Herbert T. Abelson
Finger on the Button

Herbert T. Abelson’s poems have appeared in Pharos, The Silkworm, American Academy of Pediatrics Senior Bulletin and What Rough Beast. He is a retired academic physician widely published in scientific journals. He is also a husband, father, grandfather, pinhole photographer, cook and car collector.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you want to support the mission and work of Indolent Books, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.

Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books.

David P. Miller
Athazagoraphobia

I’m a big, big tipper, am I right? The biggest.
Take a look at this kisser. Watch the girls
fall all over themselves, step and fetch
my finnan haddie. Swoon these pearly whites.

You read my book? They call it my magnum opus,
my secret brain pill. But you wait, I’ll out-
opus that magnum so fast they’ll have to
run two marathons just to catch their breath.

It’s all up here, the promised land jam-packed inside
this world-class noggin. If you could get yourself
a gander in there, you’d have to jump off a bridge
and drown and then kill yourself. I can’t help it.

Who did my eyebrows? You noticed. I’ll let you in
on it. You’re in with the in-crowd. I’d say In Like Flynn,
but who the hell is Flynn? Don’t talk to me
about Flynn, he’s yesterday’s bozo. They’re comb-overs –

never guessed, right? I have the top specialized hair-
piece specialists, they work exclusively for me.
And they match my ties. A new silk tie
every day of the year. Strictly the finest. Old ones

go straight to the homeless. Next, they land
great jobs slinging hash. Notice how I call them
“homeless,” not “bums” or “human refuse?”
I have the kindest heart that way. Go ask the angels.

David P. Miller is the author of The Afterimages (Červená Barva Press, 2014). His poems have appeared in Meat for Tea, Main Street Rag, Ibbetson Street, riverbabble, Muddy River Poetry Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, Painters and Poets, Fox Chase Review, Third Wednesday, Oddball Magazine, Incessant Pipe, Lyrical Somerville, and Ekphrastic Review, among others. His poem “Kneeling Woman and Dog” was included in the 2015 edition of Best Indie Lit New England. David was a member of the multidisciplinary Mobius Artists Group of Boston for 25 years, and is a librarian at Curry College in Milton, Mass.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you want to support the mission and work of Indolent Books, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.

Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books.

John Q. Mars
A Threefold History of the World

She is a lovely Maiden.
The strangers arrive, astounded by
her beauty—the eyes in their lunar faces tug
at the waves of her figure. From the
portliness of her lips to her ever-fecund hips,
they pause to survey the novelty before them.
Though of this they quickly tire and do soon conspire
to tear through the veil of her mystery.

She is a livid Mother.
Having borne the burdened fruit begotten
by the invaders’ forceful seeds sown, now
on her own to survive and care for her loathsome young.
As she is left alone, she endeavors to hone the plentiful
remainder of the exquisite power she will use to
reclaim what is truly hers.
But, in the meanwhile, she bides her time and submits while
the vampires lap the richness of her skin and ravage the last of her Eden.

She is a listless Crone.
The generations of pallid plunder have left her
struggling thereunder her unheard mutters and groans
that warn of an ancient puissance unleashed. For she is
infinity—bound in this timeworn form—
incarnate in this finite plane.
By the dust her bones, they shall behold
the glory to which she will inevitably be restored.

John Q. Mars is an undergraduate student at New York University in the Gallatin School of Individualized Study. He is concentrating in poetry, philosophy, and foreign languages. His four poems in What Rough Beast are his first poetry publications.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you want to support the mission and work of Indolent Books, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.

Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books.

Lori Lamothe
Dear Refugee

marked revoked or canceled,
subject to severability, authority,
Homeland torture and report—
Dear Life,
Do not come here to create light,
that excess suspension of burdens.
Do not seek to travel past
proper borders or to heighten
our hundreds of thousands of tree miles.
Dear Child,
Dear Infant,
Dear Individual,
Leave us instead to enforce
crucial narrow procedures
identified as normal.
Leave us in violence
to keep the world safe
for previously established categories.
truly,
the President

AUTHOR’S NOTE: “Dear Refugee” is a found poem taken from Donald Trump’s “Executive Order Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States” signed on March 6, 2017. The only word I’ve added is dear.

Lori Lamothe is the author of three poetry collections, Kirlian Effect (FutureCycle Press, 2017), Happily (Aldrich Press, 2015) and Trace Elements (Aldrich Press, 2014). Her poems have appeared in Blackbird, Kettle Blue Review, The Journal, Painted Bride Quarterly, Verse Daily and elsewhere.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you want to support the mission and work of Indolent Books, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.

Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books.

George Warui
Police

Is Great
And for the war of
The years
And war of the guns
And the years of the months
And for the months of the Caribbean and years
Of house
And years of the wars
And years of the sound
And years of the schools
And years of the gates
And years of the wars
And years of the chains
And years of the months
And years of the minds
And years of the goods

George Warui is a Kenyan poet.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you want to support the mission and work of Indolent Books, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.

Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books.

Devon Balwit
Here & Elsewhere

I have no penis, but I might have;
I have breasts, but one day won’t.

Don’t doesn’t mean can’t imagine
opening other doors to strange beds,

or greeting a brown face in my mirror,
or one in hijab, hearing the muezzin.

I have ten fingers but might not have,
lifting deftly with stump or prosthesis,

am animal, but might have rooted,
shedding leaves when the light wanes,

or tendrilling slantwise, vine-hungry.
I mothered children but might have

whelped pups in an alley, suckling
litters rather than proffering a lone

latex nipple. I teach, but might have
shucked oysters, pitted apricots,

trenched earth shoulder to shoulder
with sweating bodies. Here, just as

easily, I could have been elsewhere,
my only failure that of imagining.

Devon Balwit is a writer/teacher from Portland, OR. Her poems of protest have appeared here before as well as in The New Verse News, Poets Reading the News, Redbird Weekly Reads, Rise-Up Review, Rat’s Ass Review, The Rising Phoenix Review, Mobius, and more.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you want to support the mission and work of Indolent Books, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.

Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books.

Dana Robbins
Death of a Flamingo

In Busch Gardens, Tampa Bay,
August 2016, a man murdered
a flamingo.

Her name was Pinky and she loved,
they said, to dance for visitors,
stamping her feet and shaking

her bright feathered body.
She had no fear of humans
which is why her attacker

was able to reach in, grab her
by her delicate neck, fling her
against the wall, he laughing,

as his three children and mother
looked on. I don’t know what
rage inspired him to kill this

lovely creature perhaps he thought
she was too pink but I saw his
bloated beery face on the news

and I knew dark times were
coming; the mob with torches,
pitchforks;

that what is fine in us
would be thrown against the wall
of senseless anger and hate.

Dana Robbins is the author of The Left Side of My Life (Moon Pie Press, 2015). Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including, The Fish Anthology, Drunken Boat, Muddy River Poetry Review, Awakened Voices, Algebra of Owls, and The Paterson Literary Review. Her poem “To My Daughter Teaching Science” was featured by Garrison Keillor on The Writers Almanac. Following a long career as a lawyer, Robbins obtained an MFA from the Stonecoast low-residency program at the University of Maine. She lives in Portland, Maine.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you want to support the mission and work of Indolent Books, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.

Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books.

Herbert T. Abelson
2nd Amendment

I am okay with a well-regulated militia and
the right of the people to keep and bear arms
so long as there is acknowledgement that these
words are charged and their meaning long debated in
high places and among the American people.
Since one half of the American people don’t believe anything
said by the other half, I would ask a simple, fundamental
question—does this amendment apply to everyone or only to
certain whites?
Are people of color, queer people, poor people, recent immigrant citizens
or those practicing non-mainstream American religions
covered and protected by this amendment? So for instance,
it seems to me that a packing, black, homosexual Muslim
would be instantly shot if encountered by certain of the
American people—and without permanent consequences to them.
The laws (courts), Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not blind
to application, so we must watch our step, travel with caution, speak
carefully, stay with the herd and if we must protest, numbers
are critical and body armor a must.

Herbert T. Abelson’s poems have appeared in Pharos, The Silkworm, American Academy of Pediatrics Senior Bulletin and What Rough Beast. He is a retired academic physician widely published in scientific journals. He is also a husband, father, grandfather, pinhole photographer, cook and car collector.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you want to support the mission and work of Indolent Books, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.

Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books.

David P. Miller
David Has Been Personally Selected

Does David actually HATE Obama?
Does David actually HATE Elizabeth Warren?
Does David actually SUPPORT Donald Trump?
Does David actually SUPPORT Cruella DeVille?
Does David actually WORSHIP Mitch McConnell?
Does David LOATHE Jimmy Carter??
Does David VILIFY the Dalai Lama???
Does David ACTUALLY HATE Mother Theresa???

All. Hope. Is. Lost.
Drop. Your. Pants. It’s. Over.
Pack. Up. Go. Home.
We. Will. Win. This.
Punched. In. The. Gut.

BREAKING: Trump SHOCKED
BREAKING: Trump CACKLES

Is David IGNORING Michelle Obama? Why?
Is David ACTUALLY LAUGHING at Chuck Schumer? Why?
Is David PINING for Laura Bush? Why??

David, we’re BEGGING
David, we’re PLEADING
David, we’re SOBBING
David, we’re DEAD INSIDE
David, we’re SHRIEKING in NAKED DESPAIR
David, we’re STARING VACANTLY into the PIT
David, we’re THROWING OURSELVES on the FLOOR,
POUNDING OUR FISTS and KICKING OUR FEET
David, we’re CATATONIC

BREAKING: Trump BLUBBERS
BREAKING: Trump ASCENDS into HEAVEN

Elizabeth Warren just SCHOOLED Rachel Maddow (wow!)
Bernie Sanders just TOOK DOWN Nate Silver (wow!)
Paul Ryan just BEHEADED Mitch McConnell (wow!)
Donald Trump just MUTILATED Tweety Bird (wow!)

BREAKING: Trump CHA-CHAS in PURGATORY
Is David going to do NOTHING?

WOWOWOWOWOWOW
WOWOWOWOWOWOW
WOWOWOWOWOWOW

David P. Miller is the author of The Afterimages (Červená Barva Press, 2014). His poems have appeared in Meat for Tea, Main Street Rag, Ibbetson Street, riverbabble, Muddy River Poetry Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, Painters and Poets, Fox Chase Review, Third Wednesday, Oddball Magazine, Incessant Pipe, Lyrical Somerville, and Ekphrastic Review, among others. His poem “Kneeling Woman and Dog” was included in the 2015 edition of Best Indie Lit New England. David was a member of the multidisciplinary Mobius Artists Group of Boston for 25 years, and is a librarian at Curry College in Milton, Mass.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you want to support the mission and work of Indolent Books, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.

Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books.

John Q. Mars
Snapshot of Whimsy Through Raging Sepia

Patsy Cline’s “Strange” spills out of the radio the grainy croon tumbles
through and begins filling the cab of your dead grandfather’s ’72 Ford pickup
Our smoke pools on the ceiling creating the perfect storm before the cooler dampness sucks it out the window’s slit The cracked seat cushions cut
into the backs of our thighs and the humidity coats our stagnant skin but
strange you changed like night and day outside it rages
I watch the droplets chase each other down the windshield but
some are caught in the spider-webbed fissures stemming from the
bullet hole you told your parents was a rock from some asshole but look
what thoughts can bring on the interstate Flies buzz in
the lucky ones find their way back outside though most lie scattered
on the dash having long since suffocated and desiccated in the haze
Lightning shoots from the ground up its flash a shadow behind my eyes
inexplicably I turn to find someone sitting on the side of the truck bed
Hunched figure in soaked clothes stuck to an emaciated frame they look
up in the sky’s sallow light an echo of understanding
nettles my stifling ecstasy oh what a funny thing prickling through
my ephemeral peace Oh but you do not see anyone Who is this idea
this day-terror lost in the violent liminality I feel tugging
at some intangible the viscera inside oh how strange
my eyes look back into me and mine A shade of myself conjured through some spell of nostalgia and desperation
hope for the future how strange how strange left out in the rain

John Q. Mars is an undergraduate student at New York University in the Gallatin School of Individualized Study. He is concentrating in poetry, philosophy, and foreign languages. His four poems in What Rough Beast are his first poetry publications.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you want to support the mission and work of Indolent Books, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.

Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books.