POETRY

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

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.

The Body is a Sin

The sin is existing.

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.

heavy rain
The Plot

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

Lobster

I suffer visions and many indignities
while looking for the Lobster

robertson quay

how does an afternoon turn
on its axis?

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.

Clotheslines

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

books
Ode To the Dove Pt. V (Avrom Sutzkever)

I am still waiting for the lion

Dis Place Ment

People have always coped with flooding, and they learned to cope with death.

Letter To a Young Poet

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

The River

I myself should never have been born

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.

Willpower

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

First

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

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.

Condolences

my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

Existential

four-thirty a.m.