Poetic World

Russell Edson's Poems

2017-08-12T02:54:00.000-07:00

The Goldilocks Compulsion
Sleep
Bread
Let Us Consider
Counting Sheep
Paying The Captain
The Fight
A Stone Is Nobody's
The Bridge
The Closet
The Position
The Changeling
The Lighted Window
The Ox
The Death Of A Fly
The Autopsy
The Man Rock
The Theory
The Gentlemen In The Meadow
The Road
The Sad Message
The Alfresco Moment
The Pattern
The Wounded Breakfast
The Father Of Toads
The Tree
The Melting
The Having To Love Something Else
Soup Song
The Rat's Tight Schedule
The Reason Why Closet-Man Is Never Sad
The Marionettes Distant Masters
Vomit
The Family Monkey
The Pilot
Grass
The Floor
Erasing Amyloo
The Toy-Maker
The Breast
The Philosophers
Conjugal
Mr. Brain
Angels
Elephant Dormitory
The Fall
Ape And Coffee
A Journey Through The Moonlight
A Historical Breakfast
You
Accidents
Hands
A Performance At Hog Theater
Antimatter
On The Eating Of Mice
Ape
One Lonely Afternoon

One Lonely Afternoon

2017-08-12T02:35:00.001-07:00

One Lonely Afternoon
By Russell Edson

Since the fern can't go to the sink for a drink of
water, I graciously submit myself to the task, bringing two
glasses from the sink.
And so we sit, the fern and I, sipping water together.

Of course I'm more complex than a fern, full of deep
thoughts as I am. But I lay this aside for the easy company
of an afternoon friendship.

I don't mind sipping water with a fern, even though,
had I my druthers, I'd be speeding through the sky for
Stockholm, sipping a bloody mary with a wedge of lime.

And so we sit one lonely afternoon sipping water
together. The fern looking out of its fronds, and I, looking
out of mine . . .

Ape

2017-08-12T02:33:00.002-07:00

Ape
By Russell Edson

You haven't finished your ape, said mother to father,
who had monkey hair and blood on his whiskers.

I've had enough monkey, cried father.

You didn't eat the hands, and I went to all the
trouble to make onion rings for its fingers, said mother.

I'll just nibble on its forehead, and then I've had enough,
said father.

I stuffed its nose with garlic, just like you like it, said
mother.

Why don't you have the butcher cut these apes up? You lay
the whole thing on the table every night; the same fractured
skull, the same singed fur; like someone who died horribly. These
aren't dinners, these are post-mortem dissections.

Try a piece of its gum, I've stuffed its mouth with bread,
said mother.

Ugh, it looks like a mouth full of vomit. How can I bite into
its cheek with bread spilling out of its mouth? cried father.

Break one of the ears off, they're so crispy, said mother.

I wish to hell you'd put underpants on these apes; even a
jockstrap, screamed father.

Father, how dare you insinuate that I see the ape as anything
more thn simple meat, screamed mother.

Well what's with this ribbon tied in a bow on its privates?
screamed father.

Are you saying that I am in love with this vicious creature?
That I would submit my female opening to this brute? That after
we had love on the kitchen floor I would put him in the oven, after
breaking his head with a frying pan; and then serve him to my husband,
that my husband might eat the evidence of my infidelity . . . ?

I'm just saying that I'm damn sick of ape every night,
cried father.

On The Eating Of Mice

2017-08-12T02:30:00.003-07:00

On The Eating Of Mice
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 the very trap that killed it,
mouse tartare, mouse poached in menstrual blood at the full
of the moon . . .

Twenty years of this, eating their way through the
mice . . . And yet, not to forget, each night, one less vermin
in the world . . .

Antimatter

2017-08-12T02:29:00.001-07:00

Antimatter
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.

A Performance At Hog Theater

2017-08-12T02:28:00.000-07:00

A Performance At Hog Theater
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 . . .

Hands

2017-08-12T02:26:00.001-07:00

Hands
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 . . .

Accidents

2017-08-12T02:24:00.004-07:00

Accidents
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 out the wax, thus to find my
way to music. But lighting it I put my whole head on fire. It
even spread to my groin and underarms and to a nearby
forest. I felt like a saint. Someone thought I was a genius.
That's comforting, says the barber, still, I can't send you
home with only one ear. I'll have to remove the other one. But
don't worry, it'll be an accident.
Symmetry demands it. But make sure it's an accident, I
don't want you cutting me up on purpose.
Maybe I'll just slit your throat.
But it has to be an accident . . .

You

2017-08-12T02:23:00.001-07:00

You
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 of
arm on windowsill, cheek on this; elbows on knees, face in
the hands; sometimes the head thrown back, eyes staring into
the ceiling . . . This into nothing down the long day's arc . . .

A Historical Breakfast

2017-08-12T01:55:00.001-07:00

A Historical Breakfast
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 have fallen on him to be
so historical. Others probably just don't have it,
he thinks, it is, after all, a talent.
He thinks one of his shoelaces needs tying. Oh well,
another important historical event is about to take
place. He just can't help it. Perhaps he's taking up
too large an area of history? But he has to live, hasn't
he? Toast needs buttering and he can't go around with
one of his shoelaces needing to be tied, can he?
Certainly it's true, when the 20th century gets written
in full it will be mainly about him. That's the way the
cookie crumbles--ah, there's a phrase that'll be quoted
for centuries to come.
Self-conscious? A little; how can one help it with all
those yet-to-be-born eyes of the future watching him?
Uh oh, he feels another historical event coming . . .
Ah, there it is, a cup of coffee approaching his face at
the end of his arm. If only they could catch it on film,
how much it would mean to the future. Oops, spilled it all
over his lap. One of those historical accidents that will
influence the next thousand years; unpredictable, and
really rather uncomfortable . . . But history is never easy,
he thinks . . .

A Journey Through The Moonlight

2017-08-12T01:53:00.001-07:00

A Journey Through The Moonlight
By Russell Edson

In sleep when an old man's body is no longer
aware of his boundaries, and lies flattened by
gravity like a mere of wax in its bed . . . It drips
down to the floor and moves there like a tear down a
cheek . . . Under the back door into the silver meadow,
like a pool of sperm, frosty under the moon, as if in
his first nature, boneless and absurd.

The moon lifts him up into its white field, a cloud
shaped like an old man, porous with stars.

He floats through high dark branches, a corpse tangled
in a tree on a river.

Ape And Coffee

2017-08-12T01:49:00.000-07:00

Ape And Coffee
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 me a fluid, twittered the ape.

Well I don' know what the hell you are, so just stop it,
cried the man.

I was just sitting here reading the newspaper when you
splashed coffee all over me, piped the ape.

I don't care if you are a liquid, you just better stop
splashing on things, cried the man.

Do I look fluid to you? Take a good look, hooted the ape.

If you don't stop I'll put you in a cup, screamed the man.

I'm not a fluid, screeched the ape.

Stop it, stop it, screamed the man, you are frightening me.

The Fall

2017-08-12T01:46:00.000-07:00

The Fall
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.

Elephant Dormitory

2017-08-12T01:42:00.005-07:00

Elephant Dormitory
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.

I was just in the gray wrinkles of my sleep, sighed the other
elephant.

But I can't sleep without my tail, said the first elephant, I
like it stuck just above my anus; I feel more secure that way,
that it holds my anus from drifting out to heaven.

Angels

2017-08-12T01:33:00.009-07:00

Angels
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 a man to do with his life?

. . . They burn beautifully with a blue flame.

When they cry out it is like the screech of a tiny hinge;
the cry of a bat. No one hears it . . .

Mr. Brain

2017-08-12T01:24:00.001-07:00

Mr. Brain
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 opened his mouth to let a moonbeam into his head.

Why to be alone, and you invite the stars to tea. A cup of
tea drinks a luminous guest.

In the winter could you sit quietly by the window, in the
evening when you could have vinegar and pretend it to be
wine, because you would do well to eat doughnuts and
pretend you drink wine as you sit quietly by the window. You
may kick your leg back and forth. You may have a tendency
to not want to look there too long and turn to find darkness in
the room because it had become nighttime.

Why to be alone. You are pretty are you not/you are as
pretty as you are not, or does that make sense.
You are not pretty, that is how you can be alone. And
then you are pretty like fungus and alga, you are no one
without some one, in theory alone.

Be good enough to go to bed so you can not think too
much longer.

Conjugal

2017-08-11T20:35:00.000-07:00

Conjugal
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 if he teaches her to swim. As if he teaches
acrobatics. As if he could form her into something
wet that he delivers out of one life into another.

And it is such a private thing the thing they do.

He is forming her into the wallpaper. He is
smoothing her down into the flowers there. He is finding
her nipples there. And he is kissing her pubis there.

He climbs into the wallpaper among the flowers. And
his buttocks move in and out of the wall.

The Philosophers

2017-08-11T20:33:00.003-07:00

The Philosophers
By Russell Edson

I think, therefore I am, said a man whose mother quickly
hit him on the head, saying, I hit my son on the head,
therefore I am.
No no, you've got it all wrong, cried the man.
So she hit him on the head again and cried, therefore I am.
You're not, not that way; you're supposed to think, not hit,
cried the man.

. . . I think, therefore I am, said the man.
I hit, therefore we both are, the hitter and the one who gets
hit, said the man's mother.
But at this point the man had ceased to be; unconscious he
could not think. But his mother could. So she thought, I am,
and so is my unconscious son, even if he doesn't know it . . .

The Breast

2017-08-11T20:27:00.000-07:00

The Breast
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. . .

The Toy-Maker

2017-08-11T20:25:00.002-07:00

The Toy-Maker
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 shit.

Erasing Amyloo

2017-08-11T20:23:00.001-07:00

Erasing Amyloo
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 about Amyloo!
Bring your head over here and I'll erase Amyloo out of it.
The husband rubs his eraser on his wife's forehead, and as
she begins to forget she says, hummm, I wonder whatever
happened to Amyloo? . . .
Never heard of her, says her husband.
And you, she says, who are you? You're not Amyloo, are
you? I don't remember your being Amyloo. Are you my
Amyloo, whom I don't remember anymore? . . .
Of course not, Amyloo was a girl. Do I look like a girl?
. . . I don't know, I don't know what anything looks like
anymore. . .

The Floor

2017-08-11T20:22:00.000-07:00

The Floor
By Russell Edson

The floor is something we must fight against.
Whilst seemingly mere platform for the human
stance, it is that place that men fall to.
I am not dizzy. I stand as a tower, a lighthouse;
the pale ray of my sentiency flowing from my face.

But should I go dizzy I crash down into the floor;
my face into the floor, my attention bleeding into
the cracks of the floor.

Dear horizontal place, I do not wish to be a rug.
Do not pull at the difficult head, this teetering
bulb of dread and dream . . .

Grass

2017-08-11T20:20:00.000-07:00

Grass
By Russell Edson

The living room is overgrown with grass. It has
come up around the furniture. It stretches through
the dining room, past the swinging door into the
kitchen. It extends for miles and miles into the
walls . . .

There's treasure in grass, things dropped or put
there; a stick of rust that was once a penknife, a
grave marker. . . All hidden in the grass at the
scalp of the window . . .

In a cellar under the grass an old man sits in a
rocking chair, rocking to and fro. In his arms he
holds an infant, the infant body of himself. And
he rocks to and fro under the grass in the
dark . . .

The Pilot

2017-08-11T20:16:00.000-07:00

The Pilot
By Russell Edson

Up in a dirty window in a dark room is a star
which an old man can see. He looks at it. He can
see it. It is the star of the room; an electrical
freckle that has fallen out of his head and gotten
stuck in the dirt on the window.

He thinks he can steer by that star. He thinks he
can use the back of a chair as a ship's wheel to
pilot his room through the night.

He says to himself, brave Captain, are you afraid?

Yes, I am afraid; I am not so brave.

Be brave, my Captain.

And all night the old man steers his room through
the dark . . .

The Family Monkey

2017-08-11T20:14:00.002-07:00

The Family Monkey
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 the monkey merchant, just as the wind-up monkey
gave way to the steam monkey, the steam monkey has given way
to the gas and electric monkeys.

Is that like the grandfather clock being replaced by the
grandchild clock?

Sort of, said the monkey merchant.

So we bought the electric monkey, and plugged its umbilical
cord into the wall.

The smoke coming out of its fur told us something was wrong.

We had electrocuted the family monkey.