Tell Me, Sir

A Work in Progress
148

 

What price beef sir?  How much does it cost?

What price diesel?  Do you know?

How many votes you’ve lost

 

What price a bribe sir?  How much would it cost?

We want the gods to return.  We want you to go.

 All we were destined for is lost

 

The longer you stay the more all will mistrust

Historians will marvel you lasted so long

It will take generations to undo all your wrongs

 

What price must we pay you to resign in office

Your glory intact although you’re delusional

Must we offer orifice assuage you with bodice

 

No.  We’ll trust voters will your Speaker delouse

Take back citizen control of the House

 

 

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2026

Great Bears

A Work in Progress
147

Ursae Ingentes have opposable thumbs

  Dexterous fingers incipient claws

    For picking fruit from bushes with their paws

Nails kept trimmed so as not to scratch but strum

  Guitar strings or play a trill or smooth out sheets

    Or peel off the boiled skin of purple beets

Turn pages of books their intellect plumbs

  Most intelligent of all the great apes

    Civilized opera-going in capes

Capable of violence throwing out the bums

  Able to ingest late breaking info

    Unable to strike a faraway pharaoh

Part of a mood that motivates common men

To defend their rights from billionaire conmen

Ursae ingentes learned to make weapons

  Ever more deadly that worked at long range

    Inexpensive weapons bought with loose change

Steerable by command by AI not ursae

  Or driven by audio or by keyboard commands

    From warriors meeting reality’s demands

A show created to cause great distraction

  Divert attention from the Epstein files

     Un-released footage measurable in miles

Corruption in plain sight by Trump and his cronies

  Ursae ingentes are flexing for a fight

    Rolling their shoulders their right against might

Will they fight if they feel their votes weren’t counted

Or end up on the wall where their heads are mounted

 

Dick Russell © Richard M. Russell

                       2026

Briseis and the Imagists
   Episode 4:  Briseis Suggests a Scenario

A Work in Progress
146

We’ll use a cast of animated characters 

We’ll make Caesar the big Dog

He won’t accept blame

He has no shame

(That’s Billy the Border Collie

Not our Dear Leader)

He lifts his leg wherever he wants

Though his aim is erratic

He’s an un-neutered male

Beware you females

He’ll have a minder 

A woman who dotes on him

She’ll let him run off leash

Call him back to accept his treats

Always ready and able with a suggested tweet

Nobody tells him it’s déclassé to read them

He has a lot of followers

All sniffing his butt

Running behind him as he runs around town

Marking his presence wherever he sniffs

The dogs in the pound will be the Senate

They’ll bark continuously and get tuned out

We’ll have everyone watching his attractive minder

Tugging at his leash 

Then letting him run free

She’s got her own vision of what’s good for the country

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                       2026