For Glen Russell - Sign Painter and Wood Carver

There once was a yew tree felled by a storm 
its stumpy roots washed downstream by the flood
from the bank of the glen where it stood firm
till a carver found it looking for wood

who saw in it the shape of a dryad
he liberated so she would swim free
made a woman whose beauty struck all glad
breasting a swirling stream loosed from a tree

that had once shaded a sheltered rock pool
where his muse bathed naked giving delight
now an antique on top of a dresser
glowing with golden tones in the sunlight

time has settled in chiseled grooved ripples

dust's been wiped from bare shoulders neck and face

love tenderly touched her breasts' brown nipples

as she swims forever away with grace.


Richard M Russell (C) Dick Russell
            December 29, 2022

 A December Valentine

Upon you I’ve cast my roving eye
Let me summon the power to step across time 
Turn into a swan you’ll fly from and fall
Faint from a blow from my long neck
On a riverbank pinioned by wings
Just as Yeats described what Erato told him
About Zeus begetting Helen raping Leda 

A swan assaulted you?
You’ll have no proof you were touched
Except these words I’ve sent
You are as beautiful as they

Now long years older
I am still guilty of desire
Zeus is no excuse.

Richard M Russell © Dick Russell
                December, 2022

 Ode to Imagination

 
I’ll take your hand and we’ll dance plein air
through lush wide landscapes along a path
leading we know not where, nor do we care
for over the horizon our future waits

we'll reinvent ourselves
take new parts on stage not knowing the words
act the parts we chose

young lovers masked with clever disguise
made to look old except for their eyes
now hand in hand entering a garden

falling water glinting in sunlight
icicles sparkling on the fountain
frost on the cedars
two ravens calling

Richard M Russell (C) November 22nd. 2022

Lament

So let the piper make his drones lament

find the music for words best unsaid

that say she’s gone that say she’s dead

but she is not gone she is here instead

in my arms as we dance together

gazing into each other’s eyes

that time I stumbled with surprise

finding I’d suddenly realized

red faced stupid adolescent

what love is

and now I’ll cry 

and now I’ll grieve 

so let the piper start the drone’s lament

unsay those words that say she’s dead

let her music herald spring 

let her elope once more from Death

dance winter into spring 

with her young love

give birth to summer

let the piper raise our hearts and welcome in

another year another harvest to begin.

I’ll walk the path we trod before that led us through the woods

to where we crossed Chirdon Burn where it dropped two feet as it rushed 

on to the north fork of the river Tyne where we stepped over boulders

big standing firm against the stream that splits off the Cleugh right there

near Goat Linn where there’s a spring coming from Roughside 

with a two-gallon canister in each hand fetching water from a stream.

By Chirdon Burn I’ll wander where my love and I once walked

alone except for a birdwatcher’s hut by water’s edge where we talked.

And that was where she went no further for she wanted to go on from me

we’d passed a full-fledged tawny owl being mobbed by birds in a tree.

No, you can’t keep it, it’s wild, set it free She’d taken it anyway back to our bothy

from the drystone wall where she found it. We kept it and fed it and then it flew free.

From Allerybank we’d found her from Roughside near enough

was it her, songbirds were trying to kill in the valley of the Cleugh?

Leaves moving in time pluck melodies from the breeze 

she tamed wild birds and played with foxes

so let the piper make his drones lament

as he fingers notes for words best unsaid that say you’ve gone that say you’re dead

and gone and now I’ll cry and now I’ll grieve walking the path we walked instead

Richard M Russell © Dick Russell

      August 2022

The Spring

he practices casting words as feet
that will adhere
to meaning
catch a trout
catch the fame he seeks

 

what he writes now
he hopes will stay
if only clinging like lichen to rock
by that spring where she bent to hold a pail
right beside a blackbird’s nest
the blackbird did not move

 

there are many springs but none like Brard
not far from Merwin's place unless maybe Roughside's
an outcrop piercing the moor in the sloping hillside
above a stream they called the Cleugh which rhymes with rough
where grass grew thickly and curlews cried 

 

each step down the hillside strengthened entrancement
for a gaunt tree stood alone among deer cropped grasses
clansmen raiding the Bower assembled here
to besiege Dally Castle in the stone tower days 
and spirits haunt that place. 


Richard M Russell (C) Dick Russell
                      August 2022

 Near Lagos

morning's sun dappled cat
comes to the lagoon to lap 
an illusion
your muse
her voice shivers like a flute
her call
A
O
bass clef and treble clef of existence
trees breathe freely
canoes slowly pass
nearby   a village
only to go to
never to be from
at lagoon's edge
thoughts like mangroves bush

 

Richard M Russell © Dick Russell 
2013, 2022

 Walking from Roughside

Atop the crags over abandoned quarry shafts
with a view towards Smales a stone farmhouse further
a short-eared owl swooping to stop further approach
towards owlets out of their nest on Roughside moor.
Near Toddy’s Rigg overlooking the Cleugh below
poor moorland grazing fit only for a few sheep
but pasture for cows in a field near the Bower.
Everywhere open to wide skies conifers only knee high
Plantations newly plowed would one day hide the sky.
Descending the steep slope to the banks of the Cleugh
on sunny days though grass was dry to lie upon
its roots were damp with dew if your fingers felt there
sound didn’t carry once you stepped over the edge
down among memories of what happened before
towards a gnarled and stunted leafless tree bereft
by the banks of a stream running through a ravine
past an untended spring aware only of silence

Richard M Russell (C) Dick Russell
                  August 15, 2022

 A Valentine In August

I’d like to dance with you right now
awhirl you in my arms 
do the dance we did so well
hug you ever closer
the dance we did before
I’d like to dance with you right now
and hug you ever closer
though you would not feel the swell
we’d dance in step together
never far apart
closer than we’ve ever been
not pricked or poked apart
just dancing in my arms again
along with this refrain
there’s no tool like an old fool
if you raise your leg to the bar


Richard M Russell © Dick Russell
                  August 2022

 Song

I’m open to 
being friends again 
if you want 

I don’t mind if
we continue war
if you can’t
I shan’t mind it
out-living you, no
Sis I shan’t
I shan’t mind it
you can stomp my grave
all you want


Richard M Russell © Dick Russell
                    July 26, 2022

 Threads

Were I to dance on the fabric of fate?
flimsy stuff made of far future threads
threads into time which arrive too late
because another executed instead. 

Were I to fall into entanglements far below?
question connections
interrogations 
situations
none could follow.
Were I to find a way in through the way out?
sure she gave me a thread 
I used my brain instead
came out by a back door 
burdened with clout.
For I’d met a monster on the inside
I’d had to slay because it was in the play
where I needed to come out
victorious, or there’d be no 
upside.
Were I to learn to live with cells grown old?
could they be refreshed given more time?
What else should I to ponder as I strain to hold
a kettle to the kitchen tap
then let it overload 

and splash


Richard M. Russell © Dick Russell
                          July 23, 2022

 The Ides of July

It was autumn when 
summer faded into spring
we missed a hard winter
the ground was still hard
good to trudge more topsoil to the beds
past early blueberries about to flower
down to the raspberry canes
and big raised beds for cucumbers 
that need manure
then parsnips for the winter roasts
it used to be April now it’s March
when the first daffodils drooped
their beauty spent
mountain beavers moved their burrow
to another neighbor’s land
and now the year has turned again
we can see the end of summer

Richard M Russell © Dick Russell
            July 15, 2022

 Midsummer

crops all sown

seeds all started

shadows leave no marks

Summer pauses 

after a six-month climb

it’s seven at night and the sun’s still high

there are finches feeding on firm shiny kale

leaving leaves punctured like a colander

after eight and a robin’s still singing

an osprey fishes Brown’s Bay

nine at night you can write without light

planning tomorrow

first peas culled for a salad 

strawberries again

some starts aborted 

new ones started 

Donal kicked his slippers off

staggered on bare feet

swiveled swaggered high stepped side stepped

celebrated with the Street

Midsummer’s come 

uncertain starlight

silhouettes treetops swaying 

while the moon remembers its way

July 1st 2022

Richard M Russell © Dick Russell

 Poem for Joanna

how can i tell of my silence      with words?

(a radio telescope

a gaunt contraption of sheds

& very many grids of cable  

     imagine a telescope dish

the diameter of the earth

imagine probing the furthest areas of the universe)

energy

as in quasars        suns         within molecules

& my sun !

my ENERGY

bursts

a crescendo

       is a quasar

a thing of legend

but quietly goes the air

my breath

my strokes of hand

mushrooms in dank places

lightened by dawn

Joanna has never heard the sonic hiss

there is a smell of breakfast

a stream leaping down stones

which among the grasses

is the ancient one...?

keeper of grass legend

or among water

which drop?

Joanna

      your legs are beautifully long

      but you are too big for Rodin...

come at me...

i say you are too big

but Rodin is dead anyhow

perhaps of lesser legged women

(i talk thus when i am tired

     or i am enigmatic...

        later I will try to find heron imagery

my verse will walk on stilts

my arm on white stains black

i write my blackness with light

were i no poet

an astronomer i'd be

& I would hunt

the quark

Dick Russell

                                        First published in Wolfprints, 1971

 At Sunset

There's work 

and then there's

poetry

There's work to make a home

takes daylight labor to please household gods

When birds sing at sunset

Persephone is near

She drives the fuse that impels pea flowers

ever higher

As dusk falls and bedtime slippers hit the floor

Athena's owl hunts in long shadows from the sun

Refreshed memories rekindle feeling

Fast fading fiery ribbons cloud the sky

weighed down by descending night

Twilight lingers longer a few days more

bathing in the fragrance of cool evening scents

then Summer will be here

and Spring

will fade away

again.

  Dick Russell

       (C) 

June 19th 2022

 

For Jean Jennings Bartik*

Knowledge is just a can of beans

or a bottle of vintage wine

or a London taxi-driver’s knowledge

or anything that can be described

and poetry’s just another kind of code

written in language most understand

enjoying rhythmic ambiguity

iambic meter often in demand

you wouldn’t use a poem to drive a machine

that understands only tens complement arithmetic

and Boolean algebra

proceeding step-wise with constant increment

yet the idea of what a machine can do is part of the poem 

unscrolling through time

from standing stones to rolling wheels

flying

while it’s hard to compute philosophy

which curves in time haphazardly

not like simply counting beans

the art in it is to code it well

*(who programmed the ENIAC, first US electronic computer, and was a senior editor at Auerbach Publishers, a loose-leaf subscription service, where I worked before moving to Minnesota to join Cray Research, Inc. in 1976)

Richard M Russell © Dick Russell

May 4th 2022, 2023

 

On The Beach

They lay long side to their love
              sand       an elbow hard in the rib
                      sea soft and vulnerable

they clutched and twined fingers
            easing the pain    tell of the time
                      when lovers lay in the sand

memory tells him he counted from ten
            wind graining abacusand
                      the sand has subtracted since then

if they were children
           they both might have cried
                    their child-like castles built in the sand

for sea swollen waves met and crashed
          and they drowned with their hopes
                    as they lay in the splash

©  Dick Russell, 2012

Poem of the Moon

by Po-Chu Yi

 

           On Patrol

time intensifies fear present danger
such moments magnify mentality
he    armed    potent    watchful    looking left

then right  then straight ahead   then higher

to riverbank   lower to shrubs    on patrol

with resolute if hesitant tread when

any moment now a mine might explode

bullets might fly     brave comrades fall dead

she patrols   glancing ahead    expectant

apprehensive   awake to all danger

walking from work    through familiar streets
through dusk’s dim light soldier spouse  
                                                         separate

he patrols with measured courageous tread

while she may soon learn she’s widowèd

                                                       © Dick Russell, 2014, 2018

 

Donal Goes Ahead

for intelligence

among factoids

fragments of humanity

real and digital

ahead will be monsters

classical contemporary 

learned from literature deep in archives

where Indo-European monsters were once described

thunder will roll and rain will slash tents

in the forests of Gaul

waiting at the meeting stone

it will be called hereafter

where humanity awaits Caesar’s approach

marching through Gaul

laying waste

to all

where humanity arms itself with javelins

has sharp pointed probes 

insufficient to slay cyber hounds

to slay cyber hounds

greater intelligence is needed

so Donal goes ahead

copyright © Dick Russell

                2018

 Daffodils In Ice

Frost, moon, snow - silent fall, soul musical

Christ's hand, outstretched to bless,

sheds silver over all.

His scars, his ring - his marriage band

are daffodils in ice.

Sister Mary Agnes, 1972

 

Turning Point

 

There’s a point where you set your course
   with a compass rose and turn a corner

reach for a long last leg of your journey

   hoping a favorable wind will blow

you’ll make it through winter into spring

   then succumb to sudden frost snow falling

on daffodil stems succulent still

   though chilled erect while drooping wet

you’ll come ashore in time for cherries

   strawberries blueberries beans

when winter’s done summer will come

   even though a blizzard blow and sudden snow

Dick Russell

copyright (C) 2019, 2022

Four Sonnets for the Price of None

Four Sonnets for the Price of None

When I’m too old to toil too young to die

I’ll write some lines while my brain’s still spry

Not say in English gone fishing but Greek

A private joke only scholars find wry

 

Sing to me muses in tongues I can’t speak

Tone poems in languages I can’t name

Crystallize images happy or bleak

So my words can attribute blame or fame

 

Translate your meaning so I get your drift

Let me hear your music framing your chords

Picture your meaning in words I can shift

into metrical patterns weaving your words

 

Sing to me muse with voice universal

Each time I recite without rehearsal

 

Tell me some tales you never told before

Tell what the future may take from its store

To challenge every species to find

a way forward preserving its own kind

 

From one day’s generation to the next

sunrise to sunset moonrise to moonset

high tide low tide morning and evening

never knowing what the future may bring

 

Some more sentient others much more dumb

some with levity cavalier hamstrung

by prejudice innate humor heartless

original sin anything worthless

 

Sing to me muse with voice universal

Each time I recite without rehearsal

 

Now make me bolder now make me stronger

Let me be ready to face a danger

No more will they swarm ashore from longboats

Swing axes instead cyber taunts they’ll boast

 

That some will heed and flock to their standard

While others will know they still attack hard

With bitter messages sweetened but deadly still

Crippling minds with hate for which there’s no pill

 

And all along coal trains keep going by

Are there contracts that say we must supply

Wyoming coal to our friends in China

Whose cyber spies bug our candelabra?

 

Sing to me muse with voice universal

Each time I recite without rehearsal

 

Let me project my voice through time

Never let me struggle to find a rhyme

Or fill a line with requisite meter

Choosing my own form from time to time

 

Trampling iambic feet with anapests

Spontaneously spiking a spondee

Into the dactyl hexameter drone

And making it squeak with dubbed track of glee

 

Canned laughter cued on demand by a script

Written in the latest language fashion

Launched to the cloud from nondescript notebooks

Noticed by no one except by the swarm

 

Sing to me muse with voice universal

Each time I recite without rehearsal

Richard M. (Dick) Russell 

© January 2022