Russell Edson Poems
A collection of select Russell Edson famous poems that were written by Russell Edson or written about the poet by other famous poets. PoetrySoup is a comprehensive educational resource of the greatest poems and poets on history.
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by
Russell Edson
There was a man who found two leaves and came
indoors holding them out saying to his parents
that he was a tree.
To which they said then go into the yard and do
not grow in the living room as your roots may
ruin the carpet.
He said I was fooling I am not a tree and he...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
A scientist has a test tube full of sheep. He
wonders if he should try to shrink a pasture
for them.
They are like grains of rice.
He wonders if it is possible to shrink something
out of existence.
He wonders if the sheep are aware of their tininess,
if they have any sense of scale....Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
In a back room a man is performing an autopsy
on an old raincoat.
His wife appears in the doorway with a candle
and asks, how does it go?
Not now, not now, I'm just getting to the lining,
he murmurs with impatience.
I just wanted to know if you found any blood clots?
Blood clots?!
For my necklace...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
Out of nothing there comes a time called childhood, which is simply a path leading through an archway called adolescence. A small town there, past the arch called youth. Soon, down the road, where one almost misses the life lived beyond the flower, is a small shack labeled, you. And it is here the future lives in the several postures...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
A woman prepared a mouse for her husband's dinner,
roasting it with a blueberry in its mouth.
At table he uses a dentist's pick and a surgeon's scalpel,
bending over the tiny roastling with a jeweler's loupe . . .
Twenty years of this: curried mouse, garlic and butter
mouse, mouse sauteed in its own fur, Salisbury mouse,
mouse-in-the-trap, baked in...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
They have little use. They are best as objects of torment.
No government cares what you do with them.
Like birds, and yet so human . . .
They mate by briefly looking at the other.
Their eggs are like white jellybeans.
Sometimes they have been said to inspire a man
to do more with his life than he might have.
But what is there for...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
A butler asks, will Madam be having her morning coffee
alfresco?
If you would be so good as to lift me out of my bed to
the veranda I would be more than willing to imbibe coffee
alfresco.
Shall I ask the Master to join you for coffee alfresco,
Madam?
But my nightgown's so sheer he might see my pubic delta
alfresco. And being...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
There was once a man who disguised himself as a
housefly and went about the neighborhood depositing
flyspecks.
Well, he has to do something hasn't he? said someone to
someone else.
Of course, said someone else back to someone.
Then what's all the fuss? said someone to someone else.
Who's fussing? I'm just saying that if he doesn't get...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
They have grafted pieces of an ape with a dog. . .
Then, what they have, wants to live in a tree.
No, it wants to lift its leg and piss on the tree. . ....Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
A father with a huge eraser erases his daughter. When he
finishes there's only a red smudge on the wall.
His wife says, where is Amyloo?
She's a mistake, I erased her.
What about all her lovely things? asks his wife.
I'll erase them too.
All her pretty clothes? . . .
I'll erase her closet, her dresser--shut up...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
The house grows sick in its dining room and begins to vomit.
Father cries, the dining room is vomiting.
No wonder, the way you eat, it's enough to make anybody sick,
says his wife.
What shall we do? What shall we do? he cries.
Call the Vomit Doctor of course.
Yes, but all he does is vomit, sighs father.
If...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
Mr Brain was a hermit dwarf who liked to eat shellfish off
the moon. He liked to go into a tree then because there is a
little height to see a little further, which may reveal now the
stone, a pebble--it is a twig, it is nothing under the moon that
you can make sure of.
So Mr Brain...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
The Captain becomes moody at sea. He's
afraid of water; such bully amounts that prove the
seas. . .
A glass of water is one thing. A man easily downs
it, capturing its menace in his bladder; pissing it
away. A few drops of rain do little harm, save to
remind of how grief looks upon the cheek.
One day the water...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
A man is bringing a cup of coffee to his face,
tilting it to his mouth. It's historical, he thinks.
He scratches his head: another historical event.
He really ought to rest, he's making an awful lot of
history this morning.
Oh my, now he's buttering toast, another piece of
history is being made.
He wonders why it should...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
There was a road that leads him to go to find
a certain time where he sits.
Smokes quietly in the evening by the four legged
table wagging its (well why not) tail, friendly
chap.
Hears footsteps, looks to find his own feet gone.
The road absorbs everything with rumors of sleep.
And then he looked for himself and...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
An elephant went to bed and pulled a crazy quilt up under
its tusks.
But just as the great gray head began filling with the gray
wrinkles of sleep it was awakened by the thud of its tail
falling out of bed.
Would you get my tail? said the elephant to another
elephant also tucked up under a crazy quilt.
...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
A huge shoe mounts up from the horizon,
squealing and grinding forward on small wheels,
even as a man sitting to breakfast on his veranda
is suddenly engulfed in a great shadow, almost
the size of the night . . .
He looks up and sees a huge shoe
ponderously mounting out of the earth.
Up in...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
A man stumbled on some rat droppings.
Hey, who put those there? That's dangerous, he said.
His wife said, those are pieces of a rat.
Wait, he's coming apart, he's all over the floor, said the
husband.
He can't help it; you don't think he wants to drop pieces of
himself all over the floor, do you? said the wife.
But...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
One night a woman's breast came to a man's room and
began to talk about her twin sister.
Her twin sister this and her twin sister that.
Finally the man said, but what about you, dear breast?
And so the breast spent the rest of the night talking about
herself.
It was the same as when she talked about her sister:...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
We bought an electric monkey, experimenting rather
recklessly with funds carefully gathered since
grandfather's time for the purchase of a steam monkey.
We had either, by this time, the choice of an electric
or gas monkey.
The steam monkey is no longer being made, said the monkey
merchant.
But the family always planned on a steam monkey.
Well, said...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
They let me in. I went right up to the nursery
and climbed into the crib, and assumed the famous
fetal position.
They didn't know what to make of it. They stood
by the crib looking down at me.
They were young. This was their house. Instead
of an infant, a grown man is in the nursery.
Of course they hadn't planned...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
A man is bending his wife. He is bending her
around something that she has bent herself
around. She is around it, bent as he has bent
her.
He is convincing her. It is all so private.
He is bending her around the bedpost. No, he
is bending her around the tripod of his camera.
It is as...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
How I make my soup: I draw water from a tap . . .
I am not an artist. And the water is not so much
drawn as allowed to fall, and to capture itself in a pot.
Perhaps not so much captured, as allowed to gather
itself from its stream; the way it falls that the drain
would...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
The barber has accidentally taken off an ear. It lies like
something newborn on the floor in a nest of hair.
Oops, says the barber, but it musn't've been a very good
ear, it came off with very little complaint.
It wasn't, says the customer, it was always overly waxed.
I tried putting a wick in it to burn...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
The big one went to sleep as to die and dreamed he
became a tiny one. So tiny as to have lost all substance. To have
become as theoretical as a point.
Then someone said, get up, big one, you're not doing
yourself any good. You puddle and stagnate in your weight.
Best to be up and toward. It irrigates you.
...Read more of this...