Russell Edson Short Poems
Famous Short Russell Edson Poems. Short poetry by famous poet Russell Edson. A collection of the all-time best Russell Edson short poems
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
performer's art.
Oh let's just be hogs, cried an old hog.
And so the hogs streamed out of the theater crying,
only hogs, only
hogs . . .
by
Russell Edson
A toy-maker made a toy wife and a toy child.
He made a toy house and some toy years.
He made a getting-old toy, and he made a dying
toy.
The toy-maker made a toy heaven and a toy god.
But, best of all, he liked making toy ****.
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: herself
this and herself that.
Finally the man kissed her nipple and said, I'm sorry, and
fell asleep. . .
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 that it was a little too ripe, they said,
well, it is good enough for this woman who is almost
deserving of nothing.
She wonders if she is the only mother with a baby old
enough to be her father.
by
Russell Edson
On the other side of a mirror there's an inverse world,
where the insane go sane; where bones climb out of the
earth and recede to the first slime of love.
And in the evening the sun is just rising.
Lovers cry because they are a day younger, and soon
childhood robs them of their pleasure.
In such a world there is much sadness which, of course,
is joy.
by
Russell Edson
There was a man who didn't know how to sleep; nodding
off every night into a drab, unprofessional sleep. Sleep that
he'd grown so tired of sleeping.
He tried reading The Manual of Sleep, but it just put him
to sleep. That same old sleep that he had grown so tired of
sleeping . . .
He needed a sleeping master, who with a whip and a
chair would discipline the night, and make him jump through
hoops of gasolined fire. Someone who could make a tiger sit
on a tiny pedestal and yawn . . .
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
dropped his leaves.
But his parents said look it is fall.
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 . . .
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.
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 the closet-man, I am either going or coming, and I
am never sad.
But why do you have such a strange house?
I am never sad . . .
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 even he was gone.
Looked for the road and even that . . .
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 . . .
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 . . .
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 even he was gone.
Looked for the road and even that . . .
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 out
of its open self.
The cup cried, don't hurt me, please don't hurt me; I am
without mobility, I have no defense save my utility; use
me to hold your coffee.
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 have it.
But in this case a normal path interrupted by a pot;
for which soup is the outcome of all I do . . .
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. . .