Lisa Molina
Oak

The oak that flourished.
The branches once maintaining perfect balance
Arms with green fingers reaching outward and upward
Decomposes from within.

The greed for sun, water, nutrients
The overwhelming unrelenting quest to be
Tallest
Greenest
Power all-consuming.

Gluttonous branches desire
Believes it shines brightly
But only spreading its fiery darkness
Of hubris.

Arms wilting
Fingers gangrene.

The red hot rot
Transforming the leaves
To a sickly purple.
Ignored,
(Welcomed?)
Withering,
Not Wintering.

Its Icarus-soul denies.
Is blinded, burned, self-destructs
Turning to black poison ash.
Whipping winds wailing their shrieks
As they howl the ashes up up up
Infernal spirals.
Then silently flutter down down down
To nothingness.

Surviving terrified below.
Still-innocent rough brown Greco-nature columns
Arms curved downward
Fingers limp
Underneath the death ash
Deeply desperately waiting

As
Roots stretching heaving
Unwavering in their faith
The unseen pulsating intertwining life
In the healthy hidden soft earth

Connecting—
Speaking in root-tongues they alone can comprehend,

Whispering:

Our mouths suckle nourishment still.
The weakened pillars will rise up
Drinking the life-giving nectar of the sky gods.
Your spindly arms and pale fingers
Growing gay gorgeous grandest green.
To shine together once more.

Dryads dream.

Prometheus prevails.

—Submitted on 11/11/2020

Lisa Molina holds a BFA from The University of Texas at Austin, and has taught high school English and Theatre. She was named Teacher of the Year by the Lake Travis Education Foundation after her third year of teaching. She also served as Associate Publisher of Austin Family magazine. Her life changed forever when her son battled leukemia three times for a period of seven years, and still has numerous health issues as a result of the treatments. Since 2000, she has worked with students with special needs, both at the Pre-K and high school levels. She believes art is essential for the soul, especially in times of darkness. She lives in Austin, Texas with her family.

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Marjorie Moorhead
Presumptive Winners

For this one   moment
exhale, let
the breath of hope float
on air of gratitude
to the universe

that just in this   moment
we can know
a fascist state has been rejected;
a dangerously-unhinged man
and his pathetic crew
will be ejected.
A woman of color given her seat of power;
anointed agent of change.
This   moment   we heard
an elected leader speak of better
angels and dismantling systemic
hatred.

Take this   moment,
inhale palpable joy,
relief and hope.
In tomorrow’s moments,
fear floods back; struggles
remain.
So many struggles.
But, for this one   moment…

—Submitted on 11/08/2020

Marjorie Moorhead is the author of the chapbooks Survival: Trees, Tides, Song (Finishing Line Press 2019), and Survival Part 2: Trees, Birds, Ocean, Bees (Duck Lake Books 2020). Her poems have appeared in Sheila-Na-Gig, Porter House Review, Verse-Virtual, Rising Phoenix Review, Amethyst Review, and other journals, as well as in several anthologies, including most recently Covid Spring (Hobblebush Books, 2020). 

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Deonte Osayande
America

I, too, sing America.

Way down south in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
They hung my black young lover
To a crossroads tree.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Way down south in Dixie
(Bruised body high in air)
I asked the white lord Jesus
What was the use of prayer

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen”,
Then.

Way down south in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
Love is a naked shadow
On a gnarled and naked tree

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I too, am America.

—Submitted on 11/10/2020

Author’s Note: “America” is a contrapuntal erasure of “I, too” and “Song for the Dark Girl” by Langston Hughes.

Deonte Osayande is a writer from Detroit, Mich. His books include Class (Urban Farmhouse Press, 2017), Circus (Brick Mantle Books, 2018) and Civilian (Urban Farmhouse Press, 2019. His poems appear in Button Poetry and other journals. Osayande has represented Detroit at four National Poetry Slam competitions. Manager of the Rustbelt Midwest Regional Poetry Slam and Festival for 2014 and 2018, he is a professor of English at Wayne County Community College.

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Andrea England
On Hearing That Google Searches for “Liquor Store Near Me” Were at an All-time High on Election Night

It was said of COVID too, sheltered in place, shelves
unburdened of proofs, un-scienced, Venus high
and as yellow as a jaundiced newborn.

I’m not much of a drinker anymore, so I sip
a glass of wine around a neighbor’s bonfire,
listening to votes roll in and chicken

sizzle on the grate, for a minute feeling
a little guilty for the luxury of food and the
moon. My daughter is telling a story and I

find myself interrupting again. I want all
her stories to be our stories. Is that so bad?
I am learning to let go of death, this election,

ideas that I can forever protect my daughter
as long as I pretend I have control over my
body and her screen-time. Like the thermostat,

I am guilty of waiting until it’s too cold to turn
up the heat, the sweat of over-compensating
waking me up in the night, this whole country

menopausal. The morning after is already here,
the coffee weakening, the sun and the moon still
at odds, both fighting to light up the sky.

—Submitted on 11/09/2020

Andrea England is the co-editor of the anthology Scientists and Poets #Resist (Brill Press, 2019), and the author of Other Geographies (Creative Justice Press, 2017) and Inventory of a Field (Finishing Line Press, 2014). Her poems have appeared in SWWIM, SoFloPoJo, The Potomac Review, and other journals. She lives and writes between Kalamazoo and Manistee Michigan, with her partner and their three teenage daughters.

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Lisa Alvarez
CPR

November dawn
the early morning air of election day
crisp as a new ballot

We kneel beside the republic’s body
whispering
breathe

—Submitted on 11/08/2020

Lisa Alvarez’s poetry and prose have appeared most recently in in Borderlands, Faultline, Huizache, Los Angeles Times, Santa Monica Review, and other journals, as well as in the anthologies Sudden Fiction Latino: Short-Short Stories from the United States and Latin America (W. W. Norton & Company, 2010), and Only Light Can Do That: 100 Post-Election Poems, Stories & Essays (The Rattling Wall and PEN Center USA, 2017). Alvarez holds an MFA in fiction from the University of California, Irvine, and teaches writing at a community college in Orange County.

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Jenna Le
November Air

I’m frazzled. My hair, snaggled,
stands on end like a raspberry’s.
When I lag on the Amtrak platform,
a man rasps, “Faster, asshole.”

Troubled, trampled
by the trompe l’oeil of the news cycle,
I’d like to travel to an isle tropical.
Yet I shrivel like a shrimp in a thimble.

I’d like to think what’s promised today
surpasses pom-poms and palmistry.
But I’m done quavering.
Henceforth, I’m singing whole note after whole note.

—Submitted on 11/08/2020

Jenna Le is the author of Six Rivers (NYQ Books, 2011) and A History of the Cetacean American Diaspora (Indolent Books, 2018).

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A poem from the What Rough Beast submission queue

Emily Jo Scalzo
2020 Election

they say it’s the edge
of a chasm so deep
we never hear the echo
but in reality we tripped
into it so long ago
we don’t remember
that we’re falling

—Submitted on 11/03/2020

Emily Jo Scalzo is the author of The Politics of Division (Five Oaks Press, 2017). Her work has appeared in Midwestern Gothic, Mobius, Blue Collar Review, New Verse News, and others journals. Scalzo holds an MFA in fiction from California State University, Fresno, and is an assistant teaching professor of research and creative writing at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.

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Indran Amirthanayagam
To Oz and Beyond

You must be depressed, Mr. President
watching the drip drip of tabulating,
red wall crumbling, and all the king’s
men turning mum, just your sons
and personal lawyer braying on Twitter,
and yes, an army of a thousand others
bringing spurious charges before
what was to have been your last line
of defense, the federal and Supreme courts.
But your plans were stymied by
the electoral calendar, this unfortunate
need to be reviewed by the people
every four years. Just not enough time
to seal the borders of justice and democracy,
to gut the civic dreams even of your own
party members. Depressing and certainly
cheering to your opponent, that sleepy fellow
who has crawled over the finishing line
with pride while you founder somewhere
in the attic of that now windy mansion,
wondering whether the last ride will come
from a helicopter out and above the Potomac
on the way to Andrews and the final flight
to Mar- a- Lago, then after a swift packing
of bags, by private jet to some territory
in the back of yonder, Oz, beyond.

—Submitted on 11/07/2020

Indran Amirthanayagam is the author of The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, 2020) and Sur L’ile nostalgique (L’Harmattan, 2020). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly.

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