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

Josh Jacobs
For Mark Odesskiy, Aspiring US Citizen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

D. Dina Friedman
Poem Set in the Present Moment Featuring My Mother’s Voice

Sun filters through the shutter’s brown slats
If I open the shade, it will tell me

you’re ok. The world goes on
even here in the scrubby canals of space

between buildings, wilting flowers
fenced in tiny yards. At times

the sun can be an enemy
spewing the heat sucked from concrete walls.

My hand burns on the black railing of our brick steps
and this is how I know, the sun is not God,

not perfect. But sometimes, especially these times
I need to depend on what is unshakably there

the squawking vowels of my mother’s New York voice,
as at ninety, she goes about her day—the bank, the fruit store,

the calls to helpers to care for the squat remaining house
on a block full of demolitions, all rebuilt with shinier bricks.

How tall I am in the sun’s kiss,
an elongated shadow.

D. Dina Friedman is the author of the poetry chapbooks Here in Sanctuary, Whirling (Querencia Press, 2024) and Wolf in the Suitcase (Finishing Line Press, 2019). Her poems have appeared Salamander, Rattle, The Sun, Mass Poetry, Crab Orchard Review, and other journals. Friedman’s fiction includes the short-story collection Immigrants (Creators Publishing, 2023) and the YA novels Escaping Into the Night (Simon & Schuster, 2009) and Playing Dad’s Song (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2006).

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

Tom Driscoll
Ode to Joy

The difference between noise and music
maybe isn’t as plain as you’d think.
It’s not even something you can discern
from the sound itself—frequency—pitch—rhythm.
What separates one from the other is the listening.
They say no one ever saw the color blue
until someone named it.  Before then the sky
was simply vacancy.          Then, suddenly, it was seen.
Music is like that.                 Sound is sound is sound.
Everywhere and nothing.
Then something calls—or is it something answers?
I gave my son and his wife tickets to the symphony.
Beethoven’s Ninth—music composed by a man
who had lost his hearing—lost it in the literal sense.
We talked, my son and I, just the other day
about what he read in the program notes
how history had failed Beethoven when he wrote that music.
His ideals were dead or dying things, befitting the funereal,
but the poem, the plea, the prayer—he heard it.

Tom Driscoll is the author of the poetry collection The Champion of Doubt (Finishing Line Press, 2023). His poetry has appeared in Letter Review, Rock Salt Journal, Abraxas Review, Oddball Magazine, Carcosa Review, and other journals. A columnist and essayist as well as a poet, Driscoll lives and works in Lowell, 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

Erika DeShay
Swirling Thoughts While Grading Papers on a Tuesday

Always
believe in the
condescension of
division.
Evening
facilitates compromise,
guards broken
hearts.
I never worry aloud about
juxtaposition, what we
kill is what we
love.
Mourning
necessitates cooperation.
Open and
prying eyes can
quiet sunrises.
Razors
sharpen on
tiger teeth: we are the
underlying problem.
Varicose bluster
wailing from
xenophobic assholes
yearning for a past unbidden.
Zealots and tyrants sleep well.

Erika DeShay‘s poems have appeared in Callaloo, The Cortland Review, Half and One, Fatal Flaw, 45 Mag, and other journals. A 2024 Periplus Collective Fellow, she is a Black poet and English teacher living in Denver, Colorado.

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

Kerry Loughman
void

things fall apart nothing breaks like a heart hearts made to be broken
brokered in parts in deals no appeals no second chances note people’s glances
despair at that mask that evil clown syndicate boss grifting those in his care
why you may ask why logos is lost no heart no repair no turning back &
so what if the dog does get on the crosstown bus hitches a ride with the UPS man
you say that’s no plan a man a plan a canal panama so far from a center which
cannot does not hold cambium sapwood a heart at the center black hole

Kerry Loughman‘s poems have appeared in Nixes Mate, Passager, Lily Poetry Review, Main Street Rag, and other journals. She is a retired photographer and educator living in the Boston area.

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

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

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

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

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

Aimee Pozorski
When Your Mom is MAGA

“How are you doing?” she texts to inquire.
Do not be an asshole, I am advised in reply.
My “best interests” are in her Christian heart—
And my son’s and his girlfriend,
Daughter of an immigrant from Asia.
          “I pray your students will not be deported!”
          Well then, you have a lot of praying to do.
People are DIEing. I sound like that girl at a party.
“Trump’s Aid Cuts Hit the Hungry in a City of Shellfire and Starvation”—
The Times Headline on Easter Sunday.
Mrs. Dalloway says Albania but means to say Armenia.
Well-meaning white folks ignorant to suffering others.
“How are you doing?” she writes to inquire.
“Fine,” I say. “Fine. Just a little sick.”

Aimee Pozorski‘s work has appeared in the Connecticut Literary Anthology, MERVox, Tiny Seed Journal, What Rough Beast, Paper Nautilus, The Twin Bill, Bending Genres, The Helix, and other journals. She is a professor of English and coordinator of the Racial Justice Certificate program at Central Connecticut State University. She lives in New Britain, Connecticut with her husband and two dogs.

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

Roberta Spivek
Photo from CECOT

Head bowed, legs
stretched out in a vee,
the man sits, his nearly
naked groin mashed
into the prisoner’s
buttocks in formation
before him. His head’s
shaved so close,
I feel a vein throb.
Against the wall,
guards finger their guns.
There are too many
prisoners to count.
I don’t try.

Roberta Spivek‘s poems have appeared in Muleskinner Journal, Naugatuck River Review, New Croton Review, Ritualwell, One Art, and other journals. She is the former editor of Peace & Freedom, journal of the Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom, and former economic justice coordinator at the American Friends Service Committee. 

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

Gretchen Burch
We Sit at the Banquet

The chef insists on white linen for Spaghetti-Os tonight
The chef says before we eat, he wants us to know
he made everything himself

The chef brings out finger bowls, salad forks, fish knives
The chef wears velvet trousers and a tricorn hat

The chef has ironed the white starched napkins
The chef tells us to admire his white stitched monogram
The chef says there’s just one more thing before we eat 

and that is to look up and notice the beautiful
shards of crystal on the beautiful gaslit chandeliers 
he ordered taken out of storage

The chef has fired the sous chefs and consulted with the executioner

The chef just remembered another touch, something to 
give this night an even greater atmosphere of elegance

The chef moves our tables to the turgid brown river outside
The chef laughs from the bank as we board tipping gondolas

The chef forbids life jackets — they are for the weak —
The chef brings out white plates sliding with piles of caviar 

There is hushed talk it might be raccoon feces, teeming 
with black seeds and roundworms
but there is also doubt

The chef assures us we will enjoy the entertainment 
The chef bites the head off a live bat
The chef puts his fingers in a baby
The chef pours kerosene into the water and lights a match for ambiance

The chef insists over the screaming ochre blaze —
We must thank him for this food which we are about to receive.

Gretchen Burch is an emerging poet who lives in rural Kansas and works as a copywriter and content strategist. In 2024 she was named Poet of the Year by the Kansas Authors Club.

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 Barry-Schulz
Defending Extremism and the Federal Government

          An erasure from the administration’s executive order “Defending Women       
          from Gender Ideology and Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the
          Federal Government’, issued January 20, 2025.

It is hereby ordered: across the country

deny the reality of women

eradicate reality

as women
for women
from women
to women

erasure
of truth

relacing the
internal, fluid and subjective sense of self
cherished freedom

Accordingly enforce

Sex shall refer
Woman shall mean
Men shall mean
Female means
Male means

There is a vast spectrum that cannot be recognized

enforce
remove
require
report
cease

take all necessary steps

to end.

Susan Barry-Schulz‘s poems have appeared in West Trestle Review, The Westchester Review, SoFLoPoJO, SWWIM, Does It Have Pockets, and other journals and anthologiees. She is a first generation Estonian-American poet and artist who grew up just outside of Buffalo, 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.

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

Laurel Brett
Elegy for Long Island Ducks                                             

Say a prayer
for the 99,000 ducks
who will be

killed today to stop
the spread of avian flu
at the last duck farm.

Does it matter to the bird
if she’s killed to be smothered
in an apricot sauce

revered at the table
or in this mass execution
to halt a disease?

Is there a god for ducks
in a universe
without a god for us?

I hope they will be gathered
into feathery wings. So many
for their heaven to take in.

Laurel Brett is the author of the novel The Schrödinger Girl (Kaylie Jones Books, 2020) and the academic book Disquiet on the Western Front: World War II and Postmodern Fiction (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016). She holds a doctorate in English from SUNY Stony Brook and taught English, Intellectual History, and Women’s Studies at Nassau Community College. Brett lives in Port Jefferson, 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 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.