All Poems
/ page 2264 of 3210 /
To Kenelm Henry Digby
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
(On being presented by him with a copy, painted by himself, of a rare
Portrait of Calderon.)
The Lighted Window
© Russell Edson
As I reach for it it slips through the
trees. As I chase it it rolls and tumbles
into the air and skitters on through the
night . . .
The Fathers Curse
© Victor Marie Hugo
M. ST. VALLIER (_an aged nobleman, from whom King Francis I.
decoyed his daughter, the famous beauty, Diana of
Poitiers_).
The Closet
© 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.
The Kraken
© Alfred Tennyson
Below the thunders of the upper deep,
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
Soup Song
© Russell Edson
Perhaps not so much captured, as allowed to gather
itself from its stream; the way it falls that the drain
would have it.
Sonnet XXIX: I Think of Thee
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I think of thee! - my thoughts do twine and bud
About thee,as wild vines, about a tree,
Put out broad leaves, and soon there's nought to see
Except the straggling green which hides the wood.
The Death Of A Fly
© Russell Edson
There was once a man who disguised himself as a
housefly and went about the neighborhood depositing
flyspecks.
Well, he has to do something hasn't he? said someone to
The Toy-Maker
© Russell Edson
A toy-maker made a toy wife and a toy child.
He made a toy house and some toy years.
Like This
© Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi
If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,
The Bridge
© 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
Kathleen Ni-Houlihan
© Dora Sigerson Shorter
As I came down from the hill of Aileach,
When spring sang in the air,
The Pilot
© 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.
Midsummer Midnight Skies
© William Ernest Henley
The spell-bound ships stand as at gaze
To let the marvel by. The grey road glooms . . .
Glimmers . . . goes out . . . and there, O, there where it fades,
What grace, what glamour, what wild will,
Transfigure the shadows? Whose,
Heart of my heart, Soul of my soul, but yours?
Mr. Brain
© 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.
Dead In Sight Of Fame
© James Whitcomb Riley
DIED--Early morning of September 5, 1876, and
in the gleaming dawn of "name and fame,"
Hamilton J. Dunbar.
One Lonely Afternoon
© 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.
To Lallie (Outside the British Museum)
© Amy Levy
Up those Museum steps you came,
And straightway all my blood was flame,
O Lallie, Lallie!
Ape And Coffee
© 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
