POETRY

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

All In

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

Finding My Fix

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

Sadness is a Sin

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

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.

Vase

The storm passes without snow.
The car waits loyally in the back lot.

Fallout Shelter

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

Despairathon

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

Lobster

I suffer visions and many indignities
while looking for the Lobster

Like dirt

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

My Multiverses

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

Observer of the Patient

Her brown eyes,
how a fig
considers itself.

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.

Dear Deer in the Compost Pile

I tap at the alphabet while a single deer
taps at the dirt beyond the brush
on the far side of the tree line.

Unerased | Steep Steps

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

Getting Postcards From a Piano Showroom

The two of us toast to a man we both love, to whatever degree, clink our glasses and laugh…

close up of sun
Mercury in Retrograde

You said it was okay to blame
what goes wrong on the planet

Soft Porn and Cuban Pine

It recommended
soft porn, as gentle prodding and petting parent
to parent might calm and soothe the kid.