The Closet by Russell Edson
The Closet 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. ————— […]
Soup Song by Russell Edson
Soup Song 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 […]
The Bridge by Russell Edson
The Bridge by Russell Edson In his travels he comes to a bridge made entirely of bones. Before crossing he writes a letter to his mother: Dear mother, guess what? the ape accidentally bit off one of his hands while eating a banana. Just now I am at the foot of a bone bridge. I […]
Mr. Brain by Russell Edson
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 […]
One Lonely Afternoon by Russell Edson
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 […]
Ape And Coffee by Russell Edson
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 […]
Accidents by Russell Edson
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 […]
A Journey Through The Moonlight by Russell Edson
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 . . […]
Antimatter by Russell Edson
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 […]
A Stone Is Nobody’s by Russell Edson
A Stone Is Nobody’s 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 […]
Counting Sheep by Russell Edson
Counting Sheep 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 […]
Sleep by Russell Edson
Sleep 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 […]
Paying The Captain by Russell Edson
Paying The Captain by Russell Edson We get on a boat, never mind if it sinks, we pay the captain by throwing him overboard. And when he gets back onboard we say, captain, please don’t be angry. And he forgives us this time. And so we throw him overboard again just to make sure we […]
Grass by Russell Edson
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 […]
Angels by Russell Edson
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 […]
Ape by Russell Edson
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, […]
Hands by Russell Edson
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 […]
The Fall by Russell Edson
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 […]
The Family Monkey by Russell Edson
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 […]
Elephant Dormitory by Russell Edson
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 […]
Conjugal by Russell Edson
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 […]
A Historical Breakfast by Russell Edson
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 […]
Paul’s Wife by Robert Frost
To drive Paul out of any lumber camp All that was needed was to say to him, “How is the wife, Paul?”–and he’d disappear. Some said it was because be bad no wife, And hated to be twitted on the subject; Others because he’d come within a day Or so of having one, and then […]
Pan with Us by Robert Frost
Pan came out of the woods one day,– His skin and his hair and his eyes were gray, The gray of the moss of walls were they,– And stood in the sun and looked his fill At wooded valley and wooded hill. He stood in the zephyr, pipes in hand, On a height of naked […]
‘Out, Out–‘ by Robert Frost
The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood, Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it. And from there those that lifted eyes could count Five mountain ranges one behind the other Under the sunset far into Vermont. And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and […]
Our Singing Strength by Robert Frost
It snowed in spring on earth so dry and warm The flakes could find no landing place to form. Hordes spent themselves to make it wet and cold, And still they failed of any lasting hold. They made no white impression on the black. They disappeared as if earth sent them back. Not till from […]
One Step Backward Taken by Robert Frost
Not only sands and gravels Were once more on their travels, But gulping muddy gallons Great boulders off their balance Bumped heads together dully And started down the gully. Whole capes caked off in slices. I felt my standpoint shaken In the universal crisis. But with one step backward taken I saved myself from going. […]
Once By The Pacific by Robert Frost
The shattered water made a misty din. Great waves looked over others coming in, And thought of doing something to the shore That water never did to land before. The clouds were low and hairy in the skies, Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes. You could not tell, and yet it looked […]
On Looking Up By Chance At The Constellations by Robert Frost
You’ll wait a long, long time for anything much To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud And the Northern Lights that run like tingling nerves. The sun and moon get crossed, but they never touch, Nor strike out fire from each other nor crash out loud. The planets seem to interfere in their […]
On Going Unnoticed by Robert Frost
As vain to raise a voice as a sigh In the tumult of free leaves on high. What are you in the shadow of trees Engaged up there with the light and breeze? Less than the coral-root you know That is content with the daylight low, And has no leaves at all of its own; […]
On a Tree Fallen Across the Road by Robert Frost
(To hear us talk) The tree the tempest with a crash of wood Throws down in front of us is not bar Our passage to our journey’s end for good, But just to ask us who we think we are Insisting always on our own way so. She likes to halt us in our runner […]
October by Robert Frost
O hushed October morning mild, Thy leaves have ripened to the fall; Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild, Should waste them all. The crows above the forest call; Tomorrow they may form and go. O hushed October morning mild, Begin the hours of this day slow. Make the day seem to us less brief. Hearts […]
Now Close the Windows by Robert Frost
Now close the windows and hush all the fields: If the trees must, let them silently toss; No bird is singing now, and if there is, Be it my loss. It will be long ere the marshes resume, I will be long ere the earliest bird: So close the windows and not hear the wind, […]
Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost
Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by […]
Not To Keep by Robert Frost
They sent him back to her. The letter came Saying… And she could have him. And before She could be sure there was no hidden ill Under the formal writing, he was in her sight, Living. They gave him back to her alive How else? They are not known to send the dead And not […]
New Hampshire by Robert Frost
I met a lady from the South who said (You won’t believe she said it, but she said it): “None of my family ever worked, or had A thing to sell.” I don’t suppose the work Much matters. You may work for all of me. I’ve seen the time I’ve had to work myself. The […]
Never Again Would Bird’s Song Be The Same by Robert Frost
He would declare and could himself believe That the birds there in all the garden round From having heard the daylong voice of Eve Had added to their own an oversound, Her tone of meaning but without the words. Admittedly an eloquence so soft Could only have had an influence on birds When call or […]
Neither Out Far Nor In Deep by Robert Frost
The people along the sand All turn and look one way. They turn their back on the land. They look at the sea all day. As long as it takes to pass A ship keeps raising its hull; The wetter ground like glass Reflects a standing gull The land may vary more; But wherever the […]
My November Guest by Robert Frost
My Sorrow, when she’s here with me, Thinks these dark days of autumn rain Are beautiful as days can be; She loves the bare, the withered tree; She walks the sodden pasture lane. Her pleasure will not let me stay. She talks and I am fain to list: She’s glad the birds are gone away, […]
My Butterfly by Robert Frost
Thine emulous fond flowers are dead, too, And the daft sun-assaulter, he That frightened thee so oft, is fled or dead: Saave only me (Nor is it sad to thee!) Save only me There is none left to mourn thee in the fields. The gray grass is scarce dappled with the snow; Its two banks […]