A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House and his regime
Alice Campbell Romano
Mightier
Because I am too much spirit
I prowled hospital tents by Whitman’s side,
watched him cup the chin of a soldier who had no hands,
then lift the boy’s shoulders to help him sip soft water.
Because I am too much spirit
I rose above the hospital, let my atoms pull away
one from another, to spread in the sulfured air over battlefields,
recognizing each numb fear, blue or gray.
But I was not yet enough spirit
to have mended there and then. Whitman with his transcendent pen
could not curb the thrusts of gold-braid generals.
Whitman was one man writing, and too few leaders read.
But I have gathered strength
from the hundred, the thousand, wars since then—
colonizers, tribal massacres, Great War trenches,
Hiroshima, Syria, you can list them.
But do you know—do you have an inkling of what I can do?
I am. I am too much spirit now—all the dead on muddy fields, all
the collateral shattered children,
every war-freed soul.
I have the might of millions.
We will sweep around the planet in a cosmic wind.
We will dump back down on every council
ashes, chunks of bone, screams, tears, numb fears, women raped
and habitats of tiny insects spoiled.
Writing is what my wind of souls
will blow around the leaders and the sellers
so the words that tell how it is, how it really is
will mount up and choke the clamoring for blood.
Alice Campbell Romano is the author of the chapbook The Consolation of Geometry (C&R Press, 2024). Her poems have appeared in Minerva Rising, The New Verse News, The Marbled Sigh, Persimmon Tree, The Orchards Poetry Journal, and other journals, as well as in Starry, Starry Night: An Ekphrastic Anthology Inspired by Van Gogh’s Masterpiece (The Ekphrastic Review, 2022). A child of the Hudson Highlands and New York City, Campbell Romano lives in Bronxville, NY, and is an active member of the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center.
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.