One literary critic wrote: "The first Russell Edson prose poem I ever read was Counting Sheep. The poem begins: “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.” The poem was written at the same grade-level as USA Today, but it took the top of my head off per Emily Dickinson’s dictum —it moved me as much as any so-called real, immortal art. And, to my amazement, the lines were free from the self-congratulation that Wallace Stevens warned against."

Likewise, this collection of Russell Edson prose poems took the top of my head off. And his work moves me as much as any writing I've ever read. Here are three of my favorites below. Hope you enjoy!


YOU
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 elbow 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 . . .


THE WOUNDED BREAKFAST
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 RAT'S TIGHT SCHEDULE
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 . . .