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

Alan Perry
Darkness Redux

—November 5, 2024

Your heart says don’t forget her
resists conceding to a sundown.
But in fading light, don’t you feel
the jagged scree beneath your feet
chiseled to cut your chosen path?
And don’t you mourn these
waning days of sunlight, how clocks
tick backwards at every sunset?
You’ve seen this cycle before
waded through turgid hells
felt bloodsuckers twist
and feed on tenderness.
But can you work again in darkness—
take what light you have, offer it
as a miner’s headlamp
clear this tunnel of debris?
You know the dark season of sun
when oblique rays sharpen
to an empty howling wind.
But oh, how light will find you well
past midnight, at the break of dawn.

Alan Perry is the author of the chapbook Clerk of the Dead (Main Street Rag Publishing, 2020). His poems have appeared in Tahoma Literary Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Third Wednesday, San Pedro River Review, One Art, and other journals. Perry is a founder and co-managing editor of  the poetry journal RockPaperPoem, and a senior poetry editor for Typehouse Magazine. His chapbook The Heart of It is forthcoming in 2025 from Kelsay Books. 

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 and his regime

Robbie Gamble
Habeas Corpus

You should have the body. She was asleep
in bed when the airstrike rockets—One! Two!—
slammed into the house. Now her remains
are flattened, charred, bundled in a shroud
awaiting burial along with six shrouded siblings.

You should have the body. He was heading home
from work, when agents nabbed and shackled him,
shoved him on a plane to the homeland he once fled
for his life. Now he swelters in a cage with scores
more detainees, and officials shrug with glee.

You should have the body. He had just bought
cigarettes at the corner store, when he was
apprehended and kneed to the curb for nine
long minutes. Now his final throes linger in replay
on the digital stage for our wonder and disgust.

You should have the body. A body of outrage
that flares for these moments. It might dwindle,
frail for lack of oxygen. Now, we inhabit this body,
and we are called to breathe voice into it, hold it
holy, so more bodies might righteously survive.

Robbie Gamble is the author of the chapbook A Can of Pinto Beans (Lily Poetry Review Press, 2022). His poems have appeared in ONE ART, Post Road, Whale Road Review, Salamander, and The Sun and other journals. He divides his time between Boston and an apple orchard in Vermont.

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 and his regime

Pam Sinicrope
A Walk Around Willow Creek Reservoir

He knows the way.
I know the way.
The way is simple,

a circle around water.
Toby tenses, his tail pointing
to the stench of manure and mold.

He erupts from the car
like a horse at the starting gate,
but then quickly circles back,

nose to the snow-patched mud,
more like a truffle pig.
I remember the time Toby leapt

into the blue-green, broke habit
to bag a goose, how they performed
a water ballet, his circling

while she dove, resurfaced,
dove, and resurfaced
until he gave up.

But today, we’re working
with winterkill. Dead fish,
their stink, laces the shore.

Rolling and wagging,
he perfumes himself
with death. Why do I struggle

to start the circle?
Do I turn right to open
sky or left into the complexity

of trees, weeds, and shifty slopes?
No matter the choice,
I need to, I must go through

all of it. I feel stuck.
Inaction is not a choice.
But winter is breaking.

The ice floats the current
like little boats dissipating
into a multiverse manned by geese.

Just in case I’m never seen again,
I post pictures, share my location.
Being alone is thrilling,

But I keep my ears tuned
to the frequency
of male malfeasance,

to the footfalls of the serial killers,
rapists, and right-wing politicians
my fear-mongering mother installed

in my school-girl hippocampus.
Closing clouds, slipping sun, the ceaseless wind,
tongue-tied. We are automatons,

pre-programmed. Toby circles me
in ever-increasing arcs,
makes sure I do not disappear.

Pam Sinicrope‘s poems have appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic, The Night Heron Barks, Poems in the Afterglow, FERAL, SWWIM Every Day, and other journals. Sinicrope holds an MFA from Augsburg University and a doctorate in public health from the University of Texas-Houston. She lives in Rochester, MN with her husband, her mother-in-law, and their Pudelpointer, Toby.

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 and his regime

Bruce E. Whitacre
When the Ground Drops Away Beneath Me, Where Do I Turn?

The message is the blade, the life-ending exhale.
Time buckles the floor. Mind leaps from body.
Afloat, ethereal, free fall, sky eye,
Gripless, groundless, life swerves yet you land.

Time buckles the floor. Mind leaps from body.
Here’s a new country, before, after new language:
gripless, groundless. Life swerves yet you land
open-mouthed to new air, tongue to new words.

Here’s a new country, before/after, new language.
Unfreeze, move through the ache.
Open your mouth to new air, tongue to a new word.
Eat grief to landslide forward, stones your new food.

Unfreeze your moves, speak love through the ache.
Afloat, ethereal, free falling sky eye
Eat grief to fuel the way forward, stones your new food.
The message is the blade, the lifesaving inhale.

Bruce E. Whitacre is the author of Good Housekeeping (Poets Wear Prada, 2024) and The Elk in the Glade: The World of Pioneer and Painter Jennie Hicks (Crown Rock Media, 2022). His poems have appeared in World Literature Today, Amethyst Review, Kearney Creates, Dear Booze, Pine Hills Review, and other journals, as well as in several anthologies. Whitacre holds an MFA in dramatic writing from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. A Nebraska native and a retired theatre executive, he lives in Forest Hills, Queens 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 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 and his regime

Paula Rudnik
Last Straw

At what point does the camel topple,
its wide flat feet unsteady over horned split toes,
triple-lidded eyes tearful in their double row of lash?

When does the beast of burden
bite the hand that cinches up the saddle
and drop back broken to its knobby knees?

Those who shrug at hot spit warnings
under-estimate how long a camel
holds a grudge.

Handlers may think a bridle and a crop,
a load of freshly baled hay,
determine who the leader is.

Even creatures who appear
to withstand thirst for weeks or even months
can’t go forever without love or water.

The straw before the straw
that breaks the creature’s back
may go unnoticed

by a single-lidded oaf
without a camel’s sense
of when enough’s enough.

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, Poetic Medicine, Songs of Eretz Poetry Review, Kosmos Quarterly, and other journals, 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 and his regime

Dion O’Reilly
Blackness Between Trees

6 November 2024

In a place where nothing dies,
a blackness between trees.

We carry darkness there
and drop it like a bone.

We carry deer names, dog names.
We carry them like hope.

We carry a fear which can’t hear
the singing beneath leaves.

We bring our dangerous fingers,
stained with madder and blood.

In the unseen
place where nothing dies,

we hold the eyeless, the featherless.
We hold the fallen.

Dion O’Reilly is the author of the chapbook Limerence (Floating Bridge Press, 2025) and the full-length collections Sadness of the Apex Predator (Cornerstone Press, 2024) and Ghost Dogs (Terrapin Books, 2020). Her poems have appeared in Canary, Rhino, Cultural Daily, Rattle, Sequestrum, and other journals. O’Reilly divides her time between a ranch in the Santa Cruz Mountains and a residence in Bellingham, Washington.

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 and his regime

Vera Kewes Salter
Pantoum Without Peace

I am an old woman who meditates for peace
I am surprised I have lived this long
Bombers flew overhead when I was born
Children cower as bombs fly

I am surprised I have lived this long
My home has heat and light
Children cower as bombs fly
Buildings collapse in flame

My home has heat and light
I have planned my own cremation
Buildings collapse in flame
I focus my mind on my breath

I have planned my own cremation
Bombers flew overhead when I was born
I focus my mind on my breath
How can I meditate when there is no peace

Vera Kewes Salter is the author of the chapbook In Lewy’s Body (Finishing Line Press, 2023). Her poems have appeared in The Raven’s Perch, CommuterLit, Right Hand Pointing, Medical Literary Messenger, Red Eft Review, and other journals. Her debut full-length poetry collection, Girl on the Underground, is forthcoming from Broadstone Media. Having grown up in England, Salter lives in New Rochelle, 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 and his regime

Austin Alexis
The Media

By way of wind power
or via batteries or solar panels.
By way of old-fashioned electricity
or even aboriginal manual turning of pages
the media is here, is there,
insistent as it zooms
into your eyes, down your ear tunnels,
up your unwilling butt.
The quicksand grip of it
hopes you won’t escape.
You nearly drown in its images, verbiage,
rumbling mumbo jumbo.
With a tidbit of good taste
and a monumental load of bad,
sacred—at least in its own eyes—
it demands to be obeyed
as a know-it-all,
to be sought after like a femme fatale.
Feel how it presses down
with metatarsal fingers,
how it massages you
into sweaty passive compliance.
It desires the sacrifice of your time,
your energy, your cash flow.
Cling to self-protection
since there’s no telling
what all the channels of media
with octopus appendages will do
to the slither of sanity
you still hold on to.
Think of your will power
it wants to zap from you
like a mega stun gun
drunk on a volcano of wattage
more powerful than any god.

Austin Alexis is the author of the poetry collection Privacy Issues (Broadside Lotus Press, 2014), winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award, as well as of two chapbooks from Poets Wear Prada—Lovers and Drag Queens (2014) and For Lincoln & Other Poems (2010). His poems have appeared in About Place Journal, Acoustic Levitation, 5of4 Music, The Westchester Review, Tryst, and other journals. A new collection,The Whirlpool Bath, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in 2025.

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 and his regime

Linda Lancione
Habeas Corpus

Oikos, a monkey, dead at the bottom of the ocean September 15, 1947.

In the shower, thoughts of the Shoah, heaps of shoes.

Bent-over men with shaved heads encaged in Salvadoran prisons.

A man I know, the son of a friend, has written poems about mushrooms, a suite of thirty with intimate black and white photos of their frills and coils and cavities.

At the dentist, deep pockets. If you’re not careful, your teeth will fall out. How can that not sound like the scoldings your mother gave you.

After that, I lose my car near the Sawtooth Building, ask a stranger, then do what she says—two blocks left, two blocks right.

Language appears and disappears, like my car, like light and darkness, with a will of its own.

The late-night comic says the Secretary of War has tattoos that are ashamed of him.

Stand up, stand up, a voice says. I can’t help it. I am ashamed.

Something’s dead in the basement of the Pentagon, pungent and sweet.

Linda Lancione is the author of the chapbooks The Taste of Blood (Finishing Line Press, 2016), 2% Organic: Poems from a West Marin Dairy Barn (Wordrunner Press, 2008), This Short Season (Small Poetry Press, 2001), and Wanting the Moon (Wildflower Press, 1981). Her poems and essays have appeared in Verdad, Softblow, The Sun, Kelsay Books Blog, Cimarron Review, and other journals. With Burl Willes, she co-authored the travel guides Undiscovered Islands of the Mediterranean (John Muir Publications, 1990) and Undiscovered Islands of the U.S. and Canadian West Coast (Avalon Travel Pub, 1991). A longtime Berkeley resident, Lancione is a former ESL teacher and an avid traveler.

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 and his regime

Christopher Stephen Soden
Interloper

          for Volodymyr Zelensky

I couldn’t wait to tell you how
overjoyed we were when you
accepted our invitation. Your keen
wit lightened this despondency
that lingers like a wet, heavy fog.

I love to prepare exotic dishes
but hope they won’t suffer
by comparison to the stalwart
stews of your homeland. By now
I’m sure you’ve gathered
there’s another reason for my letter.

When dad hadn’t shown by nine,
I closed my eyes praying
he had passed out somewhere.
But then he arrived, stumbling
and hoarse, wind bitten cheeks

and bleary eyes. He is, God
forgive me, a vindictive buffoon.
Picking fights with my brother.
Goading and insulting you. When he

started with his disgusting songs,
slopping food like a hound, we were
drenched in shame. Oh sweet friend,
what must you think of us?

What a repugnant show
of hospitality for our valiant
pilgrim. Please don’t judge us
by our father. I don’t
love him, and I don’t want to.

I don’t care about the coy stories
of his rough courtship with mama.
His dour charm and creepy sense
of humor. Authenticity counts
for nothing if you’re a liar.

I can’t explain, but when I see
their wedding photograph,
I can only ask: Why didn’t she
break the spell? Even if
I was never born.

Christopher Stephen Soden is the author of the poetry collections Tempting God (Luchador Press, 2024), Gusher (Queer Mojo, 2022), and Closer (Queer Mojo, 2011). His poems have appeared in Rattle, The Cortland Review, Borderlands, The James White Review, Origami Poems Project, The Still Blue Project, and other journals, as well as in the anthology Gents, Bad Boys & Barbarians: New Gay Male Poetry (Alyson Publications, 1995), ed. Rudy Kikel. A native Texan, Soden holds an MFA in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

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.