Second Coming No. 4 – Jan. 23, 2025
A poem-a-day series in creative response to the threat posed to our democracy by the current presidential administration
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Dion O’Reilly
Thinning of the Veil
5 November 2024, Bellingham WA
I love how quiet
the town, how mute
from low-pressed clouds,
the seep of rain.
I want an animal
coat to keep me
warm, to skirt shadow
by the waterfront, slow
barges creeping like
slugs on stainless water.
I want coverlet clouds
to lift for a second,
the slow sun hurting
my worm-white skin.
Now is the time
for the line between
dead and suffering
to shimmer and deplete,
for a million imperatives
to speak in the stripped-down trees:
Listen. Look. Drink. Take.
Some hate the darkness
when it o’ersways,
when it enters
our kingdom like liquor
from forgotten bottles,
the singing and stinging,
rush, at dusk—
a cauldron
of flying things
stirred and thrown
into the darkening sky.
Dion O’Reilly is the author of three poetry collections: Sadness of the Apex Predator, a finalist for the Steel Toe Book Prize and the Ex Ophidia Prize; Ghost Dogs, winner of The Independent Press Award for Poetry, Honorable Mention for the Eric Hoffer Poetry Award, and runner-up for the Catamaran Poetry Prize. Her third book, Limerence, was a finalist for the John Pierce Chapbook Competition and is forthcoming from Floating Bridge Press. Her work appears in Cincinnati Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Sun, and Rattle. She is a podcaster, leads poetry workshops, and is starting a new poetry journal about alterity. She splits 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 in creative response to the threat posed to our democracy by the incoming presidential administration. 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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thnx for liking!