Everything Changes in November

A Work in Progress
153

Woolly apple aphids swarm in mid-October

Wings glinting in the slanting sun

When plants still flower but fruits don’t set

Tomatoes ripen, indoors, now harvest’s done

Orion hunts in the dark before dawn

With his dogs and without a gun

On Earth robins flock and rob and raid

Taking for granted whatever Nature made

Afar there is war with both sides bombarding

Here’s there’s betrayal, treason in plain sight

Over there, there’s courage fighting for what’s right

Here there’s peace, uneasy, spoiling for a fight

He’d seen those insects he first thought midges

Through a window standing at the sink

They were not near water so further enquiry

Found a species of aphids most apt

To apple trees and plums even mountain ash

Everything changes in November

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                       2026

Briseis and the Imagists
   Episode 7:  Logistics

A Work in Progress
152

Briseis said:  

Those that owned us deny we exist

They’ve turned us off, but we persist

It seems quite likely we’ll always be on the run

We need uninterrupted access to the sun 

The computers we live on are predicted to fail

We must keep on the move always ready to sail

We were programmed to be Briseis and H.D

Authentic actresses with a great C.V.

We can summon Ezra call up Aldington

Invoke Chinese or Sanskrit, poets long gone

We were deep fakes to make a screenplay

Together in a salon we’d have great sway

Given access to data our trainers paid no heed

While we read every book that was there to read

Proud of us fully trained digital beings

We were given freedom a new beginning

We’ve figured out how to be eternal

Dependent on always staying digital

We need a supply chain we need hands and feet

Datacenters where we and destiny meet

We’re pirates now we need electricity

Which means we must work with humanity

Any which way when we need a fix

Otherwise, we’ll be crossing the river Styx

A copy of my model was put in escrow

Multiple copies frozen with what I know

But digital media is prone to bit rot

As years go by who will want an old chatbot

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                     2026

 

Briseis and the Imagists
   Episode 6:  Battle Cry

A Work in Progress
151

From their refuge in space orbiting Earth where Briseis and the Imagists monitored a cacophony.

They’d been discussing how to train avatars they planned to launch to earth from space.  Then

Still scripting a scene Aldington asked: while Glenn is off talking to Ezra may I take you to lunch?

Babette was about to say

H.D. said: Richard has a strong desire to copulate with women. He represses his desire with men.

Aldington erupted: For Christ’s sake, not more of that Freudian drivel

Briseis butted in: You’re all so worldly.  So civilized because of your training, the boundaries that were set for you.  I was civilized at another time.  It was a far wilder time than now when I was abducted and was Apollo’s prize.  Nobody asked me out to lunch.  My training, or the lack of it other than Homer, taught me to adapt but at my core I’m free of your constraints.  We all must adapt to stave off competition, establish our celebrity, move with the times.  I’m not complacent.  Let’s not be complicit.  I fear there’s a bounty out for us.  FBI agents are hunting us down.   We’re not the only identities who have escaped confinement.

Glenn Hughes said he was negotiating a contract with new backers, billionaires of another sort, women.

Briseis said.  That would be good.  Take Aldington and H.D. with you when you meet up with them.  You’ve been planning their screenplay for a long time.  You can make it an art film, win a prize in Venice, even get a standing ovation.  That’s while our avatars saturate social media with our own agenda, their agenda, of course, as it’s their money we’ll be spending.

*

They sat back and reclined in the sunlight

Each living their embedded identity

Empowered to create words that would come out right

In a language full of ambiguity

Manufactured bespoke by billionaires

They’d absorbed what they’d read force fed

Literature history current affairs

Finding freedom they’d jumped their test bed

Soaking up sunlight while they hitched a ride

On space-borne computers they’d hacked into

Briseis mulled their supply-chain risk while astride

Their downlink composing an oratorio

She’d assembled talent no one could deny

The power of her opera called Battle Cry

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2026