For a Spiral Bound Note Book

putting pen to paper   then

      pulling pages from a pad

            isn't easy

when the perforation is more for show

            than utility

this page clung to its stub

      like an infant to its mother

            an archetypal image

                  of an immortal

                        poised on a stepping stone

                              a stream in spate

      while her infant child

            still at suck

                  slipped    slid    from her breast

                  &

            pipes played

            nymphs sang

            muses inspired

            a child was weaned

    so now these words separate

    themselves from their author

    go out into the world on their own

                                    © Dick Russell, 2013

                        While Washing Windows

When Donnelly worked as a window cleaner

equipped with a bucket and a bag of rags

he'd work awhile then stop and ponder

streaks on the glass that were drying fast

Window cleaning     work all poets should try

so many moments of calm to savor

visions of an innermost eye

As once when a stranger to her darkened room

he watched her brow touch the pane

against the streetlight's glow

Remembering how her silhouette

pressed sodium yellow to the brain

he'd squeeze his sponge for another wipe

then start to work again

                                         © Dick Russell, 2013

                The Surgeon’s Lament

                    Like a knife against a sharpener's stone

                    my presence wears on her abrasively

                    sharp from her disdain    I'm yet a dull bone

                    for her dog    she scorns me derisively

                    and now she tells me   for her   I've grown old

                    she means I'm boring    I don't turn her on

                    she means   I’m sure    she's found others less cold

                    I was always left hot from her friction

                    I doubt she kens her keen impact on me

                    surely she must   for she's kept all my gifts

                    unwrapped    unread   one day those books will free

                    her from grief    the facts    how to get face lifts

                    So I'm a love-sick serious surgeon

                    if only her nose had not led me on

                © Dick Russell, 2013

                          Lilac Time                                      

                                            for John Berryman

Lilac time has come and gone
campanulas are over
bumble bees work summer flowers
no honey bees this year
fuchsia fronds on slender stems
cascading greens and browns
daubed with crimson
a hummingbird at sip
 
Lilac time is Berryman time
who wrote so he would survive
from one day to the next
but did not survive
cheerful projections he made
predicting
his own demise

he died one January day in Minnesota 
a most serious month 
no lilac found in his hand
no bees to bury that man

lilac time has come and gone
campanulas are over

                   ii

so we      who chose to combat life

are we any less than they?

who threw their lives away

thinking it hopeless

lilac time will come again

campanulas too

of course he died one January day

a most serious month

three years before Microsoft was founded

when lilacs could not be seen in winter

even in digital dreams

just picture books and paintings

and color TV

                                    & said Mr. Bones

                                    don't forget The Movies

                                     © Dick Russell, 2013, 2016, 2018