POETRY
“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
I have an axe
with hearts gashed
I slumped in front of a massive desk, a passive patient corroded with failure and dread.
we drove on through
the blue seal of morning as the turbines
turned and winked out their hearts
my love is a glass shard, a knife made of madness and moonlight,
and there are already way too many fragments in this house
Even as the sun warms the concrete
the long nights’ sensual cold lingers in my clothes.
The poetry of Brian S. Ellis unravels, inverts, investigates, and complicates. His poems are radical koans and invitations to forego common narratives.
Yes I am guilty, I’m guilty. A sin was desirable then.
Bring the dancer back to the stalks.
I count my homes—
those of my scattered youth
the sanctuary of our young family
the intermittent rest stops
of apartments and vacations.
Okay, picture this: We’re in an elevator. The elevator shuts down. It doesn’t matter where we’re going, only that we’re alone.
I imagine that undressing a color, though, would be so much like peeling a memory away from the grey and the white matter of your brain.