Cat Cotsell
TWO STEPS FORWARD, ONE STEP BACK

Nonlinear progress is a bit too much for
us sheltered millennial snowflakes,
thinks my Nan
“You’ve got to learn to roll with the punches
And not get upset at every little thing”
She says
The woman who yelled at me
For holding my girlfriend’s hand at church.
I’ll take nonlinear progress, I tell her
Over putting the bloody country in reverse
When we’re halfway up a hill.

Cat Cotsell’s writing has appeared in FIVE:2:ONE, FIRST, Ricky’s Back Yard, and qommunicate’s second volume of Hashtag Queer. They currently live in the Australian capital territory with three other nerds.

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Cat Cotsell
QUACK

The possums have started back into the compost
now that the torch has been turned away to
shine across the pond at the noisy ducks.
It is comforting to look on other people’s disasters
and quietly ignore your own.

Cat Cotsell’s writing has appeared in FIVE:2:ONE, FIRST, Ricky’s Back Yard, and qommunicate’s second volume of Hashtag Queer. They currently live in the Australian capital territory with three other nerds.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

David Dixon
Make No Peace With Oppression

Songbird by the door
should soon be disposed

before there is attraction
to the animal undesired.

I find it rare
to survive such flight,

devoted and dead ahead,
full to our own reflection.

David Dixon is a physician, poet, and musician who lives and practices in the foothills of North Carolina. His poetry has appeared in LIGHT Journal, The Examined Life, Rock & Sling, The Northern Virginia Review, and elsewhere.

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David Dixon
Revolution (You Say You Want)

In the night my dream
is of an unfamiliar feeling.

For which I had no word.

So I kept it in a vase.

Curious flower,
arranged for show,
then pressed
deep
within the pages
of my holy book.

Withered testament.

For I would not learn
its water,

could not seek its sun.

David Dixon is a physician, poet, and musician who lives and practices in the foothills of North Carolina. His poetry has appeared in LIGHT Journal, The Examined Life, Rock & Sling, The Northern Virginia Review, and elsewhere.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.