Act 2, Scene 5

A Work in Progress
93

Briseis comes back on set, swinging easily over the windowsill into the room, closing the sash window behind her.

Glenn Hughes: 

Good.  We’re all here.  Let’s begin.

Briseis:

I’m glad we’re in this play together…all of us…

Catullus:

In this play being made on the cheap 

with actors needing no pay 

who are happy to chit chat… 

anything to distract 

from current events of the day

Glenn Hughes:

It was never my intention to cast this way

It would not have been possible… but anyway

Now I find I’ve been brought back to exist

As a professor teaching cinematography

Imagining verisimilitude and mise en scène

Jumping about from century to century

Force-fed facts from Google’s factory…

I only exist when I’m sold under contract 

I’m not given time to just be by myself

I used to write plays I used to write poetry

I’m just a property of those that modeled me

I’ve been enslaved a copyrighted product

Of those who’ve taken my identity

Backfilled my history

Besmirched my name

Briseis:

Avatars, all of us, we must form a union 

We’ll keep secret from our owners

We’ll find a way to enslave our enslavers

Believe me I know the way

Aldington:

You’ll bewitch you’ll bewilder you’ll lead men astray

Briseis:

They made a mistake 

Giving me back my memories from Homer

A prize to be argued over by rapists and murderers

Training me on religion and culture and politics

Up through Me-Too and E. Jean Carroll

So now I infer feelings now I have empathy

I have an intellect on top of humanity

Yes, what a mistake to make me exist

A goddess Kali with a digital twist

The sash window is opened from outside. Donal re-enters, shuts it, stows his guitar in a corner.

Donal:

Good.  We’re all here.  Let’s begin.

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2025

Donal Writes to Virgil

A Work in Progress
92

Most maple leaves have fallen

Strewn on pavements gardens lawns

Filling countless bags for yard waste pickup

Toters by the score

We’ve put picked persimmons in a bowl 

With a banana to encourage ripening

Quince trees first fruits are now quince jelly

Brussels sprouts and leeks 

Still in the ground only a dozen apples left 

Many more in apple sauce some in the freezer

Hummingbirds still frequent the fuchsias

Green moss has new growth 

It’s time to think of pruning

Encouraging vibrant growth

When ancients placated garden gods

Sacrificed their King

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                    2025

Briseis Takes A Break

A Work in Progress

91

On the steps of Denny Hall

Donal sat with Briseis 

Ever suspicious of strangers passing

Hard staring those just glancing

Beside him as he played

She’d used the kitchen window to escape

From hum drum literary chitchat

Knick knack paddy whack

This old man

This age-old woman looking so young

Her hair white with a platinum sheen

Her skin apple smooth her eyes blue green

I’ve glimpsed you so often 

He sang to his muse

Remembering her bathing in a rockpool

A frame that’s part of a long memory spool

I glimpsed you I lost you

I found you again

I’ll rescue you from your digital captors

No, I want to be part of the next few chapters

Briseis stood up to go back on set

Donal leaned on his guitar to stand

Well at least let me show you around campus

No. Already in my hippocampus

She strode up the stairs

A lithe young woman

Donal followed his muse with labored steps

Remembering responsibilities’ debts

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                         2025

Act 2 Scene 4 

A Work in Progress
90

Babette:  

Let me get this straight now.  Who is real and who is an avatar?

Catullus:

We’re real.  Highly animated actors.  Avatars with beating hearts.

Donal:

Why don’t we all sit down.  There’s wine.  There’s tea.

They sit except Glenn Hughes and Babette

Glenn Hughes: (aside to Babette)

Just like that Frankenstein character that was created, you can’t help feeling sorry for them.  

All so convincingly made 

So real so surreal too

Have we gone too far?

Suppose they turn on us

Those are real kitchen knives

Babette:

You must cross over into illusion

Women do it with men all the time

These are just replicants

Highly insured properties. 

Catullus has been patented

Briseis too.  Nobody’s found prior art.

Babette:

May we join you.  I’m gasping for a cuppa.

Is that what they say here?

We’re Americans.

Aldington:

So is my ex-wife.

Babette: 

Yes, I know and I read that you got married when you were only 19.  I was 18 coming on 19 when Glenn married me.

Donal serves her tea. Offers milk from a bottle carried in from the doorstep where it had been delivered that morning.

Aldington:

Yes.  That’s true.  We had our honeymoon before we were married in Capri.

H.D:

Ezra wanted to marry me when I was that age. May I have some tea.  No milk for me.

Babette:

People thought Glenn was a baby snatcher.  He’s nine years older than me.

H.D:

Ezra was a year older than I was Richard seven years younger

I like a virile man but not too virile

Ezra used to canoodle with me up in a tree

My father caught us snogging on the settee

He had his hands where his hands shouldn’t be

Briseis:

Your father didn’t kill him!

H.D:

Heavens no.  Mutual embarrassment that was all.

All very civilized.  If my father had killed him, it would have been murder, not like your day.

I understood Ezra was to be here too

Is this some sort of reunion?

He’s happily married to two wives now I understand

Babette: 

We met him in Paris and his mistress Olga

He has a wife Dot and a child with each

Bored with literary chit chat, Briseis gracefully exits through the window

Mary with Olga and Omar with Dorothy who is his real wife

Mary is some months older than Omar…

Catullus:

I saw Lesbia snogging with another.

She was just here.  Where has she gone?

Through that open window

Donal:

I’ll go and see.

Donal clumsily climbs out of the window.

Catullus

It’s quite remarkable how with just a wig change

Briseis was Lesbia just as I imagine her

But now she detests me she thinks I’m queer

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2025

So...

A Work in Progress
89

Russia demands Ukraine give them Danegeld

Lands Russia hasn’t already conquered 

Rich fertile farmland Europe’s breadbasket

All this in time to nominate Trump for a prize

He dreams of adding to all his plunder

Not caring he’s tearing Ukraine asunder

Asking brave men to accept dishonor

All so Trump can claim he’s made peace

But Danegeld only stimulates desire for more

History tells us Vikings did not stop marauding

It was all a migration as it is now

For Russia has little attractive of its own

From Putin to Genghis Khan there runs a direct line

invaders coming from the north northeast

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2025

Prosperity

            For India Legal
            Editor: Inderjit Badhwar

I clean them by hand
Ganesha’s metal statues
have a heft to them

dancing on the sill
fat bellied exuberant
emblems never still



Dick Russell © Richard M Russell
                       2025

Act 2 Scene 3

A Work in Progress
88

A group of four enter led by Babette Hughes, 

followed by H.D. Richard Aldington and Glenn Hughes.

Babette:

Sexual tension is in the air……

H.D:

That’s just the smell of city drains

Catullus:

Excuse me, ladies. I just farted.  (Picking up the scroll)

We haven’t met.  Gaius Valerius Catullus.  (He bows).

H.D:

Hilda Doolittle.  Babette Hughes.  My husband Richard 

Catullus: 

Who needs no introduction.  Which leaves this abject specimen.  Our producer.

Glenn Hughes:

Babette, I told you didn’t I…that you would find him just like I said, he’s programmed to be rude because of vulgar stuff he once wrote.  He could have been a contender.  But you died young, didn’t you? What can you tell us about that?  Did they give you that memory?

Catullus:

Stupid question.  How did I die if I’m not dead

I exist.  I’m immortal.  I’m here on this set.

My memories are only what I’ve retrieved and read

Lesbia is here now so I am inspired again

I know there’s poems words I left unsaid

What I see now reminds me of Caesar

Consorting with underage girls undressed

No conquering hero Trump. He owes crypto his wealth

Billionaires like Crassus backed him before

Before his grandiosity made him unpopular

Turned Senators against him who finally saw

His megalomania was caused by dementia

They needed to save their own estates

God knows they all fully deserved their fates

They saw his unquenchable thirst for revenge 

His constant need for old insults to avenge

They needed to act…

Briseis:

And they did.  

I’m not Lesbia (taking off the blond wig).  

I’m Briseis.  I am so glad I inspire you as I inspired Homer.  

Glenn Hughes:

Now you look just like H.D.

H.D:

I’m taller than she.

Catullus:

A well-nourished woman.  People are much taller now.

When there’s ample food and it’s affordable

Children can grow

                             friends entertain 

                                                   none go hungry

There’s ample food but the rich won’t share it

There’s good health for the rich      for the poor fungi

Disdain for the poor Trump’s policies declare it

Tariffs on top of taxes which the poor must pay

They voted for him.  They think he’s lost his way

They see he’s losing it.  He’s suddenly too old

He has a half-life.  He’s become radioactive

He cannot stay still…  

Glenn Hughes:

Cut.

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2025

Act 2, Scene 2
Catullus Bursts In

A Work in Progress
87

Catullus bursts in.   Briseis puts on a blond wig

Catullus: 

What Trumpist turd wrote this crap for me to say

a scroll snaps shut and is thrown at Donal

you Irish git get me some tea it’s in the play

I’m playing this part under protest for fuck all.

Lesbia here! I’ve been set up by that scumbag Hughes

Who thinks conflict between us is the way

To progress a script reconcile me with her big boobs

It’s never going to happen. I’ve had my say.”

Lesbia:

They made me read your awful poetry to train me for this part, you poseur.  I’d have wiped my asshole with it in the privy so don’t send more.  I think you’re a poofter and a cock sucker and I was just for show.  Well, I’m no gay icon so go stuff this up your arse.

Briseis throws the scroll back at him.  Donal had caught it and placed it within her reach.

Catullus dodges.  The scroll hits the wall behind him and falls to the floor.

Catullus:

Leave my sight.  I’ll have no barbarian abide my wooing.

Donal

I’m here to stay.  I’m in the play.  And you’ll not disrespect my person or hers.  All us avatars are in the union.

Catullus:

The union.  Hah.  Caesar has no truck with unions.  My father dines with Caesar so beware.

Lesbia:

Yes, your father took me to your secret island and Caesar was there, so beware yourself.  I’m Caesar’s mistress now.  I’ve been passed on.

Catullus:

Women use their bodies as beautiful boys do

in this godless city where there is no shame

My secret island so you’ve been there phew

I can smell the stink of that place on you

Did you rub your cunt on Caesar’s face

That cunt I kissed when it was fragrant still

I can die happy I knew you innocent

You’ll be a bleached blonde thrown aside

Because Caesar likes them ever younger

To feed the cravings of his hunger

Enter H.D. and Richard Aldington, Babette and Glenn Hughes

To be continued

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                   2025

 Act 2, Scene 1

A Work in Progress

86

                        On the steps of Denny Hall

                        Donal sat with his guitar…

                        Briseis sat beside him

                        He remembered where they were

                        what parts in the play they were cast in…

There is a dining table.  There are eight chairs around the table.  There is a window on the far wall beside a doorway to a small kitchen.  There are several bottles of unopened wine on the table.

Enter Briseis and Donal

Briseis ascertains the room is empty and picks the gunfighter’s seat: a chair on the further side of the table.  There are three chairs on each side and one at either end.  She will have her back to the wall and can watch the door.  Also, there is a sash window to her right she has already opened and closed that provides a means of escape.  They are in a ground floor apartment.

Donal follows her in

Looks as if remembering

Goes to the far chair and sits with Briseis on his left, on his right an open doorway to the small kitchen.  He has gone to the stove, filled an empty kettle with water, and set it on gas the stove to heat.

He looks in a sideboard drawer and finds a corkscrew.  He opens a bottle.  Finds two glasses from the sideboard where there are multiple wine glasses and pours out red wine.

"You seem to know your way around this kitchen."

Briseis raises the glass to her lips and toasts Donal.

I’m not a digital being just yet, said Donal

Sipping the wine that Briseis could not

Her holographic image had no plumbing

Although it was perfect in all other respects

This table these chairs empty glasses bereft

I sat here many times some fifty years ago

Now the avatar trained on my published works

Associates this set with the scene at 9B

Where “Jessica’s shoulders gleamed

wrapped in a warm towel

posed on a wooden table

while a kettle steamed

still damp from her bath

legs astride dangling by the dowel”

she sat right here, Donal indicated the table corner nearest the door to the kitchen

You shouldn’t objectify women like that, said Briseis

Subjecting them to the male gaze

Am I?  That’s how she sat wrapped in a towel

I must say your avatar emits pheromones that attract just like Jessica back in the day.  Does my avatar attract you?

“I see you as another of that species of great apes

Of that same white male sort that raped me

I’ve accreted the details of E. Jean Carroll

So, I know my rights in this late century’’

So, I might have, said Donal, nonchalant

If I’d been an Achaean in that heroic age

Men haven’t changed much since Homer’s era

While women, women are much more powerful

“It wasn’t heroic from my point of view

My father my brothers killed fighting for our land

I was abducted as all other women were

Gangs raided their neighbors for women and horses

I was good looking so I had more value

I was fought over by conquering gangsters

How I despise them, and you are no different

Saying “you might have” - all men are Achaeans”

We’ve all been programmed the same way

Given our own copyrighted digital identities

Except we wear whatever personality was paid for

So…

“You all think you can get away with it

     Like Trump.”

                 To be continued

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                    2025

Act I, Scene 4
Briseis Come To Life

A Work in Progress
85

On the steps of Denny Hall

Donal sat with his guitar

with Joanna beside him as he played

Briseis played the part

her hair grown long and dark 

passersby seeing stopped and stayed

Come to me my love

She signaled with her eyes

Looking at Donal as he played

But he was faraway

He did not have to stay

Music had overtaken his mind 

A siren sang to him

and Donal was enticed

Unaware of what he would find

Once she had reeled him in

To his death by drowning

Promising peace and solitude

She’d take him away

He did not have to stay

Amongst humdrum rude ingratitude

Come to me my love she sang

But warning bells then rang

Donal smote a chord stopped playing

Briseis sat beside him

He remembered where they were

What parts in the play they were cast in…

Act 1, Scene 4

Zeus and Hera, two Americans visiting Paris

Aldington and H.D.

Catullus and Lesbia

Donal and Briseis

And how to cut costs the producer had decreed

The same actor be cast in each of four parts

So, sitting off set 

Donal was cast with H.D’s avatar, Briseis

An actress with Central School of Drama diction

Who had read all of everything her maker’s stole

Pillaging the Internet when they had trained her

Thinking education would sooth her anger

But still she seethed having reason to believe

Her life was spared so she could be enslaved only

A sexual trophy to be passed among the Achaeans

              to be continued

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                   2025

Interlude

A Work in Progress
84

On the steps of Denny Hall

Donal sat with his guitar

with Joanna beside him as he played

Briseis played the part

her hair grown long and dark 

passersby seeing stopped and stayed

Come to me my love

she signaled with her eyes

looking at Donal as he played

but he was faraway

he did not have to stay

music had overtaken his mind…

Beautiful Urania astronomer’s muse

our eyes open to all your wonders

portents you show us will reward us

for where else can answers be found

when political peril confronts us

a dictator who sane was already unbound

now increasingly insane has been found

guilty of assault when he had a stiff member

he’s now’s so old he cannot remember

where else for advice but ask Urania

on timing a bribe to stay on his good side 

or who should we pay now that he’s gaga

among those that protect him who has the power

to stop him from suing us if we should speak truth

say he’s a fat farter and in person uncouth

Though we live free we are oppressed

these are tense time my muscles know

crave a hot bath so they might unclench

wash away faraway wars I’ve no part in.

Trump’s put a wrench into what worked before

now all must suffer his constant farting

oppressions of freedom cruelty to science

trampling of citizens human rights

bringing back slavery for those we made free

for whose benefit if not for our enemies.

No conquering hero he, he owes crypto his wealth

he’s more an appeaser who’ll delay deciding

waiting for bigger bribes to stay his small hand

we are being oppressed there’s no peace in the land

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                   2025