Nathan D. Horowitz

Elon, the Artists

Elon, the weavers are designing a shroud for you;
metalworkers, a hamster cage with a fine wheel.
Sculptors are casting arrowheads that will fit
wounds you will inflict on yourself.
Painters are mixing colors to portray your fall.
Actors are studying your mannerisms, and don’t
worry, the screenwriters will keep you in the script,
big, dark glasses, ketamine, chainsaw and all.
Musicians are composing your dirge.
And the poets, Elon, the poets, they’re
sharpening verses to poke out the eyes of your dreams.
Elon, the weavers are designing a shroud for you.

How I Found My Voice

I plucked shards of it out of my face.
It poured into me from the sea.
It ran over me like a bus.
I inhaled it from old books.
Dogs and cats taught it to me,
while owls told me nothing.
I read it in the entrails of clouds.
The rain used a river to bring it to me.
I sucked it off the tongue
of the second girl I kissed. I drank it
in another girl’s tear.
This is how I found my voice.

I am the noise,
I am the noise,
I am the noise
that speaks.

Nathan D. Horowitz says, “I’m from Ann Arbor but lived in Ecuador, Austria, and Kansas before settling in Baltimore with my wife and teenager. I’ve published three volumes of Ecuadorian fiction in translation and one translation of an ethnography. TEDEd made a video out of a myth I translated. My work has also been published in the Ann Arbor Observer, Bay to Ocean Journal, Cenacle, Driesch, Eat The Storms Podcast, Fudoki, GAS: Poetry, Art & Music, Global City Review, Kritya, Maquina Combinatoria, McQueen’s Quinterly, Michigan Quarterly Review, Ooteoote, Poetripiados, Psychedelic Press UK, Qarrtsiluni, San Diego Poetry Annual, WordCityLit, and The Woven Tale.