Second Coming No. 140 — June 8, 2025
A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House and his regime
Frances Camper
First Ice
What if this cluster of disparate symptoms turns out to be a syndrome of some concern
What if I am the one who discovers this despite my array of competent, very nice doctors
As always, the ice appears in just one day.
We don’t always get to see what goes on
beneath the surface.
What if most people will never be able to think differently than they think right now
What if those same people do not understand that this is even a problem
The river runs it to the banks, the ice
piles up like rubble. I can’t escape
that image though it shimmers white.
What if he doesn’t get recognition until after he dies
What if that last time I saw my brother is the last time I will see him
It’s even hard to know what to hope for
with all that ice piled up, like in the war.Francie Camper‘s poems have appeared in Pulse and Vineyard Gazette. After many years as a clinical social worker in New York’s Westchester County, she began writing and studying poetry at the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center, where she has also served on the board. In 1970, along with Kathy Dobkin and Milton Hoffman, she produced a historic marathon reading of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace on radio station WBAI in New York that included some 170 readers over fives days, including celebrated authors, actors, and other public figures, captivating the city and making headlines in its then robust roster of daily newspapers.
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.
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