POETRY

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

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

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.

Willpower

Live the rest of your life
from one worst case to another.

Fallout Shelter

I imagined a cascade of slow death for all / that mattered…

Pit Stop in Kansas

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

Landscape with Ash

You are strange, my mother said, dwelling on the past.

Poem in Collaboration with a Broken iPhone

I’msorry I‘ll see what happens iLife

Clueless & Briefly Gorgeous

I buy too much, for someone of my stature.
could pawn a skinny metaphor to purchase a plump skin.
its reputed in our lineage— to daydream a life that shreds our pockets.

Clotheslines

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

I Garden at the Edge of Autumn

There is so little left of the tomato plants.

Condolences

my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

3:17 AM as Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks

Part of being a good sad person
is always painting the shadows
in the right direction and knowing
what sorrow to art with.

painting of apple and grapes
Feast Of

anger, like you can sink teeth into, candy apple

Observer of the Patient

Her brown eyes,
how a fig
considers itself.

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

Ode To the Dove Pt. VI (Avrom Sutzkever)

Yes I am guilty, I’m guilty. A sin was desirable then.
Bring the dancer back to the stalks.

The River

I myself should never have been born

Good Driver

Lights on the dashboard spell out
“You still can’t kiss me”

Electric Eels, Finishing School, Teeth

Millions of Americans have been affected by identity theft. It’s probably the greenhouse gases.

Sadness is a Sin

If my life was the size of my arm, I would stretch it out for you.