i bet you knew, now i do too By Elisabeth Horan

​Goddamn,
it was such a great day when i met you.
you called my poems
powerful and excellent.
i’ve never been anything close to those
god-like words
and yet you gave them to me, so easily
for free!
i knocked,
you let me in.
called me over with my verbs
in hand -
so darn
simple.


Harder
day
happened when i wrote -
you
didn’t
answer
right
away like i hoped.


junking out the rust and the old carburetors leaking clotted oil in your brain.
stuff so bad the recycling center calls hazmat when they see it dumped in the corner behind the


dumpster that is your heart. A heart so big it pops regularly and the deflating helium makes a whine like tea ready between your ears


and the light from the explosion of the aortic chamber is like one Yin of the strobe light - it has no brother of Yang to weigh it out so lopsided, it is - too bright, too white


i hear you in the back room sweeping dust that isn’t there - i’ve done it
making cobwebs for work to do - the easy work, of time, time
spun of 7-legged spiders
weary of the toil you set them to -


enough already!


they spit - full of the flies
that dropped dusty to the cerebellum last night
no more they fill the bite of spiders
spinning on the floor - one last zzzzz.
silence. tinnitus.


rallying cries - on the tips of your lips
echoing - your family in your mouth


i like the tears of sorbet
you paint on my face like
tie-die now, urgently dripping


imagine -


how to stain me
how to drink my blood tannins
impossible flesh; your newest kin


your batik still weirder on my skin
but none the less founded -
it’s no t-shirt i swim in


but archaic in form.
this need, this grace
fungus sprinkled
with Devil Dust about your place


-------------------------
65% potash
30% stomach acid
3% eyeball of newt
1% you
1% me
-------------------------


harder still to not know what room you're in now
the kitchen/ frying eggs in tears
serve me up/ your greatest fears




Don't Feed Them What They Want!
is to keep you


they’ll grow and cook in kilns for you
and become children of cerulean blue,
and have names like Lucy and Hugh,
and the trenches, well - they’re in them too


the blinds are so tight again
with the strain of my meanderings
Don’t be scared…. it’s just me, peeking in -


and i guessed
you on a treadmill
in slatted light
singing


Hey Jude -


wishing through the bombs all over again for ‘68


Don’t Make it Bad


the day i was born i bet you knew my words i bet you knew me then


Take a Sad Song,


the day you die i’ll never lose i’ll never lose you again
i won’t give up on this friend i’ve not met -
he’s like a staple - a hinge in my heart, where


And Make it Better.


dusty songs like an unread manuscript: have i
give my non-existent life for this: i try


Remember to Let Her into Your Heart


i’m in his inbox, he is my call.
i’m at his gate, he is the wall:
I’m trained to be small.
on second thought: not trained at all.


Then You Can Start to Make it Better.


but to swim in this gravy for the longest haul,
with my conflicted lenses of rose and opal.




Better, Better, Better.

About ​Elisabeth Horan 

​Elisabeth Horan is a poet, mother, student, lover of kind people and animals, homesteading in Vermont with her tolerant partner and two young sons. She hopes the earth can withstand us and that humans may learn to be more kind to each other and to Mother Nature.
She has recently been featured at Quail Bell Magazine, Dying Dahlia Review and The Murmur House. Elisabeth is a 2018 MFA Candidate at Lindenwood University and teaches at River Valley Community College in New Hampshire. 
Follow her @ehoranpoet.