On Stage with Briseis
Act 1, Scene 1

A Work in Progress
77

Orion in the night-sky

striding the dark before dawn 

intent on arriving

sudden dark on stage

but for a spotlight

on Briseis

in a nun’s cell:

Here I am

stuffed in an old brown pocket at the end of a passage

the day all hunched and crabbed and out of shape

its smooth harmonies of light and order

disrupted

I find myself in a knot

of hours too tangled to unravel

I shall have to wait for another night

to let a smooth span of time unwind

until it reaches the tumor and sticks again

                          can't someone cut it away?

set things free - I want to play

a straight game

            I am told - here is Christ

       is Christ    

ever    the Logos-Image

all times seek    all fragmentary complex vision

at peace here   in one action

mind-heart  rest

                       

                        the silence presses steel-plates over my ears

the clock's swing is too regular

stunted light shafts slant brown

through the glazed pane     threatening snow

            I am alone

wavering

            what to do?

                        where to go?

here

            with my misgivings and desires

challenging shadows

which circulate

diminishing

blood

Speak to me

silence may be your vowels

I need consonants for clarity in this sphere

where I lie with my head against your ribs

too near to see you

do something

breathe

break this picture for me

Show me your face

your hair    your blood falling

it is mirrored in my eyes

yours are closed    their lids quiver

your whole face seems to breathe

flesh lips to whisper    words which are

fertile silences fed by the sun's golden tides

over young green fields

Where is your voice?

I hear it constantly sound through my mind

one tone   and I experience   a lifetime of relief

as though that were all I need

You have given me darkness

parceled it out    generous

not afraid I should squander it

            watch

I will spark it into electric gestures

invest the night with streaking necklaces

your stars are concealed      a white harvest

You shan't get the better of me. *

                            *

Briseis removes her Poor Clare costume

She becomes H.D.

I envy you your chance of death,

how I envy you this.

Enter Aldington, on leave from the Army entrenched in France.

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

shriveled 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

weeping 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.

                        *

H.D.

I envy you your chance of death

how I envy you this

I am more covetous of him

even than of your glance,

I wish more from his presence

though he torture me in a grasp

terrible, intense.

Though he clasp me in an embrace

that is against my will,

and rack me with his measure,

effortless yet full of strength,

and slay me

in that most horrible contest,

still, how I envy you your chance.

Though he pierce me with his lust,

Iron, fever and dust

though beauty is slain

when I perish,

I envy you death. **

      Curtain

      Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                              2025

      * copyright © Pamela Chalkley

                                    from a letter to Dick Russell

     ** copyright © H.D. (from Envy)