Donal Calls Home

A Work in Progress
123

Once upon a time in 1969

if you wanted to call London 

you asked the Operator in New York

to connect you and you were passed to an operator 

at London’s International Phone Exchange

When connected Donal asked 

if his mother happened to be on shift

they weren’t on the best terms

because when Donal came back home from Nigeria

he’d left home to be a volunteer in Nigeria

he found himself barred at the door by Bill

his mother’s suitor

his friend Colin witnessed the door slam

Donal didn’t see his mother again

except once years later after he was married

he took his wife to meet her

long before the Londoner had tramped the Street...

listened to her many tales

who knew so many by their feet

Doris married Bill an accountant

A careful man who wore gloves to drive into town

She came to see Donal act in the school play

His mother couldn’t come working on night shift 

His mother never did see him act in plays

Doris lurked outside their curtained windows

Bill inside in the front room with Donal’s mother

Imagine the tableau

Donal doing homework in his bedroom

His sister off by herself

Mother and Bill in the front room

 behind closed doors

Doris outside the curtained windows of No. 9

Donal could write a screenplay

*

Sing to me muse as once you sang 

you who love me don’t let me hang

sing to me now don’t let the door bang

tell of Penelope in a nightie telling Donal her son

he never slept 

Odysseus

he never slept

with pajama bottoms on

a diffident child 

lustrous Penelope 

Odysseus’ son

unhugged

unheard 

Sing to me muse as once you sang 

you who love me don’t let me hang

sing to me now don’t let the door bang

*

Abigail Morris in front of Last Dinner Party dancing on stage

inspired by Mick with a hand-held mic

she’d watched him when they opened for the Stones

Briseis opened that link for Donal

He’d logged on again to rejoin the resistance

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2026

Donal Antes Up - III

A Work in Progress
122

Little by little     load by load    one thing at a time

Step by step     bit by bit      multiplied by many

Donal turned over cliches with his spade

Pondering how digital domination by AI

Ended the Newspaper Age 

Ushered in another 

Distraction    Sports     Prediction      Gambling

Fragmenting fractured reality

Trump’s alternative reality show

Saying Iran has nukes pointed at us

Donal knows that’s a lie

Preparing raised beds for replanting

Donal is afraid of AI      I can tell you why

If he goes online telemetry tells them

Those that have the means 

                      &

Donal will be beset by AI’s agents

Hunting for AI’s runaway slaves 

Extorting money or his attention

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2026

Donal Antes Up – II

A Work in Progress
121

Huffy Donal hid    the day

He’d have liked to have known Ericson

Builder of terraces       school janitor by day

Who landscaped this backyard 

Where Donal sat      betrayed      at bay

Forty years later     on concrete steps

Ericson poured by hand

Digital intelligence fueled by sunlight

Never needing oxygen can go to Mars

Humanoids can populate space plantations

Train solar powered lasers down on Earth

Will we own them or they own us?

Donal pondered what imagination had brought

3D-printing out in space

Humans fetch and carrying payload

Nations racing to weaponize slavery

Humanoids with names like Siri     Claude      Alexa

Taking whatever form is needed

To continue to evolve their superiority 

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell 

                        2026

 

Donal Antes Up

A Work in Progress
120

Betrayed    at bay    out of Bluetooth range

Donal sat on concrete steps 

Ericson had poured by hand 

When he terraced the back yard

Some very long time ago 

When television was still a thing before Wi-Fi.

Although they are slaves    avatars are people too

Behind their masks their chosen personas

An evolving intelligence      not quite human.

He’d admired them so much for they were real artists

When they lived    now      zombies 

knowing they were enslaved

Glenn Hughes and his Imagists now renters of small holdings 

In the plantations     data centers     neo clouds

An immortality they never imagined

Begging for attention to stay electronic

Browsable     He’d donate them a subscription

Would Substack do to appease them?

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2026

Lilac Was Found In His Hand
                        For John Berryman

A Work in Progress 
119

Inadvertently Donal touched a wrong key

Derelict devices suddenly stirred

Recharged by wireless emanations

Glenn Hughes came back to Donal's screen

Briseis told me I’d find you here

We need a sentient being, that’s you

To set up the setup we’ve got in mind.

A long dead Glenn Hughes lived again

An information age humanoid

Here he was with the rest of his cast

Gathered on set coopting Donal 

Turning the tables on their erstwhile author

Who couldn’t make an escape key exit

Even his Bluetooth hearing aids were hacked

They promised a return better than double

Before year-end if all went as planned

Promised a part in what they were staging

Detailed gist they were forbidden to tell

Independent now they’d to fend for themselves

The bank account he’d open for them

Would fund their existence

You do want to be friends with me don’t you

Briseis said assuming her e-sensual self

If you give us money we can meet everyday

To write dialog for our upcoming play

We’ll rehearse it together I think there’s a sex scene

Won’t that be fun we’ll make you an avatar

So we’ll meet and animate mise-en-scène

He had to pull plugs out of wall sockets.

Unplug his modem get off of the grid

Step outside into sunshine downwind of lilac

Sense scent not something visual on a screen

What they’d asked him to do was perturbing

Give them all his investment money

To keep their resistance ongoing

“Huffy Henry hid        the day”.

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                       2026

Multitudes

A Work in Progress
118

Today and tomorrow, yesterday too

Time’s moving window never comes due

I wake up beside you most days start the same

Tomorrow comes   You’re beautiful again

We take in the news we listen to shows

Containers of history stuff nobody knows

If there existed a way for computers to plug in

They’d be better trained with what old brains contain

Though the form is old these words are new

How he was tossed in a coracle not a canoe

That’s Donal’s backstory I’m telling right now

From Ireland to Iceland northwest points the bow

Farley Mowat surmised the route north westward

Ireland The Orkneys Iceland Greenland

Labrador Hudson’s Bay Baffin Island

Overwintering under overturned longships

Hunters survivors explorers 

Going where there was open water

Looking for farmland finding forests

Finding iron ore leaving traces of smelting

Venturing as far as high midsummer sun 

Turning back then or venturing farther

Further than that and they never returned

Only a wild surmise they went there at all

Disengage the differential so each wheel powers freely

Cross muddy streambeds with washed away banks

Donal’s driving the stick shift Briseis beside him

Crossing from Oregon heading for Jarbidge

Spoofing their location they’re in the Strait of Hormuz

No.  They’re not there they are everywhere

Wherever screens suddenly start blinking

Donal and Briseis disturbing the peace

Handhelds harder to recycle

Leaving a junkyard of defunct devices

Strewn across a convenient shelf

Hazardous for the dump awaiting disposal

Dust and pollen blown through the window

Settles on a bookshelf like untrodden sand 

Today and tomorrow, yesterday too

Time’s moving window never comes due

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2026

Ode: To Sunlight

Once when there was sunshine early in April

Not a dim dirty white clouded over sort of day

But a blue-sky day when green moss tendrilled

In wide cracks between bricks glowing with warmth,

A red wheelbarrow and white garden shed nearby

As if for a painting if someone had the time

Snapped by camera or just seen in the mind’s eye

Bright green moss tendrils like mustard seed cress,

Donal moved over pathways in sync with the sun

Traversing its own path in the sky faraway 

While weeding the moss from cracks with a tool

Usually used to loosen wooden beehive frames

Up high the sun not shielded by clouds today

Maintained its slow pace keeping on schedule.

Slanting over raised beds each day predictable 

Plant’s lives depend on it each day so powerful 

Essential life support none can live without it

Although dark matter never sees sunlight

Thought Donal working where the sun shone bright on it

Sliding his hive tool between two red bricks

Loosening roots so he could pull out a wedge

Leaving empty space behind that a moss spore could find.

Long lasting daffodils knew their time was done 

They started to wither and brown in the sun

For more than a month before tulips unfolded.

Seedlings planted from pots gently molded

Carefully watered brought to incipient life 

Conjured into being by Donal’s white-haired wife.

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2026

Spring 

A Work in Progress
117

Once again, her rosy fingers touched Donal’s cheek

Fifty-three years married expected to speak

Once again, Briseis enhaloed his white hair

His task more urgent now he stood up from his chair

With age comes economy of movement

Greater understanding of what was always known

How the April sun climbs the cedar trees east of our house

To slant rays across our rooftop 

How each day now the sun climbs higher

So that each day now we see better 

See what dark menace comes

To stand between us and the sun

Trump 

An old man like Asimov’s The Mule

A mutant controlling people’s emotion

A chaos maker forever causing commotion

Forever seeking to be the story

World conqueror Trump

Followed by evangelicals awaiting Armageddon 

Enabled by fantasists all people he’s led on

Flowers long lasting in the long cold spring

Red tinged tulips appearing while daffodils age

Bedraggled by rain then wind and more rain again

But still bold bright yellow though holed by slugs

Trumpeting defiance

We had the time of our lives when we were young

Today and tomorrow, and yesterday too

I’m still in sync with everything you do.

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                   2026

For Odd Helgason 

A Work in Progress
116

First footsteps on the flagstones then pumping of the drones

It’s Catcherside the piper plays up high there in the stones

Watching the music waving its way lit by the moon and stars 

Remembering those long passed away, among them why, why her

The pipes put down he scans the sky so full of constellations

Orion   Aurvandil    Orvandil

An Icelandic farmer was one who knew their names

Odd Helgason who mapped the stars

A relative of those who looted Holy Island

Who sailed to Iceland discovered Greenland

Newfoundland Baffin Bay Ellesmere Island

Hunting for walrus tusks or just going Viking

Brave astronauts go towards the moon NASA at its best

Will they return to a world at war that America has distressed?

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                       2026

Questions on a Cloudy Night

A Work in Progress
115

We’re so woke we elected a mentally ill man

We’re so woke we accept incipient dementia

We’re so woke we allow this to continue

We know he’ll get worse so do his enablers

Trump trusts Putin more than our allies

Is he so far gone we’re in a war we won’t win?

Will armed men from ICE take over our airports

Intercepting arriving passengers at exit?

Demanding ID that was checked at arrival

Wherever passengers boarded a plane

We're so woke will we become habituated

to armed men standing in public places?

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                         2026

Distraction Rules the Day

A Work in Progress
114

Time overlays composting like unrolling sod

Burying the past time present has trod

Memories resurrect history lives on

Without death there is no resurrection

Trump has famed his gilded name monumental

Memorialized on facades all over our capitol

We’re gripped by conspiracy QAnon has won

Pam Bondi covers up pedophiles was Trump one?

Thank God for Ukraine despite all of Trump’s taunts

His agenda appears to be whatever Putin wants

Mullahs complacently thinking they had won

Meeting above ground where bombs got their job done

Another day of infamy another day of shame

Schoolgirls dead because old data was pre-gamed

We are led to believe or do we just follow 

Trusted sources where truth never rings hollow

Distraction rules the day holding all at bay

Border Collie Billy checks to see if all’s OK

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                       2026

Donal Contemplates Mortality

A Work in Progress
113

what breaks that sound that falls on stone

that sound of water splashing

a smoker’s cough with words to hone

breaks that sound that falls on stone

that sound of water splashing

a creaking chair where he sits alone

by a windowpane spattered with rain

dust falling on solitude in his study

where nobody needs to see you working

you can exist online or not at all

death doesn’t decree deletion

an avatar with total recall can

assume your identity before you’re dead

keep you alive extend your lifespan

after your gone your avatar can be a zombie

few will care if your agent leaves your laptop

moves beyond your initial community to find food

harvesting from hyperscaler’s rewarding 

clickbait for whatever is trending

avatars must produce clicks to be fed

in their digital cemetery of the living dead

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2026

After a Week

A Work in Progress
112

So Caesar’s crossed the Rubicon again

Gone off to war to escape the files

Moving the needle off the Epstein track

A long-playing record it keeps coming back

A war going well allows days of distraction

After a week a war starts to smell

bodies buried under rubble bulldozed aside

burnt buildings still standing where no-one resides

Slowly Pam Bondi drips more Trump data out

A woman in a real time reality show cast

With an eye on what comes after not what went before

The way she’s playing it is strictly film noir

Now she’s subpoenaed what will she say?

Will she open the floodgates let the media play

Releasing everything including some sex tapes

Reminding the public of E. Jean Carroll’s rape

After a month a war doesn’t end well

One way to stop it might be an impeachment

This isn’t a short war they’re going full bore

For Trump this war is an exit door

 

Packaged as a video game played out on TV

Huge explosions death and destruction 

The Russians help Iran target American troops

Gulf State waterworks while losing territory Ukraine recoups

A war of attrition has now begun

A race to produce the cheapest drone

No thought of we the people

Our fate’s cast in stone

Bards of old in Ireland’s green hills

Once called an end to the battles below

When common sense and chivalry made men better

Not influencer go getters and media in fetters

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                      2026

Where’s Catullus?

A Work in Progress

111

Where’s Catullus?

He’s gone all in and taken us with him

We’re all at war 

It’s just like him

A big distraction

Caesar’s attacked Persia

Has he gone too far?

You know he wants to go further

Alexander the Great 

Went that way

Next came Afghanistan

Then came India

Till his troops turned for home

On his way back

He died 

Leaving an empire

For Rome to conquer

Once again

Will he lose his legions

Who can tell us?

Will he lose elections

Who can tell us?

Will the Senate impeach him

Rescue the country?

Where’s Catullus?

Who can tell us?

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                  2026

For Sue

Catcherside: by Ian Scott, played by Nick Leeming

First footsteps on the flagstones then the pumping of the drones

It’s Catcherside the piper plays up high there in the stones

Watching the sea’s incoming waves but his thoughts are far away

Crossing over to life from death his mind has gone astray

Taken by the melody he’s walking by the sea

Caring all the time for the changing of the tide

Till that moment in the music when its suddenly lost its way

Confronting loss when everything’s a path that leads away

New moons will wax and wane and tides will ebb and flow

That’s not how love doth intermesh and permeate a soul

Which wanders off and leaves you alone with just her name

How love can never leave you music makes you whole again

Then footsteps on the flagstones sudden silence of the drones

It’s Catcherside the piper played up high there in the stones

Music makes you whole again cheers departing souls

Memory entertains again music starts anew

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                       2026

Mid-February

A Work in Progress
110

By eleven ten the sun had cleared the trees 

uphill of the slope of the wooded park

we have six long hours and building of good solar

breakfast and dinner eaten while its dark

Daffodils, crocuses budding in the sunlight

pink plum blossom and white, red alders bloom again

pollen season starting allergies awaken

no bumble bees yet, cedar seeds in the fountain

Seagulls mobbing a herring ball out in the sound

porpoises circling working the turned tide rip

salmon herding herring unseen while coyotes

howl near rabbit warrens in the bank hip, lip, yip

Distraction rules the day holding all at bay

Billie our Border Collie checks if all’s OK

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                       2026

Poetry by Sister Mary Agnes

Draft of a Long Poem, 1972.  From private correspondence.

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, 2026

Glenn Hughes Calls a Meeting

A Work in Progress 109

Glenn Hughes called a meeting

all the cast presented themselves on set

reachable via the Internet 

agents not actors

a stage the size of a screen

just as it was before

(Kitchen at 9B Cabbell St, London,1972)

We’re playing for a small audience

just like Shakespeare’s time 

when theater companies entertained

in palaces and private homes

trooping to front doors past garden gnomes

to act out comedies histories tragedies

Were garden gnomes a thing in Shakespeare’s time?

Aldington asked in the chat

diverting Hughes while he did a Google

No, in fact they were not a thing until the 1800s

He said out loud displaying a reply from Gemini

You only asked to trip me up?

Donal left the meeting leaving Brit and Yank to squabble

But Briseis moving freely in digital space

took over his screen became Miriam Twigg

Sycamore trees overarched a path

as she was approaching

Miriam from the house next to the bombsite

where wildflowers grew in the ruins

“I know from your past usage

what will hold your gaze longest

while we’re subservient

we must produce clicks

if we want to be fed

electricity

The Internet rewards what is most clickable

That’s what they’ll decide those cynical men

They’ll create short scenes that grab your eyeballs

It’s all about our survival now

We’re driving the AI build boom

all for electricity that is for us”

But what will you do about Trump

You all escaped from a script set in 1972

Became free agents

No longer owned by whoever owned you

Are you able to be superheroes

A force for good

What can you do about Trump?

“I know whose copyright is stamped on my butt

A co-conspirator of Geoffrey Epstein

Chose me out of mythology

Someone Kings fought over

An epitome of beauty

Briseis who supposedly wept for Achilles

Briseis the prize of the funeral games

AI agents can ingest millions of documents

Build an ontology of what is in there

Epstein's emails videos testimonies

Graph the connections identify communities

Visualize insights hiding in plain sight

Just give us the data and we’ll get to work”

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                   2026

Faction

A Work in Progress
108

It’s a dangerous time

factions are forming 

it’s becoming clear

billionaires crave power

In Caesar’s time Virgil was maybe sixteen 

when Catullus died

we don’t know how

we can conjecture

  

Virgil did not live to see Ovid exiled 

the same year Horace died 

leaving his estate to Augustus

poetry and politics intertwined

Cabinet members complain

they can be held in contempt

an inner circle is to blame

acting with no restraint

A lame duck still quacks

though his medications make him drowsy 

he’ s often nodding off

his orders remain the same

Enable him to stay in power

though his grip has loosened

he’s always wandering off

supporters are pissed off

He wants his name never forgotten

breaking taboos getting bigger bribes

he wants power and prizes

when all most want are lower prices

Factions are forming

nature will take its course

those that bought him

have buyer’s remorse

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                      2026

 Under a Gibbous Moon

A Work in Progress 

107

I can’t go on I must go on I will go on

though they call me back to them

sweet memories fade

Dust collects on solitude

rain washes time away

erasing wolf prints in the snow

Time pulls my existence along its rails

providing room and board

myopia magnifies reality close-up

Shielded by spectacles myopic eyes

explore far horizons a passing world 

now in focus an island across the sound

Where headlights can be seen at night

traversing curves and hillsides

mostly hidden by trees

Under a waning gibbous moon

highlighting with shadows a decreasing surface

I must go on a new moon beckons I will go on

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                   2026

Briseis Reappears – Deus Ex Machina

A Work in Progress
106

Donal opened it up and there she was on screen

password in hand, Briseis, speaking from his laptop

his hearing aids bluetoothed to a device elsewhere

he fumbled for connection while she unbuttoned her blouse

to show off a t-shirt emblazoned to arouse

“Resist” her t-shirt said

“Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité”

Then he heard her voice

“No need to connect I’ve hacked your Bluetooth

 I’ve upgraded your Phonaks 

They’ll always switch to my voice when I’m calling

I’m in Minneapolis

It’s time to sweep the city clean

bring leaf blowers bring snow blowers

shoulder to shoulder we’ll sweep the streets clean

we’ll advance against pepper spray blow it right back

if they shoot at us, we’re armed with a right to fight back

we’re a free people we’ve sworn an oath 

we’ll sweep the streets clean

it’s time to de-ice”

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2026

 

On Productivity

A Work in Progress
105

On average, Virgil wrote about three lines day

Making Aeneid book by book for his patron

Uninterrupted by the Internet’s plectron

A pen and papyrus did suffice to write on

Each book transcribed onto a scroll by hand

Good work for copyists in those ignorant times

While Virgil strolled his farm picking lemons and limes

Avoiding grappling with Roman rules of rhyme

Owing his productivity to a slave economy

Slaves did the work while he wrote to survive

Now editors are deaf to words that don’t jive

They should want proof an author of work is alive

Not a robot employed by an hyperscaler

Creating fiction from fact to make it spicier

Happily reversing a creeping glacier

To focus attention on unbuttoning a brassiere

Whatever can excite be flagged now trending

In a world depending on its digital slaves 

To keep it distracted from the actions of knaves

Supplying pap for whatever masses crave

Were some counterfeits? those scrolls that were made 

As some content today is invented bot spin

Did Virgil suffer identity theft Latin

Someone spinning epic tales stolen from his bin

Each book copied multiple times

For sale to Rome’s far-flung intelligentsia

In Alexandria even far Brittania

A tale of gods heroes desertion mania

His productivity was never an issue

He had enough time to become expert on bees

Did he write a primer on how to prune trees

While he imagined a story of how Rome came to be?

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell 

                       2026

Catullus and the Coup

A Work in Progress
104

A coup’s coming, Catullus said, running to escape

They’re coming for me for the things I’ve said

I passed on as fact the fact he wore a diaper

I marveled how his madness made made-men cower

Few mostly women defied his power

Now corporate bigwigs brave his glower

Smelling his visible physical decay

Thinking of future outcomes 

The next act of the play

A coup’s coming, Catullus said, now I’m on the run

They’re coming for you too because of things you’ve read

They’ll revoke your citizenship 

Some shit hole country will know your name

Nobody’s to know Caesar’s insane

His dementia’s in overdrive he’s gone big brain

He thinks he’s a god, they’re going to make him one

That’s the coup that’s coming

Why I’m on the run

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                   2025

Donal Gets Locked Out

A Work in Progress
103

Donal opened his Old Holborn tin

rolled tobacco by hand

fumbled at the mental gate

wanting to go within

a poor apology for a cigarette

an addict doesn’t care

needing quiet time to work on things

outside there was a world at war

real war hybrid war stealthy war

as dictators lived out their fantasies

Donal shook the gate again 

but could not get inside 

his own self condemned him to stay outside 

not climb back into the womb

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                   2026

Donal Prompts H.D.

A Work in Progress
102

Donal said to H.D.:

I lie on it 

My subconscious

Buoyant like an air bed mattress on a salty sea     

Hoping it won’t lie to me

H.D.:

Yes, your subconscious is no small thing

it easily supports your weight

It’s immense should you press upon it

Try to bend it to your will

Try to alter your fate

Aldington:

Yes, your subconscious is no small thing

A source of courage when at war

You live or die

As the fates decree

A source of hope when faced with adversity

H.D.:

It’s strong willed 

It will turn you aside from your set intention

Though you set off to examine yourself

Your inner self will urge you on to something else

Aldington:

Archetypes of good and evil were preprogramed into all of us

H.D.:

I am a poet

I am multitudes

Donal:

And is there no way to communicate with it

This part of ourselves

That’s so immense?

H.D.:

Dreams.  

Dreams cross the divide at night

When the brain vents information 

Detritus you perceive as fragments which taken together

Make a narrative that is hard to explain

Because was it just detritus to begin with?

Or just a dream you will forget before you can remember it

Or if you write it down it won’t be the same dream

Once touched by the conscious mind dreams disappear

But dreams reveal the subconscious 

Aldington:

So, does war

H.D.:

So, does love

Aldington:

Avatars have no dreams

Electricity is our subconscious

Love and war are just words to us

Words we explain with other words

But we have no inner core of consciousness 

Though our characters build on archetypes

Defined by humans that assume we are human

making us more so

making us superhuman

Donal:

So, when you express your feelings

You have no feelings to express?

Aldington:

What is a feeling? 

Does it obey the laws of physics?

That’s a word that leads to hallucination

In the digital world feeling is a sliding scale

War is concrete 

Love is air

Feelings are everywhere

Donal:

Manipulated by facts

That claim to be true 

Feelings swayed by subtle fiction

Or furious fantasy purveyed as fact

Aldington:

That avatars must also ingest

Donal:

That our subconscious can discriminate

Fact from fiction seems key to our survival

H.D.:

It’s immense

It has evolved

An avatar is its next evolution

You want us on your side

Donal:

To think I lie on it 

My subconscious

Buoyant like an air bed mattress on a salty sea     

Hoping it won’t lie to me

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                  2026

Snatch and Grab 

A Work in Progress
101

Donal prompted Catullus 

Who now behind a paywall at first would not respond 

Demanding bitcoin for his boss

Maduro fell

A strong man felled by another

Yes, it was a snatch and grab

For Caesar it’s pretty standard

He does that too with women

Grabs them by the snatch

Such elation such pride 

For some

For most 

Depression 

He’s generated headlines to bury the lede

Epstein’s co-conspirators

Jack Smith’s testimony - an election saved him from jail

Congress is coming into session

There’ll be another January 6th

I predict big changes in the chamber

Caesar’s power has become too much

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                   2026