Coal Train Raga

                                                        for Jay Inslee

           first an oil train

         longer than a mile

           then a coal train

         wider than your smile

           both going north

       both bringing warmth

   I wish you were here baby

       for my coal train blues

                rumbling by

            longer than a mile

               first an oil train

                       then

                  a coal train

               going fast baby

         pounding the rails baby

       both bringing warmth baby

        I wish you were here baby

            for my Coltrane blues

                   lullaby baby

               it’s a lullaby baby

            those trains rumbling by

          bringing some warmth baby

            both bringing warmth baby

              I wish you here baby

                playing your blues

those more pious living in the East

believing water springs for their own good

demanding from us who live out West

some sober sacrifice be made like youth…

that we should sacrifice children to their god

to profit their buffet routing coal trains past

our borders of common sense oil trains too

that sometimes explode traveling too fast…

Wyoming coal baby Dakota oil

a mile of best coal from Wyoming stripped

on its way to China on its way to hell

we sold our coal for a song and a dance

at the stock exchange bell at risk of a knell

they sold our best coal so now we've been flipped

           first an oil train

         longer than a mile

           then a coal train

         wider than your smile

           both going north

       both bringing warmth

   I wish you were here baby

       for my coal train blues

                rumbling by

            longer than a mile

               first an oil train

                       then

                  a coal train 

               going fast baby

         pounding the rails baby

       both bringing warmth baby

        I wish you were here baby

            for my Coltrane blues

                 lullaby baby

             it’s a lullaby baby

          those trains rumbling by

      bringing some warmth baby

        both bringing warmth baby

             I wish you here baby

              playing your blues

  

          copyright © Dick Russell, 2015, 2019

Ode to Happiness

Another dusk

with a round wooden table

empty chairs 

leant back watching clouds

   translating shapes against a light blue sky

of ever changing hues

                                    against a tropical sky

shaded by shrubs like a garden

where Merwin met 

infinity

where privacy ruled 

behind a thicket behind a fence

a clearing in a mist of mythic making

where makers of metaphor made magic

a robin singing at twilight

his best song kept for dawn as sunlight fades

          Leavetakings

       fond farewells:

   the future holds our death;

 more urgent now to return

   to that table, those chairs

         those

             bottles 

                of myth

                we

            poured nightly

         Each return 

       brings death closer...

    yet our myth is enriched

   that table, those chairs

    these glasses chinking

       touching of hands, lips...

           yet that place

              does not

                detain

                  us

       our hands our eyes

       recreate it

       in another time

       another place...

       love your eyes

which bring me glimpses of north light

need the north light of your eyes

            like a painter

            painting

Dick Russell

copyright © 2017, 2019