A Performance At Hog Theater by Russell Edson

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 […]

Erasing Amyloo by Russell Edson

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? . […]

On The Eating Of Mice by Russell Edson

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 […]

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 […]

When Day Is Done by Rabindranath Tagore

if birds sing no more, if the wind has flagged tired, then draw the veil of darkness thick upon me, even as thou hast wrapt the earth with the coverlet of sleep and tenderly closed the petals of the drooping lotus at dusk. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, […]

When and Why by Rabindranath Tagore

is such a play of colours on clouds, on water, and why flowers are painted in tints-when I give coloured toys to you, my child. When I sing to make you dance, I truly know why there is music in leaves, and why waves send their chorus of voices to the heart of the listening […]

Vocation by Rabindranath Tagore

lane. Every day I meet the hawker crying, “Bangles, crystal bangles!” There is nothing to hurry him on, there is no road he must take, no place he must go to, no time when he must come home. I wish I were a hawker, spending my day in the road, crying, “Bangles, crystal bangles!” When […]

Untimely Leave by Rabindranath Tagore

Henceforth I deal in whispers. The speech of my heart will be carried on in murmurings of a song. Men hasten to the King’s market. All the buyers and sellers are there. But I have my untimely leave in the middle of the day, in the thick of work. Let then the flowers come out […]

Twelve O’Clock by Rabindranath Tagore

book all the morning. You say it is only twelve o’clock. Suppose it isn’t any later; can’t you ever think it is afternoon when it is only twelve o’clock? I can easily imagine now that the sun has reached the edge of that rice-field, and the old fisher-woman is gathering herbs for her supper by […]

Threshold by Rabindranath Tagore

when I first crossed the threshold of this life. What was the power that made me open out into this vast mystery like a bud in the forest at midnight! When in the morning I looked upon the light I felt in a moment that I was no stranger in this world, that the inscrutable […]

The Wicked Postman by Rabindranath Tagore

mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all wet, and you don’t mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother to come home from school. What has happened to you that you look so strange? Haven’t you got a letter from father […]

The Unheeded Pageant by Rabindranath Tagore

your sweet limbs with that little red tunic? You have come out in the morning to play in the courtyard, tottering and tumbling as you run. But who was it coloured that little frock, my child? What is it makes you laugh, my little life-bud? Mother smiles at you standing on the threshold. She claps […]

The Source by Rabindranath Tagore

it comes? Yes, there is a rumour that it has its dwelling where, in the fairy village among shadows of the forest dimly lit with glow-worms, there hang two shy buds of enchantment. From there it comes to kiss baby’s eyes. The smile that flickers on baby’s lips when he sleeps-does anybody know where it […]

The Sailor by Rabindranath Tagore

It is uselessly laden with jute, and has been lying there idle for ever so long. If he would only lend me his boat, I should man her with a hundred oars, and hoist sails, five or six or seven. I should never steer her to stupid markets. I should sail the seven seas and […]

The Recall by Rabindranath Tagore

The night is dark now, and I call for her, “Come back, my darling; the world is asleep; and no one would know, if you came for a moment while stars are gazing at stars.” She went away when the trees were in bud and the spring was young. Now the flowers are in high […]

The Rainy Day by Rabindranath Tagore

forest. O child, do not go out! The palm trees in a row by the lake are smiting their heads against the dismal sky; the crows with their dragged wings are silent on the tamarind branches, and the eastern bank of the river is haunted by a deepening gloom. Our cow is lowing loud, ties […]

The Lotus by Rabindranath Tagore

and I knew it not. My basket was empty and the flower remained unheeded. Only now and again a sadness fell upon me, and I started up from my dream and felt a sweet trace of a strange fragrance in the south wind. That vague sweetness made my heart ache with longing and it seemed […]

The Little Big Man by Rabindranath Tagore

as old as my father is. My teacher will come and say, “It is late, bring your slate and your books.” I shall tell him, ” Do you not know I am as big as father? And I must not have lessons any more.” My master will wonder and say, “He can leave his books […]

The Land of the Exile by Rabindranath Tagore

the time is. There is no fun in my play, so I have come to you. It is Saturday, our holiday. Leave off your work, mother; sit here by the window and tell me where the desert of Tepantar in the fairy tale is. The shadow of the rains has covered the day from end […]