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

Walter Holland
My Deportation

To be sent back after I went forth.
Once I thought I knew you. Estranged from

there I came to here. Estranged from here
you want me to go back to there, a where

I hardly knew. You’d insist I’d not existed
when it was expedient for me to assist you, to do

the things you wouldn’t do. Of course you resisted
ever asking. But nonetheless you asked, you asked

that I do this and I do that, and always asked me back.
What origin or residence did you ever think

was yours? Was mine? My here you said was always there,
and then you said I had to be here and here on time.

You never really saw me, but now you see me everywhere!
This place I dug up, cleaned up and repaired, you

asked me to care, but you never really cared. Now you see
my rights as wrong and see my wrongs as a reason to be gone.

Walter Holland is the author of the poetry collections Reconstruction (Finishing Line Press, 2022), Circuit (Chelsea Station Editions, 2010), Transatlantic (Painted Leaf Press, 2001), and A Journal of the Plague Years: Poems 1979-1992 (Magic City Press, 1992) as well as a novel, The March (Chelsea Station Editions, revised edition, 2011).

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

Karen Elizabeth Sharpe
Safe as Houses: A Duplex

The dim blue light of the world fills my hand.
A palm full of god seekers stuck in my phone.

I seek too but no gods hide in my phone.
There is only a cage of streaming news.

Only a cage of conflicting news streams.
Wars of every kind and blasted buildings.

Wars in every place and blasted buildings.
Children, deserted, wallowing in rubble.

Desert mothers, elders swallowing rubble.
At my house, the polite sky calmly beams.

A birdhouse, a yellow cat, blessedly beams.
Once upon a time, I too believed in god.

Just once, though, and then, like you, I forgot.
This dim blue light fills the world, my hand.

Karen Elizabeth Sharpe is the author of Prayer Can Be Anything (Finishing Line Press, 2023) and This Late Afternoon (Dunn & Company, 2004). Her poems appear in SWWIM Every Day, Split Rock Review, Mom Egg Review, Cagibi, and Halfway Down the Stairs, among others. She is a poetry editor at The Worcester 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 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

Jane Putnam Perry
Propulsion

the push pushing of paradox until it becomes folly a projection of inconsistency so far beyond quibbling as to be bull a propulsion of rigmarole until it becomes rant ejaculating romance throwing bombast flinging twaddle until it turns to fudge or rubbish or pure piffle

we toss trash shoot slipslop discharge flummery while calling it balderdash this is insanity rot tripe I want to throw things all the vagary and foolery and the mummery and monkey-tricks feel like darts a quarry so full of extravagance

Jane Putnam Perry is the author of the memoir White Snake Diary: Exploring Self-Inscribers (Atmosphere Press, 2020) and the academic book Outdoor Play: Teaching Strategies with Young Children (Teachers College Press, 2001). Her work has appeared in journals including Blood Orange Review, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Paper Dragon, and Still Point Arts Quarterly.

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

Dale Going
Got No Cognitive

I’ve got no cognitive problem I have no cognitive there’s no cognitive problem got no cognitive what about the goose the geese what about the geese they were all missing I don’t know Howie Howie Howie I have no idea I think it’s accurate I mean I think it’s accurate why don’t you go after the newspaper that wrote it don’t blame me never touches the human hand nice and full never touched a human hand nice and clean Jill get your fat husband off the couch get that fat pig off the couch tell him to go and vote for Trump he’s going to save our country get that guy the hell off our get him up Jill slap him around get him up get him up Jill we want him off the couch to get out and vote

Dale Going is the author of The Beautiful Language of Our Disaster (Codhill Press, 2025) and the chapbook For the Anniversaries of All Loving Kinds of Meetings (Albion Books, 2025). Her previous collections are The View They Arrange (Kelsey St. Press, 1994) and As/of the Whole (San Francisco State University, 1990). She has received grants from Fund for Poetry and California Arts Council, and residencies at Yaddo, Watermill Center, Wedding Cake House and Djerassi. Recent poems appear in Annulet, Interim, digital vestiges, New American Writing, VOLT, Wild Roof Journal, and elsewhere. She 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 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

Denver Butson
Question or Prayer
(for the masters and servants of war and for those who look away)

in the afterlife
if there is an afterlife
what will you tell
those who came
before you
about how you behaved
in the room
they prepared for you
the room
they swept and scrubbed
and freshened
for you
to walk into
to sleep and love in
what will you tell them
you did
with the book
of regrets
they left for you
in this room
to read
to memorize
to not repeat
to not repeat
what they had done
to others
or what others
had done to them
when this room
was their room
as briefly
as it is your room
to live in
to sleep in
to love in
will you tell them
you heeded
their request
their plea
their prayer
for you to leave the room
cleaner than you found it
to make
the book of regrets
thinner and lighter
than they left it for you

And how will you
look them in the eye
and explain yourself
those whose suffering
begged you
not to make
others suffer the same
how will you justify
what you have done
what you are doing
to others
or what you have
asked others
what you are asking others
to do to others
or what you have
turned your eyes away from
others doing to others
what you are turning your eyes away from
and allowing others
to do to others
while this ancient room
is your room

how will you ask
their forgiveness
those who prepared
this room for you
their forgiveness
for what
they and others
cannot possibly
forgive you for
in this
or any other room

in this
or any other
afterlife
if there is an afterlife?

Denver Butson is the author of The Scarecrow Alibis (Cloudbank Books, 2022), the sum of uncountable things (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), illegible address (Luquer Street Press, 2004), Mechanical Birds (St. Andrews Press, 2001), and triptych (The Commoner Press, 1999). In 2020 he received the William Matthews Poetry Prize from Asheville Poetry Review, judged by Ilya Kaminsky. He lives with his wife and daughter in Brooklyn, New York. 

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

Susana H. Case
How to Survive Dictatorship

Twist its neck to paralyze your chicken,
so neighbors won’t hear squawking and report you.
Pluck feathers with curtains drawn,
each member of the family taking
a handful to dispose of one street over.
Don’t cook chicken in the common kitchen,
where neighbors might walk in.
Curry the chicken in the middle of the night
on the outside terrace, fragrance
masked with herbs, hope that everyone stays asleep
during food shortages. Yes, the chicken may be bitter,
but your neighbors don’t have any—they will report you.
Get rid of the evidence of bones—crush them to use in soup.
Carefully self-manage your abortion, hide evidence
of your medication, in case you live
in the United States, where your neighbors will report you.

Susana H. Case is the author of nine books of poetry, most recently If This Isn’t Love (Broadstone Books, 2023), and co-editor with Margo Taft Stever of I Wanna Be Loved by You: Poems on Marilyn Monroe (Milk & Cake Press, 2022), a finalist for Best Book and International Book Awards sponsored by American Book Fest. The first of her five chapbooks, The Scottish Café (Slapering Hol Press, 2002) was released in an English-Polish edition, Kawiarnia Szkocka, by Opole University Press, and in an English-Ukrainian edition, Шотландська Кав’ярня, by Slapering Hol 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 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

Austin Alexis
Immigrants at the Southern Border

You tread across days, weeks
only to encounter barbed wires
gleaming in sunlight,
glowing like hell-flames.
You attempt to maneuver
through the spikey metal.
Each move you make
you step into a miniature cage.

Separated from your family
in order to provide for your family,
you know the loneliness
of cactus-heavy desert,
of a jailcell housing a single cot.

You don’t need to be called an animal
to understand the zoo of detention
or the mistreatment of being released
back to the hometown violence
you have been trying to escape.
You don’t need to be referred to as poison
to comprehend the prison of labels,
or to “get” how words, in the wrong mouth,
become not only a toxic drink
but a lethal one.

Austin Alexis is the author of the chapbooks Lovers and Drag Queens and For Lincoln & Other Poems, both from Poets Wear Prada, and the full-length collection Privacy Issues published by Broadside Lotus Press. His second full-length collection, The Whirlpool Bath, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in late-summer 2025. He was a finalist in the New Millennium Writings Flash Fiction Competition in 2024.

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

Simon Leonard
Amerika

Amerika: The fascist or racist aspect of American society. From German Amerika; from the likening of the U.S. to Nazi Germany. The first known use of Amerika in the meaning defined above was in 1968 among New Left activists in the U.S.
          —Merriam-Webster, adapted

In the Amerikan gallery of great men
we find this image
of a defiant patriot, who, finally and quite
by chance, found what to be outraged about.
The glaze of his face is stained
with strawberry blood; ungovernable,
his arm challenges that other world
to take a better shot, the clench
of his jaw final confirmation that
those unnumbered unnamables might strive,
but Amerika, my Amerika — continent twisted
out of coal, casinos and swimsuit beauty, land
of fake tans because we can, wrought
from the disappointment of factory dreams
by a blow-dried god refusing to give
up on his raw-hide truth, or his grip
on the sacred and mysterious uterus, this
Amerika is the privilege
they can never take away from me.
Just let them try, his furious triumph
tells us, and they will see
how my Amerika becomes me.

Simon Leonard is the author of the chapbook Before I Forget (Alien Buddha Press, 2022). His poems have appeared in Orbis, Envoi, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Roi Fainéant and Overheard, and other journals. Leonard teaches English at St. George’s The British International School in Cologne, Germany.

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

Vicki lorio
Spring Break

I knew the moment when
his sperm met my egg
no amount of douche

awash in my canal could
wash away this union. I diagnose
my dilemma sitting in my car

frozen at the traffic light that changes
from red to green to red in the early morning
light, so much for spring break.

Who was that guy anyway?
Just an idle diversion. He does not
taste my shame like I still taste him.

This would have been a clean sweep
in the time of my mother, my mother
of the burnt bra and loose nipples.

No more Roe v. Wade,
all slaves now—
we row when our white masters tell us to row.

Vicki lorio is the author of the poetry collections Poems from the Dirty Couch (Local Gems Press, 2013), Not Sorry (Alien Buddha Press, 2020), and the chapbooks Send Me a Letter (dancinggirlpress, 2015) Something Fishy (Finishing Line Press, 2018), and Blabbermouth (Alien Buddha Press, 2023). Her poetry has appeared in Painted Bride Quarterly, Rattle, The Fem Lit Mag, Black Coffee Review, Mom Egg Review, and other journals.

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

Elaine Sexton
Sleeve

I finger the cardboard cover
of this cardboard take-out
coffee cup, here to protect
my palm, but what

a waste of a tree,
a life, whittled down
to––this paper,
this pencil, too, this idea

in my calloused hand
with its half-life of bearing
and soothing, folded
under my chin, left into right,

on my lap when not called on
to scratch my back
or pat the dog or touch
a scar where a hot pot scalded

skin, uncovered, the way
the day is born
with no promises. Late light
lances winter tree branches,

trees whose gnarled trunks
stand with old poles
made of Southern yellow
pine, or Douglas fir,

Western red cedar. Oh trees,
oh power lines no longer
needed¬––what utility now?
Now we are wired and

wireless. Wired and tired
I like to say. What else
could we be, living as we do,
as we must––through this.

Elaine Sexton‘s fifth collection of poetry, Site Specific: New & Selected, is forthcoming from Grid Books in 2025. Her poems are widely anthologized and published in journals including American Poetry Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, and O! the Oprah Magazine. She is the author of the libretto for The Post Office, a chamber opera in poems, in collaboration with composer Laura Kaminsky, commissioned by Queen City Opera and developed by Opera Fusion: New Works/Cincinnati Opera. Sexton lives in New York and teaches at the Sarah Lawrence College Writing Institute.

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.