Second Coming No. 177 — July 15, 2025
A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by Donald Trump and his fascist regime
Bill Ratner
Lain to Rest
My old friend Charlie died.
At the funeral I act interested
in his widow’s grief
in order to get her into bed.
I represent myself as innocent.
She has a very small child,
tiny eyes, misshapen, face like a potato,
dressed like Little Lord Fauntleroy.
I wonder if she is embarrassed
to have me meet him.
When I come over
she acts friendly.
She has a girlfriend
whose hair looks plowed.
They are on to me.
They serve me candy.
They say it is dragon fruit powder.
It makes me feel cock-eyed and swirly.
It’s poison, they say.
It’s irreversible.
I am going to die
like in that Schwarzenegger movie
when you try to run
and your head blows up.
How far back have we wandered?
Dunkings, boilings,
brown rats,
the Pear of Anguish,
the Judas Chair.
Where only a fly can land.
Bill Ratner is the author of the poetry collections Lamenting While Doing Laps in the Lake (Slow Lightning Lit 2024), Fear of Fish (Alien Buddha Press 2021), and To Decorate a Casket (Finishing Line Press 2021). He is a nine-time winner of the Moth StorySLAM and two-time winner of the Best of The Hollywood Fringe Extension Award for Solo Performance. A voice actor, he teaches voiceovers for SAG-AFTRA Foundation.
Second Coming is a publication of Indolent Books, a haven for poets over 50 without a first book and a welcoming space for women, people of color, queer and trans writers, and others who do not fit molds or conform to expectations.
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