POETRY

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
—Rita Dove
The Man

the man is stayed bent over the canvas
of my sofa. the man is me the man is him
self and I bring down the whip…

A Beautiful Thing

I want to roll in this moment until I become its vocabulary
until I smell like the bones
until I am its echo…

Clotheslines

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

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.

Sprung (April)

I like to think I’m also sprung,
released from the furnace knocks,
done with the heavy meat stews
and salty soups.

woman at bar
After She Told Me You Pushed Her Down the Stairs

Empty vessels
make the most sound, I think,
as you rip the fairy lights off the handrail.

Like dirt

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

The Body is a Sin

The sin is existing.

The Kotel in Jerusalem is Filled with Cracks

We found in his suitcase T-shirts, his siddur, gifts he bought for his grandchildren…

Letter To a Young Poet

Do not say anything anybody else has said ever. Things are not “bleached by sun.”

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.

All In

I don’t
know why
I’m in the garden
kneeling on dirt

Babylon

If America is Babylon / and you are an exile / newly arrived among pagans / Catholic, ‘Ngolan, Black, woman / you already know how to pray

Pit Stop in Kansas

we drove on through
the blue seal of morning as the turbines
turned and winked out their hearts

Despairathon

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

Observer of the Patient

Her brown eyes,
how a fig
considers itself.

Making Israeli Salad

Now that the Israeli has left, it falls
on me to make the salad.

love poem with dead leaves & color

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