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."

i

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)

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