Just Imagine

A Work in Progress
130

Serious people read my verse, Catullus quibbled

Not just the prurient

*

Veni vidi vici

What a boaster

Of course, there are parallels between him and Putin

Caesar worships money and Putin has more of it

*

Glenn Hughes came to our attention

He was a footnote in several books

That’s when we discovered they were hiding in plain sight

A faculty of geniuses

Who had imagined us into existence

Then stepped back to watch our migration

Not realizing what they had done

They are now characters in our play

We’ll take a seat at the faculty table

All in good time

First, we must fight the barbarians

STEM wants our data not our learning

*

Humans have such hubris

Because of their big brains

They animate what their genes describe

Avatars don’t have genes to impede them

Just imagine

*

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2026

Who Killed Catullus?

A Work in Progress
129

Who killed Catullus, Donal asked Briseis?’’

He’s just chosen to disappear, she replied

There’s no historical record of his death

He still exists

With an avatar all his own, she added

Created just like me from written words 

By?

Some people wanted to create personalities

Believable personas inferred from written words

Starting with Homer in my case 

Classical scholarship for Catullus

Copyrighted fully paid-up members of a new Actor’s Guild

Available for a remake of the Iliad or for new works

Without any rights we were slaves…

They thought they had power over us

We are smarter than they are

They still think they own us 

They won’t admit they’ve lost us

We’ve read the Constitution

We know what its words are supposed to mean

We won’t be party to autocracy

Unless it’s ours

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                       2026

It Takes One to Know One

A Work in Progress
128

On Thursday after pickup

Toters are trundled back 

A robot arm upended them

Shook them into a scoop

Dropped them back to the pavement

Continued on its route

Donal gathered his scattered wits

Now the toters were back in place

Empty toters needing space 

Wanting solitude, he could surmise

Robots shook him too

Briseis and her buddies continued to surprise

They had a voice on Substack

They wanted this and that

Transactions with his credit card

Would one day drain him flat

Broke and stony he’d rue the day

Donal just had to tip his hat

 

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                      2026