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
Some gentlemen are floating in the meadow over
the yellow grass.
They seem to hover by those wonderful blue
little flowers that grow there by those rocks.
Perhaps they have floated up from that nearby
graveyard?
They drift a little when the wind blows.
Butterflies flutter through them . . ....Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
A man ambushed a stone. Caught it. Made it a prisoner.
Put it in a dark room and stood guard over it for the
rest of his life.
His mother asked why.
He said, because it's held captive, because it is
captured.
Look, the stone is asleep, she said, it does not know
whether it's in a garden or not. Eternity and...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 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
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 had just delivered a toad from his wife's armpit. He
held it by its legs and spanked it.
Do you love it? said his wife.
It's our child, isn't it?
Does that mean you can't love it? she said.
It's hard enough to love a toad, but when it turns out to be...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
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
This is the house of the closet-man. There are no rooms,
just hallways and closets.
Things happen in rooms. He does not like things to
happen . . . Closets, you take things out of closets,
you put things into closets, and nothing happens . . .
Why do you have such a strange house?
I am...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
A man is fighting with a cup of coffee. The rules: he must not
break the cup nor spill its coffee; nor must the cup break the
man's bones or spill his blood.
The man said, oh the hell with it, as he swept the cup to
the floor. The cup did not break but its coffee poured...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
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...
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
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
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
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
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 women had given birth to an old man.
He cried to have again been caught in the pattern.
Oh well, he sighed as he took her breast to his mouth.
The woman is happy to have her baby, even if it is old.
Probably it got mislaid in the baby place, and when they
found it and saw...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
Here I am with my mother, hanging under the molt
of years, in a garden of umbrellas and rubber boots,
together always in the vague perfume of her coat.
See how the fedoras along the shelf are the several
skulls of my father, in this catacomb of my family....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
Some coffee had gotten on a man's ape. The man said,
animal did you get on my coffee?
No no, whistled the ape, the coffee got on me.
You're sure you didn't spill on my coffee? said the man.
Do I look like a liquid? peeped the ape.
Well you sure don't look human, said the man.
But that doesn't make...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
There was once a hog theater where hogs performed
as men, had men been hogs.
One hog said, I will be a hog in a field which has
found a mouse which is being eaten by the same hog
which is in the field and which has found the mouse,
which I am performing as my contribution to the...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
A lighted window floats through the night
like a piece of paper in the wind.
I want to see into it. I want to climb
through into its lighted room.
As I reach for it it slips through the
trees. As I chase it it rolls and tumbles
into the air and skitters on through the
night . ....Read more of this...