Russell Edson Poems

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;
...

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
...

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
...

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.
...

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
...

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
...

We bought an electric monkey, experimenting rather
recklessly with funds carefully gathered since
grandfather's time for the purchase of a steam monkey.
...

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.
...

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
...

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,
...