Look North:
          A Curlew

A Work in Progress
140

A curlew cries off in the distance and all with ears wait

for an answering cry but time waits no longer 

for our eyes see why the curlew cried

where movement along an unpaved road stirs dust

now a pheasant croaks all the moor is aware

taut time encrusted fears attend a traveler below

within sight of our eyes and technology in the sky

all that matters is survival both sides agree

preparing to stop an intruder’s arrival

is it identifiable does it move with intent?

questions preprogrammed up in the sky

is it an ambulance is that a white flag?

whatever it was it didn’t pass muster

smoke rises over trees where carrion crows cluster

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                   2026

Look North: 
         A Corner

A Work in Progress
139

Nobody waits at the corner where a stone pillar stands

on a scarp rising from moorland where rock was quarried

where a traveler must turn or drop off a cliff edge

blundered over bones below are of fallen sheep 

Should someone be waiting don’t hike there alone

this landscape is steeped with ambush and anguish

trust nobody not birds they will warn you’re approaching

tread carefully for adders on this path stretch out  

Look north mostly north for that’s where you’re going

if you find your way down from this escarpment

a gravel road at its base the foresters made

you must cross over and stride onto moorland again

Standing by the pillar you can see where you’re going

which path to ponder or should you think of returning

or will you still be there if I come that way again

where nobody’s waiting where a stone pillar stands

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                       2026

Briseis and the Imagists
Episode 2: Cast of Characters

A Work in Progress
138

Donal invented them 

Now these avatars have an intention

Of acting in character true to the fiction

That first was written about them

Aldington, a man who knew war from the inside out

Briseis, the young mother abducted by Achilles

H.D. the mysterious missing person

Glenn Hughes, the forgotten Imagist

Babette Hughes, his student turned wife

Ezra Pound, the blemished enigma

Catullus, critic of Caesar

Lesbia

Their faces appear as if drifting in space

It’s all an illusion Donal said

Just then Catullus flashed a message 

Caesar is plotting a coup

He’s lost control of the Senate

His lost control of his mind

Says magnets in water lose magnetism

No. It’s his own magnetism has lost its power

His jokes fall flat he’s losing lawsuits

Sycophants surround him

Billionaires have bought off his court

They know he’s long been venal

Now they know he’s also senile

Those around him are in too deep

It’s sink or swim or climb out of the pool

Caesar is plotting a coup

Grifts like pardons for a fee keep going

Caesar gets greedier

Many have noticed his dementia

So many he can’t let them vote

Meanwhile the war goes on

Caesar is plotting a coup

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2026