POETRY

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

i do not want to wait until it’s too late

the strands of your hair on the bathroom tiles aren’t sketching defeat. that’s you spitting disease in the face with another day you’ve woken up to.

Sprung (April)

I like to think I’m also sprung,
released from the furnace knocks,
done with the heavy meat stews
and salty soups.

Lavandula

Listen to me: I know
the winter gloom in
mid-summer…

Tea

my father holds
his favorite drink

Sadness is a Sin

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

I could, even now, go down to the water

Even from this distance I could go out
the door it would bang shut and crumble

melting ice cap
blue is the color of surrender

you know that
baby swallows make silver ripples
in wild rivers to court reeds?

There is an alternative universe

Ghosts for hire, whispers in her mouth,
cysts to feel, the symmetry of a gift.

Me and Other Bodily Accessories

I am not a guide
for every traveler
of loss.

Dis Place Ment

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

Willpower

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

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.

First

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

Back Suplex

Gravel-scatted hell &
we were blessed to be able
to hold on for even a heartbeat

The Body is a Sin

The sin is existing.

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.

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.