Second Coming No. 11 – Jan. 30, 2025

Heidi Seaborn
On the Steps of the Lincoln Memorial

God damn the beauty of it all    the white wedding cake buildings lit like sky lanterns
or a seduction of candles surrounding a bubble bath     god damn the DC bubble
for drinking champagne at embassy parties for wearing charcoal suits with snappy club ties
& crimson evening gowns with hair sprayed into a helmet    god damn
the helmets & barbed wire & check points   god-damn the checks that fail
to arrive for rent or the baby’s formula or schoolbooks that are banned
even when we band together   march to the steps of the god-damned congress
with all its god damn steps to get anything done so much god damn waiting
waiting with eyes on the prize for an impossible implausible dream
god damn the dreamers damned at birth
god damn their parents on knees to wash the floors of the Senate  god damn the Senators
consumed with their own hunger for power the god damn consuming hunger that growls
on street corners   god damn our broken streets & bridges
our broken trust   in god we shall trust on our shrinking currency  god damn
the dark money the darker elements that work in the shadows of the white tower
with its ring of flags   god damn the flag for flying into the hands
of insurrectionists & autocrats   god damn the sticky hands the filthy hands the hands in the pockets the hands in the money jar the no-hand-out hands the Supreme hands on our bodies god damn the handguns & the assault rifles & the assault
on who we love  how we live & if we can elect our representatives our rulers
who come to this god damned beautiful city bathed in expectations
only to be seduced by the god damn bubble of it all
the babble of politicians   the rubble of our damned democracy
so god damn troubled   this America.

---

Heidi Seaborn is Executive Editor of The Adroit Journal and winner of The Missouri Review Editors Prize in Poetry. Her third book of poetry, Tic Tic Tic, is forthcoming in 2025 from Cornerstone Press. Heidi is the author of three award-winning books/chapbooks of poetry: An Insomniac’s Slumber Party with Marilyn Monroe, Give a Girl Chaos, and Bite Marks. Recent work in Agni, Blackbird, Copper Nickel, Financial Times, Image, Poetry Northwest, Terrain.org, The Slowdown and elsewhere. Heidi holds degrees from Stanford and NYU.

---

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 presidential administration. 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.

---

Subscribe to get each day’s poem by email.

If you like Second Coming and you want to support the work of Indolent Books and volunteer chief cook and bottle washer Michael Broder, consider making a donation to Indolent Arts, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit fiscal sponsor of Indolent Books.