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

    Yesterday Won't Goodbye

    By Brian S. Ellis

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    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

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      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

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