Stephen Ellis

After Midnight: Five Poems [07 July 2011]



[ As Usual ]

The rose as
image of poetry

truth and love
is a furnace

of efficiency
that dies into

the widening
perception

that unfolds
my eye in sweet

and phantom
domination.

***

[ Deformity ]

Alive all
the time,

soft, new
figs in

the walled
courtyard

and our
olives are

ready to
harvest.

Rain makes
marble

tiles
gleam

and settles
in the cracks

between.
Presence

is all that
you can't

escape,
and desire

is knowing
you don't

have to
want any

one that
cannot be

many
enough

to feel
like

it's really
whole.

***

[ Labor ]

I hadn't
meant for

it to be
but left

over with
a few

green beans
fried with

garlic in
olive oil

and soy
left out

all night
was a

mistake
that was

still real
good. Dave

came in
and asked

where
the washing

machine
was because

he had to
be to work

by ten, so
I showed

him it
and we

walked back
upstairs

as he
thought

about
something

and said
okay.

***

[ Blue Skies Rising through Late Middle Age ]

It's no
longer

still fresh
so I

guess
the question

is, what
good is

bread
if it goes

somewhere
nobody

can find to
eat it?

That is,
a helicopter

the military
pays to

have built
to defend

never
wanting to

drop
bombs

on anyone
for real

keeps
people

working
and not just

thinking
about how

the fear
they keep

manufacturing
will lighten

the load
no one can

be paid
enough to

actually
shit out.

***

[ Mockingbird ]

Having become
simple again

but only for a day,
enough is forever

enough. I was just
thinking, I can't

remember the last
time I could be

said to have slept
late. 2:20 AM.

Shake out the long
entryway rug, clear

the kitchen counter.
It's always high tide

when you surrender
to full sense and learn

to fathom things
as becoming more

and more necessarily
mechanical. I

used to have as a kid
one of those bikes

you braked by
jamming back hard

on the pedals. Living
is like life was then:

I always seemed to have
known what I

wanted, a lot sooner
than I thought. 


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