Poems On Loss

          by Li Shan Gyan

                  1

So hard to meet in freedom 

then so much harder to live apart

there’s no strength left in the east wind

gladioli can only wither

their leaves don't fall

just as a silk worm will spin all its silk

                                                 then die

              my tears run down

      while this candle burns 

into ashes

every morning in the mirror

fear of another white hair

every night while I write my poems

do you too feel the same chill?

our enchanted land is not so far away

shall I let this poem be my messenger

be a companion for you

                    2

She has come and gone

her words meant nothing

left no trace

moonlight shines on the watch tower

five empty echoes are rung by the bell

I tried to call her

to detain her

but she would not turn back

I tried to write to her

frenzied letters

but black ink barely marked fresh parchment

it was so dark

just half of a bronze mirror

depicting a jeweled phoenix

glowed in the candlelight

so silent

only her perfume

leant over from the curtained bed

a poet once went to Paradise

he journeyed 6 months

to live in enchantment

enthralled by goddesses

but she

you are ten thousand times further away

                     3

a gentle splatter of raindrops

falling on lily pads

a fine mist of rain

making leaves fall

perfume and incense seeped from her room

through a lock shaped like a golden toad 

puddles lay splashed near the well

gladiola leaves had fallen

traces of her gleamed on tigers

carved on its sides

there was once a great lady

who favored a youth 

secretly behind a screen

and another, a fairy queen

who gave her pillowcase to a poet

I wish I could stop loving her

please let me not love her

or every inch of my longing will burn

and become just so many inches 

of ash

                 4

as she embroidered a phoenix on a green hat

I could see double layers of silk 

she was using

                                coquettishly

she hid

but her moon shaped fan

could not conceal her beauty

horse’s hooves clattered

carriage wheels turned

words

               were lost

I waited for her in the dark

long after the candle had burnt out

now pomegranates have begun to blossom

still no word has come

I stand here by the river

my horse tethered by the willows

where to be with you

will the warm wind guide me?

                       *

Li Shan Gyan, T’ang Dynasty

Translated by David Sen and Dick Russell

              Copyright  2024

Just Saying

Once upon a time there was something

big enough 

to be noticed

its roots were in its own beginnings

which inherited a head-start

and kept on growing

until it was noticed

And when it was noticed

its reptilian brain registered

what triggered that emotion

and it kept on growing

always getting noticed

until one day it grew so big 

it burst like a boil

that should have been lanced

long before

but it splattered us

all with hate.

Dick Russell  Richard M Russell

                    2024

In this version of the epic

In this version of the epic
Menelaus was married to Ivanka, not Helen
and when Ivanka was abducted by pirates
Agamemnon got mad and rounded up allies to take her back
he roped in Achilles, he brought Nestor back in his golden years
he even tried to convince Donal to write the script

Donal pondering yet another gig
thought he’d script it better if Ivanka was the daughter of Zeus 
not the daughter of a 
mortal
because there were times when men desired adulation as gods
and Ivanka’s dad seem so inclined and
so it was decided in Donal’s mind
Ivanka would be the daughter of Zeus 
But who could he get to play her abductor?

Best to stick with Trumpspawn 

he concluded 

shelving the idea of abducting Ivanka

 in favor of some lunacy in his own mind

changing the play to be more like 

a conspiracy myth 

that dethroned the Speaker 

via a Trojan Horse

in order to elect one who would bring the border to a vote

and then it's King Lear 

with a great role for Ivanka 

what a great Act III.

 

Dick Russell  Richard M Russell
                    2024

 Against the Future

Let me tell you the arithmetic of cities,

a count of consumers, tax contributors

male and female, on an abacus count two

people equal wallets

wallets mean commerce

commerce equals cacophonies

chimes on registers buying deterrence

lens swivels

world spins.

world turns over

sand drops down the glass

laughing knockabout tumbledown jest 

in ramshackle kitchens of ramshackle rooms, while 

the wind shudders once 

windows tremble

the half-life of happiness halving itself

Hurry!  

the fleet has sailed 

the abacus is broken

beads fall from its wires

on a cell phone count one, then zero, zero then one

let me tell you the arithmetic of cities

let me count salmon for you

let me count bears

polar bears under bombers overhead, above

submarines below

all moving in deterrence

because mingled strands of thought rewind to a slip knot

that lies easy on a wound

because words frame lies

cultures collide in mid-sentence

because each day swallows more from the stock 

in the cellar that may soon empty

when cell phones trigger our doomed destruction

due to unforeseen glitches or perhaps bloody

mindedness and global fires are extinguished by nuclear winter

remember all those taxes

all this bought and paid for long ago

like Venice

let me tell you the arithmetic of cities.

Dick Russell  Richard M Russell

                   2023

 Some Songs for Bob Dylan

Long lines of hard words varying lengthwise to set in printer’s ink

characterize hexameters 

strands sometimes 

snippets repeated

patterns weaving words into whatever was intended to link

*

Time decays

short enough to quickly lose a fleeting thought 

after years away

detained by Circe then Calypso, how would he explain?

Odysseus closed his eyes to run his trapline

twirled his toes, flexed his ankles, wrists. knees, neck, groin

a cup of tea could keep him longer

detained by his lady

one more day

*

Dactyl 

dactyl 

spondee

Dactyl dactyl spondee

Anapest anapest trochee

Four trochees and a dactyl

Goes the beat

mind your feet

baby

on your way don’t delay baby

Now you’re grooving now you’re fooling

Don’t you make it harder than it needs to be

Don’t risk defeat don’t be effete

                                                take care

where you go what you do lady

Now you’re grooving now you’re fooling

Don’t you make it harder than it needs to be

All of you and all of me

 lady

get on your feet we’re going to meet baby

Now you’re grooving now you’re fooling

Don’t you make it harder than it needs to be

*

tick tock tick tock

 trit trot trit trot

Wordsworth? 

was it not?

Or was it Keats?

Maybe Yeats

who said:

find me from all of those

find me a song from those I sang

find me one

that will rhyme through time

with my heart life long

*

Baby

I just got to get it

I just got to get it

Done

There’s nothing happening here

It seems to disappear

dissolved in EverClear

Something was happening here

It never was made clear

but something was happening here

Baby

I just got to get it

I just got to get it

I just got to get it

Done

That thing that was happening here

It never did disappear

but never fear

It will reappear

dissolved in EverClear

And I hope I’ll get it done

In time for it to happen

That thing that’s happening here

I just gotta get it done

*

Rhubarb pie strawberries 

Summer sky irises

Be you x or be you y

Subtract yourself you’re zero

 

When you’re zero don’t ignite

Don’t engage the gears won't bite

Don’t stay home or don’t stay out

No one cares except you do

 

When you’re blue don’t get too chill

And when you’re rad don’t get too sad

Subtract yourself you’re zero

Be you x or be you y

I will love you

*

strewn through time 

wildflowers gently brushed aside

shingle slid on 

boulders stepped past 

stone berms climbed

moments left behind

combed by memory

seedlings sown

not stepped on

*

You Aphrodite born of foam motherless yet majestic

Marry me so I can be free to work on words of worship

while you endow our home and weave our fabric 

 ambience fine food clear wine and friendship

Mutate if you must change to virus your way in

Where there’s beauty I know you’re in the air

I can smell your perfume sweet nectar on your breath

I know you’ll embrace me should I fall on the stair

Marry me Aphrodite let’s stop living in sin

Now’s not the time to act all proper and prim

I like sitting outside with you drinking iced gin 

Embracing the future while the light grows dim

*

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

*

Your ideal man’s name will be found in a footnote

long after he’s dead his fame will spread

though just another bloke from somewhere remote

his name will node with high degree suggesting authority.

Your ideal man will share his DNA as best he can

given time constraints and social mores

his children will distribute his genes as Nature intends                  

through natural selection and sexual forays.

An ideal man is just a primate

more intelligent than most 

mated with an ideal woman

but still a primate ape

END

Dick Russell  Richard M Russell

                    2023

Seeing North Light

Our eyes inhabit all there is to see
our dreams file visions by each shade of light
that exists   like air   like rain   light is free
who does not remember with great delight
a breeze moving leaves   impressions of sight
and sound   that brush us watching silently
aware that we will remember its weight
one day when we ponder eternity

Spring breezes knock the cherry blossom down
even while rufous humming birds hover
sipping and waiting in dull green and brown
for the descent of a bright winged lover
stooping to surprise like a windhover
and the weight of a hummingbird is small
as light as the hurt of a plover
dragging its wing with a desperate call

Often one senses a rare moment
in time   in clear sunlight    close to nature
but in dim candlelight meant to foment
emotions   needing only a signature
for completeness   a sign of its stature
among moments   near Hyde Park one night
dining in a bistro   still in rapture
seeing in her eyes glimpses of north light

Was seeing north light in her eyes as true
as watching a kingfisher fish a pool?
lies by dim candlelight enter on cue
leaves in water drawn into a whirlpool
needing her light as a weaver needs wool
wanting her gaze to make his fabric bright
with beautiful colors fed from his spool
that glow at dusk reflecting the sunlight

Rocks erode polished by time's blunt tool
and meaning crumbles brushed by words too long
crows perch on memories   teaching life's school
taint the light with doubts   making right seem wrong


Dick Russell

an earlier version published in Chapman No.39,

Scotland, editor, Joy Hendry