Russell Edson's Poems

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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. 

Vomit

Vomit
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 you were a vomit doctor you'd vomit too.
But isn't there enough vomit? sighs father.
There is never enough vomit.
Do I make everybody that sick, sighs father.
No no, everybody is born sick.
Born sick? cries father.
Of course, haven't you noticed how everybody eventually 
dies? she says.
Is the dining room dying . . . ?
. . . The way you eat, it's enough to make anyone sick, 
she screams.
So I do make everybody that sick . . .
Excuse me, I think I'm going to be sick, she says.
Oh where is the Vomit Doctor? At least when he vomits one 
knows one has it from high authority, screamed father. 

The Marionettes Of Distant Masters

The Marionettes Of Distant Masters
By Russell Edson

A pianist dreams that he's hired by a wrecking company to 
ruin a piano with his fingers . . . 
On the day of the piano wrecking concert, as he's 
dressing, he notices a butterfly annoying a flower in his window 
box. He wonders if the police should be called. Then he thinks 
maybe the butterfly is just a marionette being manipulated by 
its master from the window above. 
Suddenly everything is beautiful. He begins to cry. 

Then another butterfly begins to annoy the first butterfly. 
He again wonders if he shouldn't call the police. 
But, perhaps they are marionette-butterflies? He thinks 
they are, belonging to rival masters seeing whose butterfly can 
annoy the other's the most. 

And this is happening in his window box. The Cosmic 
Plan: Distant Masters manipulating minor Masters who, in turn, 
are manipulating tiny butterfly-Masters who, in turn, are 
manipulating him . . . A universe webbed with strings! 
Suddenly it is all so beautiful; the light is strange . . . 
Something about the light! He begins to cry . . . 

The Reason Why Closet-Man Is Never Sad

The Reason Why Closet-Man Is Never Sad
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 . . . 

The Rat's Tight Schedule

The Rat's Tight Schedule
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 I could have flipped and fallen through the floor, said
the husband.
Well, he's been thinking of turning into a marsupial, so try
to have a little patience. I'm sure if you were thinking of
turning into a marsupial he'd be patient with you. But, on the
other hand, don't embarrass him if he decides to remain
placental, he's on a very tight schedule, said the wife.
A marsupial, a wonderful choice, cried the husband . . . 

Soup Song

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 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 . . . 

The Having To Love Something Else

The Having To Love Something Else
By Russell Edson

There was a man who would marry his mother, and asked his
father for his mother's hand in marriage, and was told he could
not marry his mother's hand because it was attached to all
the rest of mother, which was all married to his father; that
he'd have to love something else . . .

And so he went into the world to love something else, and
fell in love with a dining room.
He asked someone standing there, may I have this dining
room's hand in marriage?
You may not, its hand is attached to all the rest of it,
which has all been promised to me in connubial alliance, said
someone standing there.
Just because the dining room lives in your house doesn't
necessarily give you claim to its affections . . .
Yes it does, for a dining room is always to be married to
the heir apparent in the line of succession; after father it's
my turn; and only if all mankind were destroyed could you
succeed any other to the hand of this dining room. You'll have
to love something else . . .

And so the man who would marry his mother was again in the
world looking for something to love that was not already
loved . . . 

The Melting

The Melting
By Russell Edson

An old woman likes to melt her husband. She puts him in
a melting device, and he pours out the other end in a hot
bloody syrup, which she catches in a series of little husband
molds.

What splatters on the floor the dog licks up.

When they have set she has seventeen little husbands.
One she throws to the dog because the genitals didn't set
right; too much like a vulva because of an air bubble.

Then there are sixteen naked little husbands standing
in a row across the kitchen table.

She diddles them and they produce sixteen little erections.

She thinks she might melt her husband again. She likes
melting him.

She might pour him into an even smaller series of husband
molds . . . 

The Tree

The Tree
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...

The Father Of Toads

The Father Of Toads
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 
your own son then revulsion is without any tender inhibition, 
he said. 

Do you mean you would not like to call it George Jr.? 
she said. 

But we've already called the other toad that, he said. 

Well, perhaps we could call the other one George Sr., 
she said. 

But I am George Sr., he said. 

Well, perhaps if you hid in the attic, so that no one needed 
to call you anything, there would be no difficulty in calling 
both of them George, she said. 

Yes, if no one talks to me, then what need have I for a name? 
he said. 

No, no one will talk to you for the rest of your life. And 
when we bury you we shall put Father of Toads on your 
tombstone. 

The Wounded Breakfast

The Wounded Breakfast
By Russell Edson

A huge shoe mounts up from the horizon, 
squealing and grinding forward on small wheels, 
even as a man sitting to breakfast on his veranda 
is suddenly engulfed in a great shadow, almost 
the size of the night . . . 
He looks up and sees a huge shoe 
ponderously mounting out of the earth. 
Up in the unlaced ankle-part an old woman 
stands at a helm behind the great tongue curled 
forward; the thick laces dragging like ships' rope 
on the ground as the huge thing squeals and 
grinds forward; children everywhere, they look 
from the shoelace holes, they crowd about the 
old woman, even as she pilots this huge shoe 
over the earth . . . 

Soon the huge shoe is descending the 
opposite horizon, a monstrous snail squealing 
and grinding into the earth . . . 

The man turns to his breakfast again, but sees 
it's been wounded, the yolk of one of his eggs is 
bleeding . . . 

The Pattern

The Pattern
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. 

The Alfresco Moment

The Alfresco Moment
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 a woman of wealth I have the loins of a
goddess. While you, being but a servant, have the loins of a
child's teddy bear. Yes, have the Master join the alfresco
moment. He might just as well be informed of my pubic delta,
it's not a state secret. Besides, because of his wealth he
bears the organ of a bull, while you, being but a lowly
servant, have the loins of a toy.

Very good, Madam . . . 

The Sad Message

The Sad Message
By Russell Edson

The Captain becomes moody at sea. He's
afraid of water; such bully amounts that prove the
seas. . . 

A glass of water is one thing. A man easily downs
it, capturing its menace in his bladder; pissing it
away. A few drops of rain do little harm, save to
remind of how grief looks upon the cheek. 

One day the water is willing to bear your ship
upon its back like a liquid elephant. The next day
the elephant doesn't want you on its back, and
says, I have no more willingness to have you
there; get off. 

At sea this is a sad message. 

The Captain sits in his cabin wearing a
parachute, listening to what the sea might say. . . 

The Road

The Road
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 . . . 

The Gentlemen In The Meadow

The Gentlemen In The Meadow
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 . . .