dream: government gutted,
democracy drowned
like an unwanted animal
in a bathtub.

Kryssa Schemmerling is the author of the poetry collection Iris In (Broadstone Books, 2016). Her poems have been appeared in The Cortland Review, Mudlark, 2River, Glint, and Silver Birch Press, among other journals. A 2022 New York Foundation of the Arts Fellow in Screenwriting, Schemmerling holds an MFA in film from Columbia University and teaches screenwriting at Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema in Brooklyn and at Rutgers University in New Jersey. A California native, she lives in Brooklyn.

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

Myra Malkin
Anti-Ode to Ken Paxton, Attorney-General of Texas, and Willing Lady-Killer

—He jes’ loves those tiny little foetuses,
Ken does!

Keep ‘em in the womb, for the whole nine moons
—even if they’re dead, even if they’re doomed.
Handy little prunes, thinks pro-life Ken.

But listen, Ken, we called up God—
he couldn’t have been nicer, that Great White Shard.
God, we said, could you confirm
that every foetus has to go to term?

God says: huh?
God says: wha?                                  

God says: sometimes it’s better to abort.
God says: let’s keep the suffering short.
(Why do we have to have suffering at all?
—we’ll save that for another call.)

God says justice does take time,
but he’ll make the punishment fit the crime.

Down there in Hell, Ken, there ain’t any bans:
Devil’s gonna get you and make you TRANS!
Take away your night-stick, fit you with a womb—
a thousand Kenny-foetuses, all of ‘em in bloom.
No more trying to Tyrannosaurus Rex us
—you’ll own a uterus that’s heftier than Texas.
Great big padlock, between your legs,
that says NO EXIT to the sperms with eggs.

Morning sickness, each day of the week.
Pre-eclampsia’s malaise-boutique.
Maybe some gestational hypertension?
Hyperemesis? Yeast infection?

Have fun, Ken!

You’ll stay pregnant for e-ter-ni-tee,
a convex colossus of fe-cund-i-tee.
You’ll be your very own ball and chain.
You’re gonna wax—and you’re never gonna wane.

God says Kenny’s gonna get what’s due:
what you did unto others will be done to you.

Hit it, band—

He jes’ loves those tiny little foetuses.
He jes’ loves those tiny little foetuses.
He jes’ LOVES those tiny little foetuses,

Ken does!

Author’s Notes:

In 2023, a Texas court ruled that Kate Cox, because of the foetus’s condition and the resulting danger to the mother, was entitled to a medical-exemption abortion. Ken Paxton threatened to prosecute any doctor who performed an abortion on Cox; he appealed the ruling to the Texas Supreme Court, and they paused it. Cox had to get her abortion in another state.  

In 2024, Paxton charged a NYS doctor, Maggie Carpenter, with prescribing abortion medication to a Texas patient, via telemedicine. In 2025, he charged a midwife, Maria Margarita Rojas, with doing illegal abortions and practicing medicine without a license.

In 2025, a Paxton opinion said that transgender people can’t change their sex on driver’s licenses and birth certificates, and that court orders permitting such changes are void.

Myra Malkin is the author of Sunset Grand Couturier (Broadstone Books, 2022), and a chapbook, No Lifeguard on Duty (Mainstreet Rag, 2010). She started out as an actress (mostly way off Broadway) and was a legal services attorney in upstate New York. She now lives in New York 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

J.I. Kleinberg
Three Visual Poems

The news

they always

to withstand

J.I. Kleinberg is the author of the visual poetry collection She needs the river (Poem Atlas, 2024) and the visual poetry chapbooks How to pronounce the wind (Paper View Books, 2023) and Desire’s Authority (Ravenna Press, 2023). Kleinberg’s visual poems have appeared in The Indianapolis Review, OJAL Art, Venti, Poemeleon, and other journals. She lives in Bellingham, Wash.

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

Jen Hirt
By Design

          As soon as I saw it, I said, “That is the coolest design.”
          —DJT at Tesla Cybertruck event on the White House lawn, March 11, 2025

The grocery’s egg case, empty on
my last visit, is full and regulated:
One carton per customer per day.
A friendly yellow circle of a
sign, like a yolk. Compliant customers
take a carton and continue.

Outside, a Tesla truck takes a handicapped
space. No placard, no plate. Not busy; there are
other spaces. I watch a man notice too
and he circles, slowly. He is holding his phone and I
am holding my breath.

The driver is in the store,
is into exoskeletons, steel cold-rolled, a pick-up
without paint, the triangle-theory of truck,
maybe also autocracy, the project of this year, maybe
they are buying one carton of eggs, maybe not.
Maybe they are just taking as much as they want
because that’s more efficient.

Cartons keep their eggs
from cracking; a Cybertruck’s steel will
never dent. But it can burn.
What is that if not a design for living.

In the landscape of fear concept,
ecologists observe how vegetation thrives
when prey’s project is caution, not consumption.
Where there is enough for everyone briefly
instead of billions for one forever.

In the landscape of no fear, prey grow
sedentary, salute that one space closer to the entrance.
Their guy won. The bug was a feature.
It’s great again to think only of yourself.

Cybertrucks get featured as design disrupters.
They just remind me of groundhogs, the
opposite of design or disruption, the fattest
chucks forgetting fear to feed in one spot until
their faces seem tiny, necks lost to bloat.
No consequences. No predators left, by design.

The man circling is still taking pictures.
I watch him through the window at check-out,
my carton of eggs bagged carefully
as if the carton is never enough,
as if breaking an egg brings only regret,
as if we all should walk on eggshells.

Psychologists and ecologists talk
about “spatial patterns of risk perception”
in our landscapes of fear and consequences.
I could take my eggs and go, on tip-toe. Instead,
I catch the eye of a manager. I’m by design
a predator with a project, here to make you

move, so people who
need the space of democracy
can have back that coolest design.

Jen Hirt is the author of the essay collection Hear Me Ohio (U. Akron Press, 2020), the poetry chapbook Too Many Questions About Strawberries (Tolsun Books, 2018), and the memoir Under Glass (U. Akron Press, 2010), as well as co-editor with Tina Mitchell of the anthology Kept Secret: The Half-Truth in Nonfiction (Michigan State U. Press, 2017) and with Erin Murphy of the anthology Creating Nonfiction: Twenty Essays and Interviews With the Writers (SUNY Press, 2016). Hirt edits the Journal of Creative Writing Studies and is an associate professor of creative writing at Penn State Harrisburg.

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

Barbara Lipp
It’s a Feature Not a Bug

What’s become of the Land of the Free?
Well, it was never for all, there was no guarantee.
It’s only for people who look more like me.
Others were hung from the branch of a tree.

What’s become of the home of the brave?
The founding fathers turn in their graves.
They had a good plan but they also had slaves.
Their plan’s now in tatters, not much left to save.

It’s quite a contemptuous version of wisdom
To hand AI chatbots the keys to the kingdom.
Oligarchs, billionaires, friends and relations
Have taken the reigns of our floundering nation.

Malevolent pride consumes all in its path
The slightest of slights will unleash its wrath.
It cares about nothing except retribution,
And laughs in the face of our land’s Constitution.

Fearing tyranny’s scorching hot blast,
Fearing how long this bad dream may last,
Fearing tomorrow and mourning the past,
Fascism’s stench has arrived much too fast.

The voters who chose this must now own their choice.
The people have spoken, with rancorous voice.
A creeping malignancy’s now in full swing.
My dear, defunct country, of thee I sing.

Barbara Lipp is the author of the books Ask Marcel: Sage Advice from a Wise Cat (2025) and Pandemica: A Souvenir of a Most Dreadful Year (2022). Alongside her day job as a graphic designer, Lipp appeared as a performance artist in New York City clubs, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, and on Late Night with David Letterman. Her collaborative videos have been shown in art museums worldwide. Now retired, she lives and writes in Peekskill, NY.

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.