Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Yesterday Won't Goodbye
    Yesterday Won't Goodbye
    Yesterday Won't Goodbye
    Ebook107 pages56 minutes

    Yesterday Won't Goodbye

    By Brian S. Ellis

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Brian S. Ellis' second book, Yesterday Won't Goodbye, explores the author’s wild origins and punk rock Americana in powerful poetic form.

    Brian Stephen Ellis is borne of Gelfling and gutter punk. Unwashable stain ...His poems speak with an unbridled urgency yet come to you patient, coy, brimming with wisdom-and acutely aware of their own necessity. Read these poems. You've never been so alive." -Jeanann Verlee, "Racing Hummingbirds"

    ...Ellis expertly shifts between free verse poetry and creative non-fiction, consistently producing work that is captivating and original, all while having one of the most dynamic, affective, and unapologetically raw live performances anywhere. -Jared Paul, "Prayers For Atheist"
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWrite Bloody Publishing
    Release dateOct 1, 2018
    ISBN9781935904137
    Yesterday Won't Goodbye

    Related to Yesterday Won't Goodbye

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Devil Asks Why You Would Mouth The Word Pity

      Jul 1, 2022

      even in this abundance of dark? Even in this abundance of dark you have totake the stars on faith. Look: Under today’s dim sky there is a basket.In that basket there is a fish. Come night, you are the animal that will eat the best parts of it. And ye

      1 min read

    • Article

      Six Sonnets

      Jan 1, 2021

      Goldenrod, I could say, you know, everybody wants somethingfrom me, but, well, everybody wants something and nobody wantsnothing from me, goldenrod, towhead, beast. Goldenrod, you packthe meadows like gold-plated sardines. I have heart palpitationsbu

      3 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Nov 1, 2021

      What is the uncanny valley? asks the student and I draw the graph on the board, and point to the lowest point, and then move up the slope; This is like a scarecrow, it’s kinda shaped like a human but you’re not sure; This is where you’d put a mannequ

      6 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: November 2020

      Nov 5, 2020

      Stop obsessively refreshing the New York Times's elections page, and check out these new books of poetry by Alice Quinn, Margaret Atwood, Yi Lei, Karina Borowicz, Valzhyna Mort, and Paul Celan. The post Must-Read Poetry: November 2020 appeared first

      6 min read

    • Article

      All The Gay Saints

      May 1, 2020

      All The Gay Saints
      4 min read

    • Article

      Dark Hooks

      Nov 1, 2021

      The critical canon has spent decades wringing its hands over Sylvia Plath’s appropriation of both Jewish identity and the particular tragedy of the Holocaust. In 1969, George Steiner wrote in his essay “In Extremis” that Plath “… was a child, plump a

      9 min read

    • Article

      An Anti-Racist Poetry Reading List

      Jun 8, 2020

      These recent poetry collections offer poignant narratives and snapshots of racial injustice in America. The post An Anti-Racist Poetry Reading List appeared first on The Millions.

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Rails

      Dec 1, 2021

      The Rails
      1 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Nov 1, 2021

      All I wantis a good night and coffee in the morningwithout conversation so I can considerhow my life— which made a new life—is still so incomplete. How can something smallmultiply to something large? Mathematics is a strange science.Prayer is an impo

      1 min read

    • Article

      On Louise Glück

      Dec 1, 2021

      I WAS LYING in bed late at night, woeful, confused by another death, this one the death of a close friend; the losses had been mounting steadily, a bewildering number of losses, each one specific, difficult to accept, hard to overcome, and I must hav

      12 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Mar 15, 2022

      a ghost is hangingfrom the doorpostof our past— can you see it?it has wounds—it’s bleedingyears from its mouth [.] when we left ourhouses that aprilit was for history’s pleasure— twice the war wasin far-flung townsthen it grew a light foot and veered

      1 min read

    • Article

      How Instagram Saved Poetry

      Oct 15, 2018

      How Instagram Saved Poetry
      6 min read

    • Article

      Restless Herd

      Apr 14, 2021

      Restless Herd
      21 min read

    • Article

      What Poetry Can Predict

      Oct 9, 2019

      What Poetry Can Predict
      4 min read

    • Article

      Poetry Rx: Nevertheless, Live

      Aug 16, 2018

      Poetry Rx: Nevertheless, Live
      5 min read

    • Article

      On Bach

      Dec 1, 2022

      On Bach
      13 min read

    • Article

      Diaspora Sonnets

      Sep 1, 2022

      The old men drink their spritzers and gossipunder awnings. Red hued and blustery, like two roosters on the side of a road.Skyward they crane their necks and laugh, sometimes they wonder about kings and future kingsand how the muscles peer from their

      2 min read

    • Article

      Burning Up

      Dec 1, 2021

      Burning Up
      9 min read

    • Article

      Ishion Hutchinson

      Jun 8, 2021

      Tremor in his hands. He turns obsoleteleaves edged with thunder since the opening scene.What he sees he reads under croton shade,out in the sun. Restless peninsula,dog-eared, melting off into the blue.The blue breaks white as hallucination,more hagga

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Yesterday Won't Goodbye

    4/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Yesterday Won't Goodbye - Brian S. Ellis

      Kerouac

      Part I

      Caesarian

      I was born wrong.

      I did so much turning inside of my mother,

      when I came out, the tube

      that was meant to feed me had become a noose;

      broke my legs, nearly strangled me.

      Julius Caesar was born this way.

      there was something wrong with him too:

      he believed he could generate law through conquering

      We’re not supposed to dream that big.

      When I grow up

      I want to be Saturn

      because it looks fast

      and almost as exciting as the wind.

      I never said I wanted to be The President

      when I grow up, but,

      I would make an amazing First Lady

      It combines all my favorite activities into one:

      I could fly around the world to humanitarian efforts

      and hug a lot of people, making stirring speeches

      about jazz and baseball, referencing

      slightly obscure characters from the American Revolutionary War.

      At night, Abigail Adams comes to me in my dreams.

      She tells me,

      Brian, stop making excuses for your fathers.

      They had it all wrong:

      the voice, the vote and the bondage.

      Maybe its my fault,

      maybe if I were a man they would have listened to me.

      Abigail — I know how you feel.

      I’ve wanted to be a man my whole life,

      but the closest I’ve ever been able to manage is Saturn.

      Like all planets, I turn in my sleep,

      I’ve been doing it since before I was born.

      My body is a nightmare.

      It hurts me every day.

      I’ve been taught to resent it by boys

      trying to forge themselves righteous through conquering.

      They knew there was something wrong with me,

      it was explained through hands

      that spoke only in exclamation points

      Just because we do not see them with our telescopes,

      doesn’t mean new genders aren’t out there.

      We know so very little

      about the Sky.

      When I grow up,

      I don’t want to be old.

      I don’t want to be young either.

      I don’t want to be the age of fifty-six, sixty-four

      fourteen, eighteen, twenty-one or twenty-five

      I am the way I feel about the nature of law.

      I am the way I feel about the nature of the human heart

      and the connection between those two things.

      Just because my strength is not vast and fat like Jupiter,

      I was supposed to be fast.

      I was supposed to be quiet.

      But me and Abigail,

      we’re through with being quiet.

      I was born with broken legs,

      you’ll excuse me if I stand.

      Why I Do Not Pick Up The Phone

      My father bellowed from across the house

      for me to pick up the phone.

      It was never for me.

      When telephone numbers still meant a place on the map,

      the voices on the other end

      wanted to know if my father was home,

      Cordially at first, and then,

      with greater and greater venom.

      Credit Card companies, collection agencies,

      the IRS. Their voices were starched white

      Ironed. You could hear their closely

      cropped haircuts, the fluoride rinse.

      The same customer service representatives

      would keep calling back,

      trying to outwit a nine-year-old

      burgeoning storyteller.

      They would grow angry, then solemn:

      claiming to know more about my family than I did.

      As I tried to hide all of my father in my voice.

      I’m still holding him in here.

      I pretended to be everything that I am not:

      stupid, obedient, and shocked

      by the severity of adults,

      I left everything I wanted to tell them

      stranded in my book-bag sized chest:

      I hate your teeth.

      Your college education,

      your faith in this game of money,

      that you have no idea that,

      it will one day turn on you too,

      and it will still mean nothing.

      Winning and Losing are two words that both mean loneliness.

      You’re breaking my father’s heart

      and you don’t have to be here when it happens.

      He used to be one of you.

      To this day, I still call him

      my father.

      To this day, I’m still surprised when the phone is for me.

      Dance

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1