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Elisabeth Kelly
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the poet
Elisabeth Kelly lives on a hill farm with her family and too many animals. She's been published in numerous anthologies and journals both online and in print, and she's authored three poetry pamphlets: Carbon, Mind Mathematics and Wild Chamomile. Her first children's book is due out in 2022 from Stairwell Books. Among Elisabeth's favourite things are puddings, and the changing of the seasons.
the poems
Otzi and the Giant’s Eye
Sometimes, I feel I am curled up in the eye of a giant, light glints makes an iris out of sunbeams that wink from the depths of this ice sea.
I forget for a moment, that suffocating pressure keeps me still as bonded molecules suspend me in a sphere of solid fluid.
And I wonder, if I tap a finger against this lens would my world fracture into crystal tears and cry me out from the depths of this ice sea.
Tiny Bird Heart
Light whispers at the window,
blue burrows through
nudges the dark away.
Quietly I uncurl, the nest gives way, as your tiny bird heart beats through the sound
of your feet dabbling
across the floor.
Wild Chamomile
It smells of pineapple when your crush it,
I didn’t know that was the smell,
until later.
It is the smell of summer,
concrete cracks where engine oil pooled,
rainbows on slurry puddles,
afternoon trips across fields to find
an old milking carriage eroding
in dens of nettles,
the corrugated roof calling like Sleeping
Beauty’s turrets full of promise,
drizzling reality across the rotting wooden floors.
It is scars created by rusted metal treasure,
submerged in bogs,
or broken bottles used on flat stones
to cut berries,
it is long days alone.
Publishing credits
Otzi and the Giant's Eye: Dodging The Rain (This Ice Sea)
Tiny Bird Heart: Green Ink Poetry (Discovery Part 2)
Wild Chamomile: Wild Chamomile (Selcouth Station)