All Poems
/ page 2266 of 3210 /
Antimatter
© 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.
A Stone Is Nobody's
© 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.
Lak of Stedfastnesse
© Geoffrey Chaucer
Somtyme the world was so stedfast and stable
That mannes word was obligacioun,
Counting Sheep
© 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.
Sleep
© 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
Paying The Captain
© Russell Edson
But it seems there will be no journey since we have
gotten the captain used to a good thing. And so we
must spend the rest of our days throwing the captain
overboard.
Grass
© 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 . . .
The Phantom Bells
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
Upveiled in yonder dim ethereal sea,
Its airy towers the work of phantom spells,
The Pattern
© Russell Edson
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.
The Purple Cow : Suite
© Gelett Burgess
Ah, Yes! I Wrote the "Purple Cow"
I'm Sorry, now, I Wrote it!
But I can Tell you Anyhow,
I'll Kill you if you Quote it!
Angels
© Russell Edson
Like birds, and yet so human . . .
They mate by briefly looking at the other.
Their eggs are like white jellybeans.
"Philip My King."
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
Banned from earth's day--thine inward sight expands
Above the night-bound senses' birth or bars;
Lord of a larger realm, of subtler scope,
Where thou at last shalt press the lips of Hope,
And feel God's angel lift in radiant hands
Thy life from darkness to a place of stars!
The Breast
© 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?
Den XXIII. Salme kan kaldes den gode Hyrde
© Anders Arrebo
Her kontrafejer David dig
din Hyrde Jesum god og rig;
A Historical Breakfast
© 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
The Melting
© 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.
