The House of Sara Loo by Russell Edson

 
 

Twenty-one prose poems collected here from the maser of the prose poem, Russell Edson, sometimes called 'Little Mr. Prose Poem'. To share an Edson select sampling, allow your eyes to rove over the below seven from the collection. And, oh, by the wobbly way, Russell Edson created the cover art, as per above.

BREAKFAST TOAST
As a man watched his wife was buttering his hand...
He asked her why she was buttering his hand.
She said, I thought it was a piece of toast.

When she bit his hand he asked, why are you biting my hand?
I thought it was a piece of toast.

When she bit his hand again he asked, but why are you still biting my hand?
Because I still think it's a piece of toast...

THE CRUEL MOTHER
There was a man who always had something better to do. If he had occasion to kill someone he's say as he killed, had I my druthers I'd rather be giving birth.
If he had to torture people, using their nerves against them to get the truth, he'd say, I'd much rather be giving suck to my young. There's more truth in that than torturing someone for the truth.
On those occasions when he had to lock someone in a dungeon under some castle or other, he'd say, still, I'd much rather be on my back with someone joyously locking a child in my flesh...

THE ELEGANT SIMPLIFICATION
An old man's cane had broken a bone. Actually, a cane has only one bone. One of nature's more elegant simplifications.
As the doctor prepared the splint he asked how the cane came to break its back.
My wife, said the old man, her head is uncommonly hard...

THE HOUSE OF SARA LOO
A man had a house named Sara Loo. he loved her, she was so full of thighs.
He wanted to ask Sara Loo to marry him, but Sara Loo was always in another room...

SUPER MONKEY
He was creating a super monkey by grafting pieces of a dead parrot to a morphined monkey.
When the monkey awakens he's covered with green feathers and has a beak. His firs words are, Polly wants a cracker.
It's historic! No monkey will ever have said that before!
And so he'll give super money all the crackers super monkey can eat, until super monkey sickens of crackers and says, Polly wants a banana. Which will be another historic quotable!

Then he'll begin work on superduper monkey who, with proper grafting, will be able to sing like a canary...

THE WET DIAPER
Rocking the baby in her arms its head falls off and rolls to the corner of the room and begins to cry. Of course being separated from its lungs it cries without sound. So the mother, still attached to her lungs, begins to cry.
The father, hearing her, comes running, asking, what's wrong with the baby?
It wet its diaper.
Oh, good, says the father. I thought its head might've come off. It looked a little loose this morning...

THE WOMB
There was a man who built himself something that looked like a womb. When he left it he'd say, I've just been born, spank me if you must, but please be kind.
And just before he entered it he would say, I'm just about to be conceived. I wonder who my daddy and mommy are?...


Russell Edson, 1935-2014