Elinor Nauen
FAILED INSULTS
when trouble comes a’lookin’ for me
I’ll be hard to find
you have everything I have
only you’ve had it a lot longer
this too shall pass.
it already has.
you used to come at 10 o’clock
& now you come too soon.
LOVELY GLORIOUS NOTHINGS
It could be god or wealth I long for
but it’s poetry, scattering
bright in a Massachusetts farmhouse
or a New York tenement
Life is poetry
(What else is there?)
It doesn’t matter if it’s good
(It only matters,
all that matters
is if it’s good)
Fall down 7 times get up 8
TOPIC SENTENCE
This poem is about people dying.
This poem is dying.
Dying is what people do.
I’m sad.
I’m hungry.
I’m distracted.
Natural stupidity writes everything now.
Natural stupidity writes everything down.
Dying is my last best hope.
I can change my mind.
Sox are not sex.
LIGHTENING AHEAD
When I’m driving along the interstate
I like to look at clouds &
When I’m sitting still as well
What’s your all-time favorite drug?
Is a terrific question for old friends or for people
You hope to get to know
Right now the clouds are bestowing their gift of rain
Other times their gift is shade &
Other times the curse of rain while I’m driving
However, in Orangeburg even the bananas are orange &
The egrets only visit when the sun goes down because
The law is out & they know what they did
We hydroplane across South Carolina, which
Is less amusing the second time just
Like those beans we ate last night
Lightning ahead!
O to live on Iron Mountain
Where your personal magnetism
Will hold us close
The rain drowns our conversation, which is inane,
But sincere
Which is even worse
O to live high
Up on Iron Mountain, now a marsh in the
Even Lower Country.
Elinor Nauen’s books include, among several others, CARS (forthcoming 2025), The Alphabet’s Dilemma, Snowbound, and My Marriage A to Z. She hails from South Dakota, lives in Manhattan’s East Village with her husband, the novelist Johnny Stanton, studies Norwegian, and co-edits the zine Julebord with Maureen Owen. The poem “Lightening Ahead” was composed with Stephen Willis. ElinorNauen.com.
