At Sunset

while light fades memory

reminds me there once

was a dawn

when I kissed her

time touches erodes this 

beauty inspires me

twilight gleams

while light fades in the West

monks chant nuns pray

what once was written

takes me onward

one page a day

love’s debt still unpaid

overdue

an appropriate sum

sixpence I'll throw at the moon

copyright © Dick Russell

               2017

That day I met Sam Shepard

Four young Americans were stoned

from smoking a joint just before I

arrived at the end of the room about a

                 coffee table

Barbara Riddle husband Sam and wife

I should have pulled up a chair to

sit with them but by the wall

in a chair at a distance not close

as if I was an observer not a guest

                  after I left

I knew they all felt more comfortable

as I who had been invited

I could have sat on the floor

beneath them but they did not make room

peachie le nic lived in that same flat later

             with wife Claire

he gave Sam the key to let Heather in

to the top floor flat where we met

copyright © Dick Russell

                2017

                     Wheelhouse

from headphones in the wheelhouse

his mind awoke at a twenty-pound

salmon standing vertical on its tail

a moment twenty

dollars easy a pound at retail paying

for the fuel then the silvery sheen

of a seal twisting in air

to resume pursuit downriggers down

for a shallow troll he had been musing on

hand on her knee

how the West was won by covered wagons

jolting across endless prairie

one hand on the rein another

on her knee toll roads, railroads, fences

following them like wolves

invisible

now though seas are calm there’s a war unseen

against those who trespass out West

Dick Russell

copyright © 2017