Second Coming No. 117 — May 16, 2025

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

Gillian Leonard
Chainsaw Massacre

I live in a well. I live like smoke in the well.
—Ray Bradbury

He roamed the streets with a chainsaw.
Ficus, sycamore, and Chinese elm lay prostrate.
Freshly severed limbs, wood dust, and gasoline.
The air is thick; our eyes weep, acutely sensitive to the sun––
our wrists and ankles are fragile.
Shock waves and arthritic cracking sounds rise from the street.
The sidewalks are covered with a greasy film.
Neighbors say, A person should not be walking around with a chainsaw.
They whisper, What’s next?
Smoke rises from beyond the cliff, we listen, waiting.

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Editor’s Note: Some language in the poem is borrowed from two articles in The New York Times, “Downtown L.A. Has Seen Its Share of Violence. Then Someone Went After Its Trees” (April 25, 2025), by Jesus Jiménez; and “How Snow Becomes Deadly” (April 11, 2025), by Judson Jones and Lily Boyce.

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Gillian Leonard‘s poems have appeared in Poetry Online, Cathexis Northwest, and Beyond Words. Born in Washington, DC, and raised in New Hampshire, she attended Hampshire College and Keene State College and moved to New York, earning an MLS degree at SUNY Albany. Her paper “Multiculturalism and Library Services” appeared in The Acquisitions Librarian.

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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.

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

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