What Rough Beast | 08 03 20 | T. Clear

T. Clear
Quarantine Happy Hour: The Death Count

One ant
suffered a sweet lime demise
in a Margarita backwash;

traced a pheromone trail
to arrive at the ideal
time for drowning.

How many more to follow?
On planet earth
the ratio of human to ant

is one to a million.
A single ant on my table
equals legions more

mapping the shortest route
to food and water.
My poison tricks, my borax traps

may trim the onslaught,
but I fear I’ll lose, cocooned
and not nearly so nimble.

I, who know nothing of war.
For whom life remains
angel-tufted, sugared.

—Submitted on 07/15/2020

T. Clear‘s work has appeared in Cascadia Review, Poetry Northwest, Scoundrel Time, The Moth, The Rise Up Review, and other journals, as well as in the anthology, Take a Stand: Art Against Hate (Raven Chronicles Press, 2020), and other anthologies. She is a lifelong Seattle resident.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.




What Rough Beast | 08 02 20 | Tara Davoodi

Tara Davoodi
America’s Backyard

as i sit there, digging
i can’t help but think
that all of this is futile.

scooping out soil from
the embalmed earth,
planting rotten seeds.

ancient stones, quartz and granite
recovered in sweaty palms
darkness burrowed under fingernails,

nothing but wild exiles
for this ground to swallow.

i am only digging holes
in this yard, in this soil
i thought was my soil,
in this land i thought
was my land, in this america,

i dig up nothing but pain.
give it a couple of weeks
and this poison loam will eat up
those leaves, yank them back into earth
soft petals choking, stems falling—

someone will mistake weeds for blooms
and call it eden.

—Submitted on 07/14/2020

Tara Davoodi writes: I am sixteen and a tenth grade student living in Maryland. I am passionate about social justice issues, activism, and writing.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.




What Rough Beast | 07 04 20 | Horde (William Furio)

Horde (William Furio)
SS Panzer Division

I wish I knew a place we could go.
The more it continues the more it feels like falling.
I really don’t think the ground was ever there.

There are men choking men in front of my mother giving birth
while dead bodies swing from the trees in front of my raped body
outside the church with guns falling in front of my father like payments.

This racist line continues to the horizon and we’re sick.
I have fallen in love with fantasy and dreams more than I could count on men.
I create with my hands, but they are starting to tremor and I’m so young,
I have never been young.

I want to tell you the extreme amount of pressure I’ve been under
and how my bed is a cloud and how the shower is my paradise.
There is a fixed point in my neck where I think it’ll explode behind my ear
if I hear about one more dead person.

The Empire State Building when it was flashing red for two months
sounded like it was concerned, but it was really mocking and pushing it down
our throats that white bodies will survive.

And here is where I lose my patience. And here is where I lose focus, the story.
Somehow during the fifth time I threw myself in front of a cop
I started throwing up and running out of my body
and the moment started glitching, bright static runs across the grass,
and the sound finally caught up with his mouth and he’s a dead bloated
capsized drill motherfucker gasping for life while I pretend that my hand
could be a performance on some screen untouched and already dead.

I have never felt more out of control.

What heart is needed?

Telling myself to calm down feels abusive.

I want to hurt someone hurting.

Maybe I want war.

The sea keeps exploding. And I keep crying.
The sea keeps exploding.
The sea keeps exploding.
The sea keeps exploding.
The sea keeps exploding.
The sea keeps exploding.

I keep hearing the failures rush through my ears
as I almost drown.
I get lifted up by a friend until they start to drown.
I have strength. I have strength.
I swim and flail because I can feel the sun,
I can feel the sun making the nerves dance on my face,
but I close my eyes because I start to fold and there is no one around me
and this time I decide I want to touch the bottom of the ocean with my hands.
I strangle the last hope until I’m too heavy and start to sink.
It is not beautiful. It is not kind. It is not brave.
I sit at the bottom of the ocean. Still at the bottom of the ocean.

And here I see the murderers and murdered.
I see the waves of colors when you allow yourself breath.
I can see the possibility of love and respect.
Here are the seconds between life and death.
And here I cry.

Brooklyn, July 6, 2020

—Submitted on 07/10/2020

Editor’s Note: This poem replaces a previous poem that had to be taken down due to conflicts of interest. Hence the date of the post precedes that of the poem’s composition or submission

The poet writes: My name is William Furio and I go by the art name of Horde. I am a performance artist and poet who lives in Brooklyn, NY. I have never published and have just started submitting poems in a serious way : ). The poem I am submitting is a reflection of my experience/a lot of our experiences during COVID, which has been hyper violent and suffocating due to the entrenched forms of patriarchy, racism, and capitalism that exist.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.




What Rough Beast | 08 01 20 | Heather M. F. Lyke

Heather M. F. Lyke
Independence: July 4, 2020

Large celebrations not recommended,
I sit alone on my balcony.

Wrapped in my blue robe worn thin,
the cool breeze is interrupted by fireworks
illegally purchased from across the river
where freedom apparently looks different.

Their red starbursts blasting
warning shots into the sky:
an insistence that their traditions
are more important than lives.

Their thick smoke suffocating
the white flag we keep waving
to this pandemic that doesn’t subside.

Humidity restrains the torched air
from these fires that cut the blackness
and burn our skies:
creating a cloud across our country.

I couldn’t sleep if I tried.

—Submitted on 07/10/2020

Heather M. F. Lyke’s poetry has appeared in Frost Meadow Review, In Parentheses, The Dewdrop, and AfterWork. She holds a BA from Concordia College, and teaches writing and literature at a high school in southern Minnesota. Online at heatherlyke.weebly.com.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.




What Rough Beast | 07 31 20 | Rebecca Thrush

Rebecca Thrush
Three Poems

Before Letting Go

Living with you is like breathing under plush blankets—intimate and all-consuming, warming me up from the inside out and every angle—until suddenly the oxygen ratio falters, slowly dwindling as we pass each exhale back and forth. We posture and repose to find space to breathe—clinging, pulling deftly away, as we silently realize we needed more than our own recycled air to fill these desperate lungs, and more to love than softness and safeguards, as we dreamed of ventilation and backwoods breezes

Pressure Points

I imagine the feeling
is quite like that of the
fulcrum on a seesaw

Enough weight to hold
me down, but not enough
balance to stop the pull

And I’m telling myself
that the weight is getting
easier

But each night I can feel
the pooling blood and
overwhelming fatigue

And suddenly all my strength
is gone and I’m left with
an empty shell

Can you sit with me on either end?
Will you help me balance
this never-ending loss of control?

Please, tell me
When will I stop teetering?

Take Shelter

The sky turned yellow today
Hazy, inescapably hot and heavy
And tomorrow it will become
The dullest of grey-greens

Today isn’t the calm
But it is the before

Before the world collapses in upon itself
Before the winds turn endlessly in anger
Before the ground trembles in fear

Today the sky turns yellow
It’s a warning of what’s to come
And there’s no changing tomorrow’s path
You can only hide and wait for the storm to pass

—Submitted on 07/10/2020

Rebecca Thrush‘s work appears in Open Minds Quarterly. She is a real estate professional in New England.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.




What Rough Beast | 07 30 20 | Lauren Linkowski

Lauren Linkowski
The Last Good Day

I didn’t realize it was that day,
our reservation. 3 Star Michelin, made way back
when the future still existed.
I am in my practical raincoat, weak at the knees
corduroys, a shoddy men’s t-shirt hanging
on my shoulders like fog.
I wait by the polished baby grand, idling
my fingers over the keys with no purpose,
savoring the luxury of making sound without a song.
You arrive, throw your Burberry coat over me
like a half finished painting. You look like shit.
We run to Bloomingdale’s. You hold shadows
of black dresses against my body until one fits.
You zip me up, have nude heels in my size ready
at the register. You rifle through my purse searching
for the mints and hand cream you like to borrow.
I sample everything at the makeup counter:
wand loaded with mascara, three shades of foundation
on my wrist, lip gloss, a spritz of Tom Ford
that smells like our trip to Granada at Christmas.
Orange trees. Sherry. Woodsmoke and tobacco.
Cinnamon cookies sold by cloistered nuns.
It’s for men, you say and I say then you take some too.
At dinner, we settle on the same side of the table.
We listen to the couple next to us and pretend
they cannot hear us gossip. Before you ask
I hand over my cocktail, sunny with Aperol.
You feed me a razor clam from your fork.
There is a tank of unblinking fish
who have no clue what is coming.
Outside the windows, the sky darkens.
We pass your Metrocard between us and cram in
to the crowded subway car. The pole is sweaty
warm, we find a place to stand and hold on tight.

—Submitted on 07/09/2020

Lauren Linkowski is a learning specialist in upstate New York.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.




What Rough Beast | 07 29 20 | Carrie Jewell

Carrie Jewell
After This

After this I promise I’ll leave you alone.
Wouldn’t a trip be nice right now? Or even a cruise?
I’m sorry but that vacation will have to be postponed.

Cross the road when you see a dog, a bike, a crone.
At least the sky and crocuses are blue.
After this I promise I’ll leave you alone.

How long do we stay alive in our phones?
If you hear something over and over, it’s true.
Look (don’t touch): how your grandchildren have grown.

Maybe we’ll start flying in your groceries by drone.
Do you have a slow cooker, a microwave, a corkscrew?
After this I promise I’ll leave you alone.

Try to write down all the things you’ve ever known.
Do you like lilies, lilacs, peonies, or feverfew?
We need to know what you want on your headstone.

Maintain a minimum of six feet between grass and bone.
Have you tried painting a picture of the view?
This is the only sacrifice you’ve never quite condoned.
After this I promise I’ll leave you alone.

—Submitted on 07/09/2020

Carie Jewell writes: Having taught English for 18 years and started a family, I haven’t had much time to write. I haven’t published anything since 1993, when I had one poem accepted by the Youth Edition of the Worcester Review. The name of it escapes me now.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.




What Rough Beast | 07 28 20 | Mary Lou Buschi

Mary Lou Buschi
Three Poems

Lusus Naturae

It was his only friend
that opened the gate to his spectacle.
The only way he could rest
was to place his monstrous skull
on his knees or risk dying of asphyxia.

Like Pip and Flip Snow were freaks,
characterized by abnormally
small craniums, wide smiles, and high chignons.
Their parents loaned them out to freak shows
to earn money for the family.

Freaks shows were common.
Life as a curiosity—
At the end of pier in Atlantic City,
I entered with my parents. There she sat,
a bearded woman whose eyes looked like open cans.

I had a dilation and curettage
when I was 9, a D&C.
I was told there was nothing
in there, just a body hyper
to get started. I asked my mother
if I could have my breasts removed.

How many fields did I lie back in?
Shut my eyes and wait until I
swallow the dark and endless winter.

Learning to meditate, one body part at a time:
hip socket-tighten-focus-release. Curve of my elbow,
tighten-release. Wet my lips—let them part.
Release into the soft lid of light.

When Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man
decided to lie flat he did so because of a poem
his mother read to him; Tennyson’s, Nothing Will Die.
If release means to give up—

Ride

When he slapped her
she held the hot blow on her cheek
and continued to love him.

They rode bikes.
She still had training wheels,
not permitted to leave the drive,
so she’d make hard circles,
leaning into the center
until he dared her to ride away.

She went to his house without her bike.
He came around the side,
on his Schwinn, told her to climb on
he’d show her what balance felt like.
She didn’t know where to put her hands.

The air thick, her throat dry, as the rush
came up over the slate, up-rimmed from
thick roots; a catalog of house sailing past.

Her father standing in the drive under
the shadow of the open door,

leaves her in the garage
among the boxes of forgotten things

How To Snake A Drain

As the auger begins its journey down the drain,
push the end in until you feel resistance.

It was a shoe, one that could not be snaked.
Brenda sobbed when she found her Kork-Ease
unceremoniously jammed into the toilet.

It all happened between English and gym
in the 2nd floor bathroom.

No one would come forward to say that they had done it.
Was it an accident? Was someone playing catch
over the bathroom stalls? Did Brenda do it herself?

You may have to apply pressure as you rotate the snake
around the tight curve into the trap.
The rotating action enables the tip of the snake
to attach to the clog and spin it away or chop it up.

Brenda denied the claim.

If the clog is a solid,
the auger head entangles the object.

The janitor fished the shoe out and put it in a plastic bag.
Brenda was wrecked and what a shame, her hair
was in such a perfect twist on top of her head.
Her sweet face looked even more honeyed
wet with tears.

If you don’t feel the auger breaking
through and twisting getting easier,
pull the auger out of the drain—

Brenda sat up front the rest of the day
receiving first-rate attention from teachers and students alike.
I sat back braiding my thoughts around who
could have done such a thing to so sweet a girl.

—Submitted on 07/07/2020

Mary Lou Buschi is the author of Paddock (Lily Poetry Review, forthcoming), Awful Baby (Red Paint Hill, 2015) and The Spell of Coming (or Going) (Patasola Press, 2013), as well as three chapbooks. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Laurel Review, Willow Springs, Chestnut Review, Midway Journal, and other journals. Buschi holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College and a Master of Science in urban education from Mercy College.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.




What Rough Beast | 07 27 20 | Cheryl Caesar

Cheryl Caesar
Melissa Rein Lively, off rein and lively

Finally we meet
the end of the road.
I’ve been looking
forward to this shit
all my fucking life.

So, Target, I’m not playing
any more fucking games. This shit’s
fucking over. This shit’s aaalll
fucking over. This.
Shit’s.
Fucking.
Over.
This
shit’s over
this shit’s over
this shit’s over this
shit’s over this shit’s over
this shit’s over this shit’s over this
shit’s over this shit’s over yay this shit’s over

yay wooh yay
fucking shit. Get that shit
off the shelves. I don’t want
any of that shit. Get it outta here.
Fuck this shit.
Fuck this shit.

No, I’m not
doing it. I’m not
doing it. No. I’m not doing
it. We don’t want any
of this anymore. This is over.

No uh uh no.

—Submitted on 07/06/2020

Cheryl Caesar is the author of Flatman: Poems of Protest in the Trump Era (Thurston Howl Publications, 2020). Her poems have appeared in Prachya ReviewPanoplyLight, Origami Poems Project, Ponder Savant, and other journals, as well as in the anthology Nationalism: (Mis)Understanding Donald Trump’s Capitalism, Racism, Global Politics, International Trade and Media Wars (Mwanaka Media and Publishing, 2019), edited by Tendai Rinos Mwanaka. Caesar holds a PhD in comparative literature from the Sorbonne. She teaches writing at Michigan State University.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.




What Rough Beast | 07 26 20 | Nancy Young

Nancy Young
Naked Mole Rats in the Pandemic

Immobile under a stay-at-home order?
Try tuning in the Smithsonian special
on naked mole rats. They’ll draw you,
as anything naked can. Marvel
how they live thirty years below ground,
led by their queen, also naked, and a mole rat.
Watch how, when she dies, females fight
to be the next Queen of Naked Mole Rats.
Warn them: This is not worth dying for.
If you survive, you’ll reign over
only naked mole rats.
They will not listen.
Still they’ll tussle, then grow wrinkled
as they hunker blindly in their burrows.

—Submitted on 07/03/2020

Nancy Young is the author of The Last Girl Standing (Finishing Line Press, 2013), as well as three novels. Her poems and stories have appeared in Belle Reve, Flying South, Fresh, Iodine, Kakalak, and other journals. A former reporter, newspaper editor, and college educator, she now watches birds at her feeder, placates her basset hounds, and writes whatever she wants.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.