POETRY

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

I myself should never have been born

[Zoetrope with Particulates in it and a Newborn]

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

things they won’t tell you but should:

love is a soggy tea stain on a grocery receipt

Time Travel

I count my homes—
those of my scattered youth
the sanctuary of our young family
the intermittent rest stops
of apartments and vacations.

Pit Stop in Kansas

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

A Way of Seeing

Just starlight and some small scribbling across vinyl.

Observer of the Patient

Her brown eyes,
how a fig
considers itself.

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

Letter To a Young Poet

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

Making Israeli Salad

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

Unerased | Steep Steps

My grandmother asked, “Does it feel like being widowed?”

Going Broke

Winter sat like a wolf
on the horizon.

The State School 1984 His Given Name Was Wilbur  We Called Him Magpie

Mostly he ate what was put on his plate
snuck coffee grounds or dirt for a snack
Once a zipper Unzipped

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.

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.

Finding My Fix

I slumped in front of a massive desk, a passive patient corroded with failure and dread.

Like dirt

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

An Interview with Dylan Krieger

Dylan Krieger’s poetry is unflinching, grotesque, and beautiful. Her work tackles trauma, wrestles authority, and is a decadent sonic feast.