Briseis and the Imagists
    Episode 3:  Counter Coup

A Work in Progress
141

Glenn Hughes sketched out the plot:

We’ll set the action in Washington D.C.

A counter coup is being planned

Two gangs, no three, led by Cabinet members

Each claiming they are the most loyal to Caesar

Each seeing opportunity in his decline

Each fearful of losing power

Each aware he’s made them complicit

Only hubris can bring him down  

Then there are subplots involving embassies

The Gulf States are plotting

Israel does too

While Europe stands back 

Russia presses forward

Iran does too

How will we stage it?

That’s a very big cast

In IMAX at epic scale

Caesar would like that

We’ll show it to him

After our film finishes

He’ll want to stand on the stage

Basking in applause

He can influence the ending

Leaving the end unknown

Leading into the sequel we plan

Or even a series

We come to bury Caesar not to praise him

Briseis objected

He’s good box office 

Hughes responded

If we put it on YouTube

We can make it go viral

We can loop in Venezuela

Cuba too

We’ll start in Antwerp

Let him wear his gold ring

What’s the budget for this?

So many locations

We’ll crowdsource it

They’ll pay

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                       2026

Look North:
          A Curlew

A Work in Progress
140

A curlew cries     in the distance     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