The Problem with Early Warnings by Charles Rafferty

The Problem with Early Warnings

by Charles Rafferty

People don’t like to leave a party

unless the house is actually

on fire. Even then, if the flames

are far enough away

to be pretty, they’ll finish

their drink, take one more pass

at the hors d’oeuvres.

How things happen has always been

unclear. Hurricanes begin

in a place where no one lives.

Agents of the government start

to wear masks. Fascism is

a word my neighbors won’t use

yet. They are following

the law, they say, and the sirens

are coming for someone else.

This poem was published in the Winter 2026 issue of The Southern Review and has been popping up all over the interwebs.

The reason for people sharing it is obvious: it perfectly captures this moment in time and does so by pulling us in, slowly, to the major point at the end. In doing so, the poem itself is a sly metaphoric example of its point--people too often don't see the issue until it is too late.

The first seven lines focus on a house fire. We are then told "How things happen has always been unclear," and are provided with the example of hurricanes. The last six lines switch gears, going both into history and to our current horror.

Masks hiding identities of people brutalizing others on behalf of their governments has been done since the start of time, in every corner of the planet. We go from that worldview to the speaker's neighbors in the here and now. We are told they will not say "Fascism" and the poet gave us that brilliant line break to force our focus onto the word "yet."

And as people have done in the past in many places, the neighbors feel they will never be targeted, for they are obeying the laws and those government brutes--in this case, depicted by sirens--are heading to others. This, following the word "Fascism," narrows the worldview to Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Certainly some people at that time, early on, felt unnerved enough to leave Germany, but so many did not, believing they were safe.

Here, many of us are thinking awful things are happening in Minneapolis, or to people here illegally, or to natural areas where animals are the only inhabitants, or to people half a world away. We are safe, we think, being here and not there, being us and not them. History, and this poem, tells us not to be so sure.

It is so very difficult to write great political poems, especially during the time the poem focuses on. This poem does just that, and I think the reasons are the poet kept it short and he first used two other circumstances (house fire and hurricane) to draw us in. Also, and just as important, he did not preach or chide or lecture or shame. The bare bones of it is that he told us about his neighbors, a great rhetorical device here. There is no anger in this poem or vitriol. It is calm and at the end, having made the connections, we are chilled (and maybe angry and/or shamed).

The Southern Review has been around since 1935! You can check it out here and maybe even subscribe. (If even half the people in this country subscribed to just one literary magazine of their choosing, our nation would be a much better place.)

Poet Charles Rafferty has been awarded an NEA grant and has others accolades to his name. You can read more about him and read more of his poems by clicking here.

Enjoy your Wednesday!