New Poetry by Phillip Ellis

A Credo in Metre

I dream of the world and sleep, and, when waking,
I find I am caught, a fly, and in amber
so solid. I dream the world as I slumber
and find, when I waken, something so dreamlike.

The world is a dream no God could imagine:
so complex the world, so flawed that it's likely
all creatures evolved, and were bidden
to rise from one cell through time and by nothing.

The beauty of magpies carolling mornings,
the currawongs chiming evenings have given
a shape to my day, and beauty of singing
no God could imagine, being so petty.

So turn I my back on gods, as a mortal
and limited man, and peace is my trophy;
afraid of no Gods, I live, and I know this:
I'm saddened I'll miss this world with its beauty.


- Phillip Ellis 2012



Late Swim (After David Brooks)

The coping strategies of the wind
that echo around my head, like roof-iron
and rust torn into the air, seem as though rock
is forever cold to the palm, and then are gone.

The thought's disappearing, as storm-clouds
are after an infodump of rain on islands
haloed by the light of the newborn moon.

The only true light I can think is 'star',
not as in celebrity, those who walk amongst them,
or those whose cuddled dolphin in the bay
is in reality rapist without arms,
weighing choices as though choices were a bird.

I would speak of this one star, speak of her
that dreams of me in Aotearoa, but no tear,
the fading sea that carries no tree
or foam forwards, will fall again:
the wind has not yet torn away that roof.

But to speak of her with adulterous
and adulterated thoughts, is it not like bones
and cartilage, and nothing more as man, as being enough?

I will not speak of that star then, that is down
in the low skies, as if it were in bed
and toasty warm, over the dawn sea.

Perhaps
it will not fade in the dawn, be
too wan to shine when the day is late.

Perhaps this is the only poem that I could make


- Phillip Ellis 2012


Phillip's new web page is www.phillipaellis.com/