Second Coming No. 272 — October 18, 2025
A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by Donald Trump and his fascist regime
What kind of times are these
When to talk about trees is almost a crime
Because it leaves such atrocities unspoken
—Bertolt Brecht
Michael T. Young
Going into Exile
Fewer and fewer people say “hello”
in the morning. Each night, more shades
are drawn. Kids walking home from school
throw stones through windows,
for now. They seem to be trying to cast
the violence out, knowing its hammer
will soon come down on everyone.
The summer’s ended and the few
surviving bees try to get in the house.
So do the flies. One stray bullet
from the park and the newest
neighbor’s house went up for sale
a week later. Someone says,
“Wherever they go, it will follow them.”
Michael T. Young’s newest poetry collection, Mountain Climbing a River, forthcoming from Broadstone Books. He is the author of The Infinite Doctrine of Water (Terrapin Books, 2018). Young’s poems have appeared in ONE ART, Rattle, Peacock Journal, Unbroken, and Vox Populi, among other journals, and has been featured on Verse Daily and The Writer’s Almanac.
Second Coming is a project 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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 | A guest post by
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Appropriately sinister; forboding, concise. Thank you.
And it connects — chillingly — with one entry in particular in the Ethicist column in this Sunday’s NYT Magazine. Again: appropriately chillingly so. Now I find myself thinking of The Lottery. Your poems resonates with so many and much — long after reading.