POETRY

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
—Rita Dove
Hollywood Hills
the remarkable thing

I am still waiting for the lion

I Garden at the Edge of Autumn

There is so little left of the tomato plants.

Good Driver

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

Unerased | Steep Steps

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

The Body is a Sin

The sin is existing.

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…

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

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.

An Endeavor of Being Now

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

My Multiverses

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

Condolences

my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

Tea

my father holds
his favorite drink

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.

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.

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.

appetites

you quit wearing pants
loaf around your yard
in hole-nipped panties

Me and Other Bodily Accessories

I am not a guide
for every traveler
of loss.