POETRY

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
—Rita Dove
[Zoetrope with Particulates in it and a Newborn]

and then her eyes fully opened — blazed through with strands of mud

An Interview with Brian S. Ellis

The poetry of Brian S. Ellis unravels, inverts, investigates, and complicates. His poems are radical koans and invitations to forego common narratives.

On the Night Row-Houses Across the Street Catch Fire

You let the yellow glow
from eye sockets. The building up the street
is burning faster and faster.

Me and Other Bodily Accessories

I am not a guide
for every traveler
of loss.

AUTOPSY REVEALS LASTING MARRIAGES MOSTLY COMPOSED OF SHARP METAL IN A THEORETICAL VACUUM

it’s touch-and-go with me and weddings

Clotheslines

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

Tea

my father holds
his favorite drink

There is an alternative universe

Ghosts for hire, whispers in her mouth,
cysts to feel, the symmetry of a gift.

My Multiverses

It is the 70s. 1970s? 2570s? Who knows?
Audre and I have a penthouse in New York.

Lobster

I suffer visions and many indignities
while looking for the Lobster

Getting Postcards From a Piano Showroom

The two of us toast to a man we both love, to whatever degree, clink our glasses and laugh…

The love of my life moved from portland to new england

He has stories that I am not in
anymore. It’s healed this way.

You can’t make them love you, no matter how artfully you betray yourself

Try not to see your own predicament in every fucking thing.

Observer of the Patient

Her brown eyes,
how a fig
considers itself.

An Endeavor of Being Now

We stop doing dishes while
a mile unwinds
from the tree outside.

heavy rain
The Plot

Long after midnight, we’re talking about our first time

if detritus is all i’m made up of

my love is a glass shard, a knife made of madness and moonlight,
and there are already way too many fragments in this house

Condolences

my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

Like dirt

this is what I want you to to see:
leaves falling because it is too late for them not to

love poem with dead leaves & color

I would always rather be happy than
dignified. Rather held than held
in awe.