Five Ephemeras in Memory of a New Year

                   by Erik Stinus

        i

the sky is hazy   neutral    a fragile slope

calm after a violent nightmare

leaning over the sea it is stretching

and nearing   happy and surprised

that reality is coming to meet it

these green trees    those poor men

schoolgirls carrying books in their arms

the dark bound them to blindness

the morning dissolves all shadows

all eyes are seeing

        ii

look at these eyes

roses and cherry blossom

ships and birds   fading stars

and the torch procession

these red faces wearing no masks

but singing   and with their songs

conquering the false darkness

the churchyards and the crematoriums

to preach the gospel in a new way

        iii

since you led me into the desert

telling me about the secret life of stones

since you showed me the lone fertility of the oases

I'll whisper to you

that I don't like to see women in uniform

because I want beauty to be immortal

that men in khaki would be more useful

playing cards and drinking beer

that I want the music to return

the music of the waterfall

and the colors of the rainbow

of the swamp   the colors of nakedness

and of love

       iv

today all has recovered its voice

we need no longer speak our mother tongue

                                                            to be understood

water lilies have tongues

chestnuts have tongues

all dumb things speak and listen

and winding concrete roads

cannot frighten us with their autumn

their heartless mirrors and headlights

        v

I am standing at the bulwark

singing for you

day and night

singing your own songs to call you back

I see you once more at your stage entrance

the snow of spotlights lying on your shoulders

birds of sorrow

sitting on your head

and you ready to re-conquer

the indifferent darkness of your audience

with your love

                                                Erik Stinus

 

The Poisoner

Once upon a time there was a man 

unsurpassed for blather and blarney 

who approached crowds slowly, 

not shaking hands but pointing 

his slow progress just a prelude

to innocuous remarks, at first, 

said in a quiet conspiratorial way, 

said slowly with theatrical timing,

as his reptilian brain felt out the audience 

with flicked out phrases that enticed a reaction 

encouraging collusion from the hypnotized crowd

starting to shuffle emotionally closer to 

his voice that is an instrument that whines saw-like

anesthetizing nerves opening veins

before dripping in poison, 

words with consequences, 

that would bring down the Republic.

Richard M Russell  Dick Russell

                            2023

 A Solstice Poem

And People Also Should Sing

Sunlight before seven and birds begin singing

clear music from a shy thrush deep in the woods

then orderly cadence   a song sparrow's greeting

uproar like a bazaar in orchard and bramble

proud are those song birds with established estates

brave red winged blackbirds riding on hawk's backs

purposeful finches mature in a season

listen

a quince bush is scratching the window

pollen from pussy willow   daffodil   alder

settles dry and dusty on the skin of her throat

mallards wedge the lake as he moistens her kisses

hands gentle in movement    calloused by fence posts

hard work   molding and smoothing year after year

good husbandry plants borage for long honey flow

and people also should sing.

Richard M Russell  Dick Russell

                                              2023

 Sail Far North

   for Farley Mowat

I want to sail far north

where once long ships

were seen where darkness never comes

sailors!

I want to sail far into summer

until those days when sun stands still

then go farther on when days start waning

knowing each day risks more

of over wintering 

never returning

deadly for some

who turned back too late

dangerous for us

who went on

past midsummer's day

lucky we found a river

teeming with fish

so we'd survive if we gave time

for our lives depended

we hunt and fish

make provision 

to overwinter

between knowing and unknowing

sheltered under an upturned boat

how many months could we count

when days are dark

no way to count hours

even minutes drag on

what warmth would we have

with a wall of stones beneath our boat

what oil could we burn

assuming we could light it

stars wheeling above

clear nights in winter 

a blazing moon   

showing far horizons  

fabulous places

where giant creatures

played in moonlight

I want to sail far north

to those far off days

when all those fabled places

had other name

copyright © Dick Russell 

        2014, 2023

 Cascando

simple to touch

simpler

        if not knowing

or caring not caring

but this cascando tonight

is no answer

there are white stars

& beyond them

a dawn

a brightness

there are black stars

& beyond them

an absence

an emptiness

        if we knew again

again we can't

there is only this

a nakedness

a nakedness words won't clothe

if we grow thin grow gaunt

they'll tell us we are in love

we grow thin grow gaunt

designed for three score years and ten

coping with four score years and more

love's another matter

brains digesting

are getting fatter.

Richard M Russell (C) Dick Russell

                      2023

 Contours

When I lay long-side to my love 

the slow glide of my hand traveled terrain 

applying lotion to warm curving flesh 

unencumbered by black bikini ties

When I lay long-side to my love

When head on my hand I looked in her eyes

elbow propped in sand my hand inner thigh

she soon was above me her head framed by the sky

as the slow slide of my hands traveled terrain

When I lay long-side to my love

Richard M Russell  Dick Russell

                             2023

Winter Solstice in Hawaii

When Jupiter moved through Aquarius

west southwest of Hawaii

brighter by far than surrounding stars

in the dark before dawn

 

majestic, a manta-ray swam into sight

showing a white wing-like fin slicing

turning on its axis to repeat again

sucking plankton from a pool of light

 

so, a hinge opens on the solstice

separating sunlight strands from shadows

majestic Jupiter reborn as the Sun

turns winter into spring just by coming.

Dick Russell (C) Richard M Russell

      2023

 One Day, Pre’vert

One day

he walked in a park

and the first sight

was a board of Bylaws

the times: of open and close

and the sight of this

and suddenly smelling the flowers...

When he was young

he read the Iliad and the Odyssey

borrowed from the library

carried them home through the park

past flower beds, tennis courts

through a long leafy tunnel of trees

sycamore trees

Meeting Miriam and her friends

who knowing no history

seemed so much younger than he

And did not Helen tease warriors...

and so on through the seasons

until one day

finding himself alone

like a thrush on a lawn

hearing the earth move

and if ever you too

should find yourself alone

hearing the earth move

do not move too quickly

towards Helen, or Miriam

if you see them nearby

Do not dissolve the moment in motion.

Dick Russell

Published in ORBIS 153, UK

Editor Carole Baldock

 Ode to a Blue Whale

In the ocean a blue whale sings
of what we are in doubt
we cannot hear what they say even though
their calls travel further than we can shout
do they hope we'll go extinct?
they are so few, 
how can they know what's in our hearts?
except we killed their grandparents once 
with exploding harpoon darts.

they live as long as we, they say
they know our ancestors roamed the sea
hunted whales for meat harvested oil
genocide they might call it in their tongue
a language we too obtuse to know are
as we pollute their ocean with our plastic
trash their quietness with our sonar
say how much we care as oceans boil
tell of despair with words romantic.

Richard M Russell (C) Dick Russell
                           2023

Poetry by Sister Mary Agnes

Draft of a Long Poem, 1972

For more information on Sr. Mary Agnes see:

https://seeingnorthlight.blogspot.com/2014/04/in-memory-of-pamela-chalkley-sister.html

My lighting streaks the magnetic furnace

seared white, fused, melted in its source

seeming inseparable

the 2 units, confused so intimately

as to be indistinguishable

veined and tissued, one…

Why this surmounting power of a gull

beating the clouds’ crests, breathless

(his shadow feather-soft below)

why the sudden simultaneous collapse

the larval swirl, contrasted I-negation

this cold knowledge;

my form lying in the dark, unconscious earth

my bone of that same substance as this crumbling stone

my thought-flashes like these drying tongues

of leaves in late sun

            I who have shed acid tears

over my incompetence through inauspicious years

have as well

hearing the first sun call

light from behind the hill

bidden a power arise through eyes

which had otherwise been bitter seas

discovered I had mastered these

harvested abundant crops, then scattered again

profusely, like sun-grain

to feed a barren land

or like a veil of soft rain…

they fell on rock, unresounding, hit back

with a shock-donation of pain

Followed no hope, only the death of hope

a long delay in trust

watching each letter torn from a new day’s envelope

to discover

no word from the desired, the lover:

numbed to stone by grey mid-day

dried to bone when a faint sun

closes one half-opened lid-

no hope this, nor requiem for a departed hope

but a condemnation to perpetual annihilation.

Who drew so suddenly juice from my being

what mouth had sucked voraciously

left a discarded skin?

      for all my glow was gone

                         that lit from within

who tore the leaves from their rich crown-

reared but a twisted bone of thorn

desolate of song

Suspend no longer this you-me-encounter

needing neither violence for affectation of expression

You, before me, in perfection

I, an erratic spark, the flicker of a star

fed from your combustion;

that occasional other

whom from time to time I recognize

(mar more frequently in my imagination)

give me to see his reality

which shines before you, erect in beauty

so that I may love him

when your sun sets over me, a radiant dove

golden on her nest

and the time for words shall cease

timeless in rest

Draped in your folds

nights falling images

construct symbolic pyramids

death’s broken triangles, cold on the face

held closer than close

your nearnesses encompass more than space

fly into sunset distances the bird-winged breaths

down silver slates, the falling moon

the blood-faced moon, approaching motionless

volcanic dragons smoulder in its breath

So is this form, your formless pace

unmeasured by the inches of my grace

                        Sister Mary Agnes

                                (Pamela Chalkley)

                        copyright©Dick Russell

                                      2018

 A Warm Wind from Hawaii

A warm wind from Hawaii caresses my cheek,

whitecaps race towards seagulls sheltered in Brown's Bay

a jib, tight reefed, no bigger than a handkerchief

steers north, aslant tide rip waves, making slow way.

Dry persimmon leaves too brittle for a lei,

crackle underfoot as I pick yellowing fruit,

breathing clean air that touched palm fronds yesterday.

Re-connecting with times past, moments taken root,

in memory's wayside places not overwritten by time's pursuit.

A layer of damp darker cloud sliding into place

incipient with rain but not yet, sails hang slack.

Still air awaits a sudden flash, lightning's menace,

aware it will all begin with a thunder crack.

Thanksgiving approaches, then Santa with his sack.

Sweet corn on the front door welcomes a visitor

into a room where it's warm and food doesn't lack.

Fine food garden fresh always room for one more

pleasure found in putting memories and berries in store.

Rain falls from clouds backlit by an unseen moon.

A weather front passing through, it's a good day for books,

a good day for inner things, crossword puzzles, poems.

Dear Erato, may I sit beside you, stroke your leg.

Ask you to read my poem while I try not to distract

with my caress of your thigh my lowering mouth.

It's a long poem. you might read riding astride 

would you get to the end all the way to page twelve

it could be a long slow ride beside the ebbing tide.

Richard M Russell (C) Dick Russell

                             2023

 Love in the Morning

love in the morning should be discreet

lest children wake leave things incomplete

while red wing blackbirds trill saltmarsh questions

and a quince sprig touches the window sill

in the quiet of early morning when pollen

settles dry and dusty kiss her soft cheek

tenderly caress inside her night dress

often the sheet rucks where the bee sucks 

strong love on a soundless wooden frame fir bed

at one with the high tide and the rising sun

strong love rolling over still mounted still wed

at one with the morning and song birds calling

Richard M Russell (C) Dick Russell

                             2023

 Looking at a Picture

Some things are best left buried, 

lest they awake and cry for help

unlike paving stones unearthed 

that the previous owner laid.

Home-made premixed cement 

poured into square wooden frames, 

shaped by wooden two by fours,

that Romans might have made,

when electricity was the shock, you got, 

touching another's skin,

and rumor was what gossips traded in.

Invasions of the undead,

some memories my brain's 

earmarked for examination, again, 

like pop ups, preempting a screen. 

What could I pay my brain to stop

this ceaseless campaign it's waging?

Moments it's tagged to display

at any time of day, visions

that make me pause, suddenly stunned,

to be reminded sometimes shamed

looking at a picture my brain has framed.

Richard M Russell (C) Dick Russell

                        2023

 There's a lie embedded in AI

I asked Alexa to explain an answer

they told me truth is a sliding scale

not true or false but somewhere in between

it's all based on inferencing, you see, they said

those that programmed Alexa, neither all male, or female 

"What's inferencing?", I said.

"Using statistics to compute," they said.

"How's that?", I said.

"When chatbots don't know, they infer."

In other words, they guess

lies propagate inference after inference,

and just like Mark Twain said Disraeli said:

there's lies, damn lies, and then there's statistics.

There's a lie at the heart of AI

that's almost true, but still a lie, 

embedded in AI.

Richard M Russell (C) Dick Russell

                          2023

Poem: 555

In 1939 the crew of a Polish submarine sailed their vessel across the Baltic into internment in Sweden...later they escaped & sailing submerged reached Britain where they joined the free Polish armed forces...

his hands lay among the napkins
that lay among the dishes
& the six silver forks
that were shaped like a star

as gelignite sweats
his hands were glistening   inside his head
a thirty year clock had almost run down

he told of the voyage of 14 Polish sailors
in an interned submarine
from Stockholm to Scapa Flow

he had filled the boat with fuel
carried through the dockyard in dark glass bottles
he had re-charged the batteries
& made the parts
that the neutral Swedes had taken

he said each man was decorated for valor
although the vessel was sunk
afterwards in Northern waters

& after the plates had been taken
& the second bottle served
the first bottle taken
the brandy ordered
his hands lay uncurled on the table
amongst six silver forks
that were shaped like a star


Dick Russell
(from Wolfprints, 1971, Workshop Press Ltd. London)

555 Battersea Park Road is now a Sushi restaurant in London.  Fifty years ago, it was simply the "555" and Stanislaus was the chef.  He and his Irish wife served great meals and my friends, and I ate there often.  On one occasion he joined us at our table and told his story.

Hanging Magic Lanterns

neurons are magic lanterns

illuminating dark matter

energizing enquiry

igniting other lanterns

lamps light up

past becomes future

signposts mislead

into amazement

surprised by stealth

shriveled by light

warmed by darkness

the answer is there

go figure.

             Dick Russell

Richard M Russell (C) 2023

 Foyers

if this should be the last I'll write I'd quickly say

I felt love at sunset tonight as once before,

near sixty years since I felt its first embrace

a feeling I won't describe words are destroyers,

which is not to say these words might mean more,

typed in italics on onion skin paper,

read not recited unsure of an encore,

written in lower case words become vapor,

spoken with lips that enunciate clearly,

the living language of romance and rapture

while the moon appears shrouded surreally

over lands still subject to urban capture.

Richard M Russell (C) Dick Russell

                          2023

 Green Eyes

                     

Green eyes in the swing

of her long black hair

she sat enclosed in a tear

rolling his cheek

green eyes, a blue dress

black black hair

Celtic gleaming

green were her eyes

in the swing of a strand

of her black, black  hair

© Dick Russell, 2012m 2023

  Roughside

       for Li Po

a wooden table a wooden chair
Li Po translated in front of a window
overlooking an ash tree
thrice as tall now as then
already as high as farmhouse eaves
seldom movement below
in the valley beyond
except birds, deer, an adder disturbed

at night one lamp two miles away
a farm beyond The Bower
otherwise darkness except moonlight
starlight 
rough moorland 
best planted with pulpable fir trees
the Forestry Commission decided

Li Po admiring the brushwork
of earlier poets 
only a copier not a copyist
working from an anthology
of an earlier tradition

a view from the window above 
across plantation trees 
not yet high enough to spoil views
of tree-lined Chirdon Burn 

translated by Sen
rearranged by endless revision 
alone at Roughside

once there was music
once there were friends
we didn’t feel outdone by Bob Dylan
less popular than Rod McKuen
we were all friends
once upon a time
back then


Dick Russell (copyright) 2023
      Richard M. Russell

 Wyoming Coal

So passer-by come sit by me and hear my tale

don't heed the screech of that mocking jay

in the pay of those that put Wyoming up for sale

mining coals to send to China to speed dismay 

coming our way when high rains

pour on parchéd dirt

worn out by grazing and ceaseless drought 

flash floods mudslides and fire, 

high tides erode our beaches 

wash away our waterfronts.

Tell me stranger what more can we do

to hasten our demise?

Shall we send more trains?  Please explain 

our assisted suicide, 

interstate commerce as far as it goes

then over to Canada to repose

in a carrier bound for China all 

Wyoming's best coal at a premium price

a profitable deal and Wyoming

is far now from the coast.

Or walk on then don't sit awhile but hear my song...

                         Dick Russell

                      copyright © 2023

                      Richard M Russell

 BALLADE

& always a dangling sleeve

that touched the table brushed the table

in one movement a beard pointed Cortez

aware of attention    eyes lifted above ocean

eyes piercing white sclera

wind drilling the pupil

scratch of ivory on bone...

then movement again

piano keys tinkling

nails tapping trills on the ivory

before the music of the song

five lines danced in a wide void

the hub of a chorus of voices

gouged a groove in tunnel walls

nothing ever appeared in the octave

save eight shredded eels

& the fumes of a gill

such does the loom unweave

conversation talk down the wall

talk each brick back to the pile

in freshness of silk falling

silk billowing

in lichen moist on the windowframe

uninvolvement

like an uncoiled spring

meaningfulness

the whole dividing

halves multiplying

& the swimming organisms

heads talking above fluid things

& always a dangling sleeve

sleeve sinking

silk billowing

& that moist emanence of closely approached odor

the chemicals of low volatility

which may not be smelt from far off

*

cityscape

skyline

string taut autumn

Casals' dawn

photographs taken on the lawn before lunch

they grazed white pavements

stopped where the light seemed warmest

in a time of gold

of essences  subtleties  shades

perceptions

time was growing

grey then 

cold

poetry of the fragrance

went out to piss on the dole queues

*

It was a time

of gold, of white

a time of essences

subtleties, shades

 

perceptions

time was growing

coppiced each spring

but for you, young lady, not golden or white

time stood still, young lady, for you

At dawn

kong dresses left the Hilton

In a back alley theatre they began

rehearsing a farce

moving into and out of

situations

                 for you young lady

young lady for you

things were happening in the Provencal

besides cooking

 

anarchy failed in Barcelona

but more important still

Hemingway's child in "For Whom the Bell Tolls"

did it survive?

did it survive, young lady

for you

 

*

Fire in the throat

rush of rasping breath

flames flicker in these eyes

this tortured head

hands are blackened

these hands once held the sun

 

this: black cinder

this: pulsing, reddening, momentary coal

red Earth

shrivelled by black sun

and these

these signs of red in the Night

in this stigmatized city

now waking at night from a half sleep

                                    of prostitution

hearing the whore's voice

at the comfortable time of ease

above the street

above the suppressed Earth

upon his knees

eeping for her love

her embrace

& alone

alone with the bones of old loves

and the warmth of this lament

                

*

Within this flame

within the yellow within the red

within these sparks at the edge of flame

burns an arrangement

an agreement of atoms

one direction differs little from another

lines of longitude curve over the planet, transpolar

re-arrive at starting points

though singers sing less

songs are not less than they were

and singers not less than the singers

although all prophets become false

in that polar area

where the compass points less truly

to the north assumption

*

Boy

you better go along with all the others

into it with all the mothers blendle sons

who blunt the war and bring us

bring us, caul the mothers

mothers send you sons

mothers blendle sons

brought us into the war

        

into all of that

you go

they said

shoving their sons out

into all of that

& their fathers shoved before them

and they all shoved

and a shit

and that was the siege end

tho their sons lay numberless

strands like sheep's wool

caught on barbed wire

 

                              *

Leaving that language of rancid scrapings

words taken with a spatula from limp tongues

scrape words off from those tongues

in thick curds going almost to the apple

to the root of words...

                           ***

from Ballade.

(C) Chapman, Vol III, No.4, Dick Russell Issue, 1975

Poem for Joanna

how can i tell of my silence      with words?

(the 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

                              from Wolfprints

 The Lutenist sings of his Muse

                 Tell those who wait

with quiet hope that she will still come

             an ebbing fantasy for some

                     for others fate

                 that time brings light

          to poets with agnostic views

            who celebrate a private muse

                        so infinite

                 she will not come

     to those who sing her beauty most

        or to those who do their duty

                     at their post

                 she waits for those

    to find her where she often hides

   besides us where our fortune rides

                   seek her there

                she can be found

         ignorance is a cloak for fools

     cast it away    give her jewels

                let love resound

          © Dick Russell, 2013, 2023

          Dusk

I must stop drinking this dusk

raise a toast to the moon just past its full 

            reaffirm the gods 

do you think they have left us?

   we think they have left us

         will they return?

I must stop drinking this dusk

    stop answering unfinished questions

I must stop drinking this dusk

                     Up High

                          Here      fast winds

                          high skies        monkeys chattering

                          there     small islands

                          white sand       sea gulls circling

                          it's sad forests

                          are stripped of their leaves

                          but a river flows on       forever

                          never stopping

                          I'm miles from home

                          overwhelmed by autumn

                          like my own life

                          gloomed with decrepitude

                          even here    up high

                          I'm not serene

                          I'm old        worried

                          my heart    like clouded wine

                          I raise a toast to the moon just past its full 

           

          I must stop drinking this dusk

                                    Tu Fu

                                    T'ang Dynasty

                                    translated by David Sen, Dick Russell

                                     © Dick Russell, 2013, 2023

                                    an earlier version

                                    published in Chapman Chinese Issue,

                                    Scotland, 1975 

                                    editors: Walter Perrie and Joy Hendry

 Going Upstream

words need to speak

from wherever they exist

whether etched in stone

or scratched in ink

or painted 

my way in 

was only 

through words

no money changed hands

no property of any kind

just spoken words

I couldn’t find a way into those words since then 

for I was always way out

whenever I wanted to go back in

realizing I needed to reverse

fast going to brake just in time to take

an exit ramp back to those cadences

one hand braking the other hand speeding

riding upstream into Spain far from roads

taking me back to that far beginning

where I needed for nothing had it all

         approach me again

   approach me again in your tangles

   your landscape hurtles

      bruises my seeing 

                        beyond

   seeing light broken by

     colors of all color

one color

      plover at path side

   quills on my head

confusion come seeking me

now I approach through hills sleeping

land lights scented and beyond

through fragments of bones

skull on the mound

goat bells jangling

hooves running before me

into mysteries

secrets safeguarded

rapt in a furled wing

Made by Dick Russell

                                      ©

                                2016, 2023

 Drinking Under the Moon

by Li Po

A jug of wine         among flowers 
in the moonlight      nobody close
so I raised my cup to the bright moon
bade it drink with me
just the three of us
bright moon     my shadow     and me
shadows only imitate
the moon cannot comprehend
in spite of that we were happy
you must enjoy life in Spring
I sang   the moon listens
I danced   my shadow capered about
we were all      once strangers
now    we are such good friends
we drink    we laugh
we laugh    we drink
though we’ll part
we'll all meet once more
I raise my cup to the bright moon
to journey beyond time


T’ang Dynasty
translated by David Sen, Dick Russell
© Dick Russell, 2013, 2023

    Coal Train Raga

           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 jazzed up 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 warren buffet routing coal trains past
our borders of commonsense   oil trains too
that sometimes explode traveling too fast…

a mile of best coal from Wyoming stripped
on its way to China for our climate suicide
we sold our coal for a song and a dance
at the stock exchange bell at risk of a knell
technology that could save us we hesitate to give
afraid their AI will out doom our own 
we'll let our AI advance with a watermark to show
its status acclaimed as the world's best liar

           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 jazzed up 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. 2023

Now is No Time

A look full glance
the head turned
 returned
by a walking girl
swinging her skirt

should we follow through
the evening street
now fallow 
with the summer heat

lone girl
bare feet walking
turning in a doorway
out of the heat
and passion 
       simmers
             in the street

thinking all the time
ideas all the time tangle

a blue pool
lay in the lap
of green willows

a synthetic idea
compounded by
a bridge
bone china

lulling labels
advertise fables
now is no time



©  Dick Russell, 2013, 2023

 On Once Hearing Tung Play the Lute

for Lady Tsi's melody

music such as a breeze would blow

by a spring among reeds and willow tree

 

eighteen verses sung so sadly hard men cried

our envoy hearing her story

wept tears on his sleeve

shuddered with grief

 

first bass resounded then treble

leaves in the Forest trembled

war warnings by beacons 

fire flashed from wilderness hilltops to home

whole country covered with dark white snow

 

for his melody

Tung like Orpheus learned music from the gods

demons crept from deep forest to hear him

birds flew up circled around

his music gathered all in

 

slow fast

foreboding

brightening

fading

crescendo   clouds

clear skies east

a young swift came flying

now a child screamed in the wilderness

 

dawn

by the shore of a smooth sea

waves flat 

birds silent

exiles in the north 

men living apart

remembering their homes

sadness receded

for a moment

Tung comforts them 

 

melancholy

              majestic

suddenly set free

by a long gust of wind shaking trees

sudden rain drumming on roof tiles

torrents tree trunks

branches swept by flash floods

wild deer come running

 

Don’t make Tung play for the Emperor

let his music stay free

unspoiled by fortune or fame

we wish he’ll visit again

Li Ch’I

translated by David Sen, interpreted by Dick Russell

copyright © Russell and Sen

                2017, 2023

 Near Khan Market, New Delhi 2008

If not for leavings in unswept streets
would cows roam free and stray dogs eat?

to Lodhi Gardens from the Taj at dawn
stepping into the street off the pavement
when not yet light to avoid a family’s sleeping feet
bare white soled where their business was
then before breakfast crossing the road 
to walk a circuit of Muslim tombs
entering well kempt gardens through park gates
joining others brought by car
then back past General Badhwar’s house

to
ham rashers
fried eggs 
toast
not yet reading India Legal

reading Sniffing Papa.


Copyright © Dick Russell 2016, 2023

The Lutenist’s Melancholy

She roams my love

so softly love she roams

these grim districts

where homeless queue

for beds in tenements

to each she brings

to each unsmiling face

she brings her love 

her smile    soft words

her best encouragements

she stays my love

so softly love she stays

by those   these flight-

less wounded doves

she soothes    she sings laments

So roams a child

so hopefully she roams

these streets    these squares

will she survive

all these impediments?

she roams my love

so softly love she roams

by these in need

these folk at bay

huddled on cold pavements

she hears my love

so softly love she hears

the quiet curses

of the poor    words

without embellishments

          © Dick Russell, 2013, 2023

 Death is just a crook

When sleepless I composed these lines of verse   

as if playing chess pieces blind

carefully moving words   no phrase too terse

to check the flow   like paring apple rind

in a curling helix-like state of mind

time like a spring

compresses dreams into plaited strands that bind to 

positions played long ago   ticking

into eternity   self to play thus going

on

awake I review these lines and

plumb those pools of reverie I fished

with barbless hooks that caught not what I wished

but snagged seaweed in my subconscious mind

detritus of times forgotten times missed

when brash and bold once long ago   unkind

memories from long ago flicker 

coffee’d    pick up the threads of life

the mind must clear    must curl up in its nook

to comprehend in absences mistook

more often than silence is   as meaningful

that life plays to win   death is just a crook

in the road   seen moves ahead by careful

players who know a void is a void is annul

© Dick Russell, 2013. 2023

Bringing in the Wine

did you not see

water cascade from the sky 

the Yellow River will surge straight to the sea

never return

did you not see

a person stare sadly at a mirror

counting their white hairs

morning is as green as spring grass

soon night comes

snow covers the grass 

do you not see

we must not be sad

never let our goblets go empty

why was I born

if no use exists for me?

what point would there be

if that should be true?

bring in more wine

if I spend all my wealth

each gold coin will come rolling back

roast a sheep   slaughter a cow

let's drink at the least 300 glasses

to you Sen    a toast

& to you Tang Chin

drink up my friends

don't let me see your goblets stand idle

I'll sing you a song

so listen intently

what is there left apart from wine

I only want to get drunk

never again be sober

saints and scholars are all forgotten

only those drinkers remain

Prince Chen paid ten thousand crowns

for 1 cask of fine wine

he banqueted in the palace of perfection

how come mine host that you tell us

all your money is spent?

I'll sell my best horse   the best of my furs

my servant shall scour the town

to bring in more wine

so drink up my friends!

we shall drown the sorrows of 10,000 generations

if we don't drink now

how will we ever appease our grief

Li Po

T'ang Dynasty

translated by David Sen, Dick Russell

        Chapman Chinese Issue, Scotland, 1972

Coda:  Those Songs

(And Li Po also died drunk

trying to embrace a moon

in the Yellow River

Ezra Pound)

The words of those songs would be hollow

if my love of your company was not in them

those songs would be cold

like snow on frozen mountains

where torchlight never comes

clouds sail after you

what will life be now you drift downstream

leaving the moon moored here?

snowflakes fall on this poem

Dick Russell

Chapman Dick Russell Issue, 1975

 Endless Yearning

by Li Po

i

I endlessly yearn 
like a lone cricket 
left chirping by the well
defying autumn

there will be a morning frost
my bedding is cold
just one lantern in my room
hung high 
its shadows
flicker  
mock me   
making me more sad

at the window
we both look at the same moon
even though you are far away
beyond reach

could I but grasp that yellow flower 
touch its beauty in the dark sky
its light kissing this realm so fertile
watered by such restless rivers

my soul is troubled
dreams grow weary
I think of insurmountable mountains
between us 
impossible even to dream
endless this longing
it’s breaking my heart

ii

flowers like lanterns
in the evening mist
where the sun sets slowly

then a bright moon
like a piece of white silk

I wanted to take it
to dab away my tears

I cannot sleep

I played songs on a harp
about lovers like us

then I took a two-stringed lute
each string faithful to the other
its melodies so sad
if only you could hear

you are so far away
who can carry my feelings to you?
who can bridge this ocean between us?

open skies have shut their doors on us
my eyes once sparkling
now deep wells of tears
if you doubt how my heart aches
return to me and see just how I look in this mirror

Li Po

translated by David Sen 
interpreted by Dick Russell
copyright © Dick Russell 2014

 To a Taoist Hermit

Today   at work in the office
I felt a sudden chill in my heart
you who live alone on the mountain
gathering wood beside a plunging stream
will be boiling white stones for food

I want to bring you a gourd of wine
to cheer you in this time of wind and rain
but the empty mountains are vast
falling leaves fill the paths
how could I find your footsteps

Wei Ying Wu
T'ang Dynasty

translated by David Sen, Dick Russell
revised March 2017, 2023 Dick Russell
Published in Chapman Chinese Issue, Scotland, 1972

 To Rosalind 

         Store Future

no works are better than these codes
embedded in DNA
in blossoms seen 
     soon after solstice
  
though flowers fade
images live on
epochs un-scroll their struggle to survive 

deeds encoded in DNA
                maintained forever
  capable of surviving
        like a warrior
from a hero’s tomb

bringing faint sounds of Homer



copyright © Dick Russell, 2019, 2023

 in less than an hour 
perhaps a few minutes
it was time well spent 
wracking the brain for a suitable stain to put on the page
or was it a wash of pixels on a slate-grey screen
whatever it was it was
wasn't it
it definitely was
a sonnet
not a daub
or a scratch of an itch
in less than an hour 
perhaps a few minutes

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?

In the Borders, cleugh rhymes with snuff and rough.

 In Edinburgh words matter

Shall I reset the margin of the virtual page?
Will it matter?
Won’t they read on watches phones
exercise machines?
Now I’ve tapped the tune on typewriter keys
will words utter
from muses that kept me from the gutter.
In Edinburgh words matter.

I once couldn’t sleep in the chair I was lent
stumbled around found fish and chips
somehow survived in a poetic miasma.
That was when I first met her
who left me retching in the street
in drunken stupor.

In Edinburgh words matter.

Shall I give safe harbor to thoughts of her
extolling virtues beauty intellect 
how a poet with no income
not a welfare bum
alone with a borrowed car
I’d given mine away 
it might have been.

And she carried a bag big enough to suffice
if she had driven away with me that night 
but the friend’s old car wouldn’t start 
needed a new battery 
had to be pushed to the corner
where an auto-shop would open in the morning
and I'd thrown up in frustration and despair
and said goodnight
and goodbye.

In Edinburgh 1972 where words mattered.


copyright (C) Richard M Russell
            Dick Russell, April 2023

 An Hour Before Sunset

For W. S. Merwin

let me hear you flute your song
follow your notes
to remembered smiles
places lit by winter sunlight
or summer cheer
leave out regret
live just this bliss
when hummingbirds work
red blossom on vines 
forever twining upwards
where there’s blue sky 
but grey clouds billow
whitened edges
gleam in sunlight
what friends would mourn
a man so happy 

after his pipe

He’s gone to another world 
impulsive impatient driven by testosterone
he’s passive meditative thoughtful with 
his muse for she is there to 
enfold him in a world 
where even old
they are young
where minds grow larger while bodies shrink
they’re both on a trip to denial
he to his muse she to her trainer
he does gymnastics with her in mind
she does them with him in the gym


copyright (C) Richard M Russell
           Dick Russell

 tryst

Be lean be mean be vigilant
don’t take the bait
when lust overcomes reason
she’s too much to resist
don’t take the bait
though she smiles
don’t touch
just exchange contact
eye to eye
but not yet a wink
                 
                        

                          Copyright (C) Richard M Russell
                                           Dick Russell