When Poetry Doesn’t Pay
A Work in Progress
131
They all had good reason to dislike him
Briseis because of E. Jean Carroll
Aldington because he despised liars
Ezra because ignorance affronted him
Glenn Hughes because his movie was canceled
Babette because she hated outright boors
Catullus because he just had enough of Caesar
Donal because he wasn’t getting paid
Sitting on the steps of Denny Hall
Unemployed, destitute, his stock in free fall
Ever more fraught getting cash advances
Becoming a burden to friends’ sidelong glances
Essentially homeless at no fixed abode
Already in character wherever he strode
Sitting outside a hall of learning
Self-taught, unhoused, hungry and yearning
Still with an eye on what could come next
Awaiting a turn in the author’s text
Confident a hero is loved by the gods
Donal was ingested into digital pods
Deployed to the front lines Donal found purpose
Just like Aldington he was no longer surplus
Poetry spoken from the nosecone of a drone
Donal clones signed sent on missions alone
With no formal degree snubbed by the academy
An itinerant rhapsode making rhapsody
Summoned for house calls by click-speaking mice
Squeaking cleanly via high-speed fiber optics
Launched from trenches full of lice and ticks
By warriors targeting the most valued picks
There’s something that happens when eye to eye
Two people with mutual respect don’t lie
Dick Russell © Richard M Russell
2026
