Second Coming No. 124 — May 23, 2025
A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House and his regime
Casey Charles
What Can We Do?
What can we do?
We’ve sent out letters to the editor,
mailed our postcards,
boycotted the billionaires
who control our speech and feeds,
we who claim not to be robots,
who identify motorcycles to gain entry,
who line up to shop online for sales
netted and webbed, linked to the junk
mail of Shopify and free trials.
What can we do?
We’ve crowded the courthouse
and bussed to the capital,
we’ve chanted and honked our horns.
We’ve posted the photos of hooded thugs
stuffing students into unmarked cars.
We’ve shared the news of rich tax breaks
and crypto deals. We’ve banged
our heads into pickets and messages
to servants of the people serving themselves.
What can we do?
We’ve witnessed our dollars drop bombs,
we’ve prayed with the powerless pope,
we’ve gone home to our lawn mowers
and stand-up comics. We’ve sent checks
to Earth First, dared senators to hold town halls.
We’ve unsubscribed and shook our heads
into dizzy memories of civics in sixth grade,
The Sixties. The Sixth Commandment.
Who enforces the orders of the courts?
Who counts the votes suppressed by lies?
What can we do
to stop the flow of traffic
to strap ourselves to bulldozers
to go underground with Robespierre,
when they’ve banned trans and outlawed
out, when they’ve built hotels and sent
our Latinx lovers to jail. When Monopoly
gets real. What recourse? What manifesto?
What protection for equality? When the executive
executes Liberty, when The Times caves,
and the suburbs pledge allegiance to greed.
Are we ready for arrest, Patrick Henry?
Casey Charles is the author of numerous books across genres, including the poetry collection Zicatela (FootHills Publishing, 2018) and the poetry chapbooks Blood Work (Seven Kitchens Press, 2012) and Controlled Burn (Pudding House, 2007). His poems have appeared in HIV Here & Now, Impossible Archetype, Anderbo, The Oval, Lodestar Quarterly, and other journals. His most recent book is the memoir Undetectable (Running Wild Press, 2024), and he is among six co-editors of the scholarly essay collection HIV, Sex and Sexuality in Later Life (Policy Press, 2022). A lawyer and activist as well as an academic and author, Charles is a professor emeritus of English at the University of Montana and an adjunct professor of English at the University of California, Riverside.
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.
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We are ready for arrest, yes! Just what I lamented this morning--what can we do???