A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House
Leslie Morris
The DOGE
Diadems – drop –
And Doges surrender –
Soundless as Dots,
On a Disc of Snow.
—Emily Dickinson
Don’t try to surrender dogecoin for milk —
Your 7/11 won’t take it.
And while a Shiba Inu doge once made you smile
with his telegraphic musings and misplaced modifiers
think now of Faliero, the 14th c Venetian Doge.
In a failed coup, he plotted to replace his fellow oligarchs
with his own absolute rule. The Doge’s severed head
came to rest at the bottom of the marble palace stairs.
(As for the Venetian populani, pfft, said the oligarchs.)
doge, noun: 1. the chief magistrate in the republics of Venice and Genoa.
noun, slang: 2. An intentional misspelling of dog, doge is an Internet meme involving a picture of a Shiba Inu dog captioned with humorously ungrammatical phrases. The word can also refer to a cryptocurrency.
noun, new usage: 3a. Department of Government Efficiency, created by Donald Trump in 2025 to secure coup d’etat. 3b. a white South African male born to wealth who never took a high school American History or U.S. Government class. 3c. a gamer who styles himself after video game warrior heroes but pays others to play for him. 3d. a drug-fueled corporate executive who makes massive lay-offs and is unable, self-admittedly, to feel empathy. 3e. a man who can never admit error; smart but not wise.
Leslie Morris‘s poetry and prose has appeared in The Cincinnati Review, SWWIM Every Day, The Broadkill Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and other journals. She lives and works in Austin, Texas.
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 occupant of the White House. 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.
If you like Second Coming and you want to support the work of Indolent Books, consider making a donation to Indolent Arts, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit fiscal sponsor of Indolent Books.
You can use the form below to donate as little as $1.00 (not visible in the email version of this post) or use this link to visit our donation page where you can donate as little as $1.00 or choose titles from the Indolent Books catalogue as thank-you gifts for donations starting at $25.00—The more you give, the more thank-you gift books you get, up to six books for a donation of $100 or more.