#russell edson

[iwtv]

this house has people in it (2016) / "the dog" by russell edson

[exhaled-spirals]

« The turtle carries his house on his back. He is both the house and the person of that house.

But actually, under the shell is a little room where the true turtle, wearing long underwear, sits at a little table. At one end of the room a series of levers sticks out of slots in the floor, like the controls of a steam shovel. It is with these that the turtle controls the legs of his house.

Most of the time the turtle sits under the sloping ceiling of his turtle room reading catalogues at the little table where a candle burns. He leans on one elbow, and then the other. [...] If he feels a child picking up his house he quickly douses the candle and runs to the control levers and activates the legs of his house and tries to escape.

If he cannot escape he retracts the legs and withdraws the so-called head and waits. He knows that children are careless, and that there will come a time when he will be free to move his house to some secluded place, where he will relight his candle, take out his catalogue and read [...]. »

— Russell Edson, The Reason Why the Closet-Man Is Never Sad

[ma-pi-ma]

Poiché la felce non può andare al lavandino per bere un po' d'acqua,

mi sottometto gentilmente all'incarico,

portando due bicchieri dal lavandino.

E così ci sediamo, io e la felce, a sorseggiare acqua insieme.

Naturalmente sono più complesso di una felce,

pieno di pensieri profondi. Ma metto da parte tutto questo

per la facile compagnia di un'amicizia pomeridiana.

Non mi dispiace sorseggiare acqua con una felce, anche se,

se potessi, sfreccerei nel cielo verso Stoccolma,

sorseggiando un bloody mary con una fetta di lime.

E così ci sediamo un pomeriggio solitario sorseggiando acqua insieme.

La felce che guarda dalle sue fronde, e io, che guardo dalle mie…

Russell Edson, da La moglie del gallo, 2006

[whisperthatruns]

The Cottage in the Wood

He has built himself a cottage in a wood, near where the insect rubs its wings in song. Yet, without measure, or a proper sense of scale, he has made the cottage too small. He realizes this when only his hand will fit through the door. He tries the stairs to the second floor with his fingers, but his arm wedges in the entrance. He wonders how he shall cook his dinner. He might get his fingers through the kitchen windows, but even so, the stove's too tiny to cook enough food; the pots are like thimbles and bottle caps. He must also lie unsheltered in the night even though a tiny bed, with its covers turned down, waits for him in the cottage. He curls himself around the cottage, listening to the insect that rubs its wings in song...

Russell Edson, text from Sean Singer’s daily email, The Sharpener

[ramyeongif]

Let us consider the farmer who makes his straw hat his sweetheart; or the old woman who makes a floor lamp her son; or the young woman who has set herself the task of scraping her shadow off a wall....

Russel Edson (Let Us Consider)

[manwalksintobar]

The Twilight of the Gods  // Russell Edson

A man had stuffed a huge dummy. Then he climbed up on it and sat on its knee. When he tired of this he alit and took out a small dummy and sat it on his knee. When he tired of this he would take out a tiny dummy and sit it on the small dummy's knee. Sometimes he would again sit on the huge dummy's knee with the small dummy on his knee, and the tiny dummy seated on the small dummy's knee... And all to sit there as the twilight empties slowly through the dusk...

[biblioklept]

"The Definition" -- Russell Edson

“The Definition” by Russell Edson He that puts suicide into his left ear pretends it is wax. His mother says, but it’s a bullet which you have shot yourself with. Is that how I died? he said. That’s when the funeral began, it was like a flower festival; your father asked me to marry him, and with much declining as to appear of greater value I agreed. Of the two of us, your father and I, so…

[dyediris]

[lonelychambersofmyheart]

[noleavestoblow]

“What shall I do? screamed his son. Sit until time embraces you into the bosom of its velvet quiet, cried the father. Like this? cried his son as his son became dust.”

― Russell Edson

[iwtv]

russell edson

[h00dsw0rld]

Louis Russell

[ma-pi-ma]

Meglio lasciare che sia la poesia a pensare mentre ci preoccupiamo di quella che viene chiamata la vita personale.

Russell Edson

[recents]

"he's nice!" well he wants to be and he could be but he isn't yet "he's mean!" well he is but have you perhaps considered why.

but no one heard the beautiful angel singing her incredibly complicated incredibly complex difficult to understand beautiful truths into the beautiful air and the two armies charged into the valley and killed each other over and over with spears adn rocks forever . andthen a new thing came out. the end

[ramyeongif]

Let us consider the farmer who makes his straw hat his sweetheart; or the old woman who makes a floor lamp her son; or the young woman who has set herself the task of scraping her shadow off a wall....

Russel Edson (Let Us Consider)

[firstfullmoon]

Russell Edson, from “The Marionettes of Distant Masters”