The Apostrophe Blog
My poem, “Another Catalog of the Ending,” was featured as the poem of the day on August 22, 2025 online at Second Coming. Second Coming is a poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House and his fascist regime. Edited by Michael Broder, Second Coming is a project of Indolent Books and is, according to him, “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.” When the Felon Clown was in the White House the first time—it remains insane that I am even typing those words—Broder had another online poem-a-day series called What Rough Beast. He notes that both of these titles are in homage to the poem, “The Second Coming,” by William Butler Yeats. Check out the site on Substack—there is a lot of good resister poetry to be found there!
The Second Coming
By William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
This poem is in the public domain.
Source: The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (1989) and The Poetry Foundation
Interests: Reading, writing, not arithmetic. The art and craft of poetry. Photography. Vegetable and flower gardening especially heirloom bulbs and dahlias. Movies in real theatres. Theatre on real stages. Art in real galleries. Crossword puzzles and, of course, Wordle. Singer-songwriters like Aimee Mann and Patti Griffin. All kinds of music especially 1930s jazz. Venice, Italy! The Dude abides.
- Poem-a-Day Publication at Second Coming - August 22, 2025
- The Running List… - August 21, 2025
- Moving Product… - August 8, 2025
