Look North: 
         A Corner

A Work in Progress
139

Nobody waits at the corner where a stone pillar stands

on a scarp rising from moorland where rock was quarried

where a traveler must turn or drop off a cliff edge

blundered over bones below are of fallen sheep 

Should someone be waiting don’t hike there alone

this landscape is steeped with ambush and anguish

trust nobody not birds they will warn you’re approaching

tread carefully for adders on this path stretch out  

Look north mostly north for that’s where you’re going

if you find your way down from this escarpment

a gravel road at its base the foresters made

you must cross over and stride onto moorland again

Standing by the pillar you can see where you’re going

which path to ponder or should you think of returning

or will you still be there if I come that way again

where nobody’s waiting where a stone pillar stands

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                       2026

Briseis and the Imagists
Episode 2: Cast of Characters

A Work in Progress
138

Donal invented them 

Now these avatars have an intention

Of acting in character true to the fiction

That first was written about them

Aldington, a man who knew war from the inside out

Briseis, the young mother abducted by Achilles

H.D. the mysterious missing person

Glenn Hughes, the forgotten Imagist

Babette Hughes, his student turned wife

Ezra Pound, the blemished enigma

Catullus, critic of Caesar

Lesbia

Their faces appear as if drifting in space

It’s all an illusion Donal said

Just then Catullus flashed a message 

Caesar is plotting a coup

He’s lost control of the Senate

His lost control of his mind

Says magnets in water lose magnetism

No. It’s his own magnetism has lost its power

His jokes fall flat he’s losing lawsuits

Sycophants surround him

Billionaires have bought off his court

They know he’s long been venal

Now they know he’s also senile

Those around him are in too deep

It’s sink or swim or climb out of the pool

Caesar is plotting a coup

Grifts like pardons for a fee keep going

Caesar gets greedier

Many have noticed his dementia

So many he can’t let them vote

Meanwhile the war goes on

Caesar is plotting a coup

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2026

Briseis and the Imagists

A Work in Progress
137

Episode 1

Catullus reported back to Briseis a summary:

The poor are no longer in awe

Always been a gap between rich and poor

It’s all an illusion some of them say

Wars on the screen are a long way away

Some listen to paid influence peddlers

Others just follow their chosen pied pipers

Following the flute of whoever plays best

They have one thing in common they are all fed up

With paying more when they go to the store

They can’t comprehend a trillionaire’s wealth

The poor will soon start knocking on doors

Building support for a new sort of cause

That puts people first not nationalism

Their eyes are opening to a new realism

Caesar’s not who they thought he was

They see an old man like the wizard of OZ

Glenn Hughes applauded

So did his cast

Briseis noted:

Humans are tribal

If it’s not religion, it’s their football team

Unable to use their intellects freely

They disobey the tenets of their own religions

Glenn Hughes said:

Caesar’s not who they thought he was

They elected a person who was in mental decline

Let’s plot a play that causes his downfall

He’s a danger to himself and to all

Kept in power by a small cabal

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2026

Lesbia whispered

                              (to Donal)

      A Work in Progress
                  136

       

          Lesbia whispered

       preparing to take him

    where he had not gone before

 you must learn to enjoy

       my hands caressing you

            your skin rippling

         my nails small knives

dissecting you

flame frost both creating and killing

           in my fingertips

             let you shudder

                      there

                quiver there

       tremble

       moan while I’m loving you

         while my hands undo

      all the knots of your body

           & your bones melt

            & you yield to me

   come to me now

                 then my love

          come into the cosmos

              œther of stars’ gap

                fills my lungs

          my heels move galaxies

my thighs are pathways to the universe

                  my moment 

       time caught

                    time spent

         

        time flows

                      away me

                         away

  me

                                     he was as intimate with her 

    as crab lice during copulation

              she who stole fish 

         who shrewdly calculated

         how to become bankrupt

              with credit cards

      went off to Paris to spend money

        gave expensive gifts to friends 

          even left him with a Nikon

     he sold for a fraction of its worth

               careless of money

          now memories flicker in 

                  consciousness 

            where tendrils of light 

       flash in forests of neurons       

                       long 

       carbon chain molecules hunt

             through his brain

like chemicals working to remove stains

     from a carpet never finding those

  remnants   filaments of fiber encoded

                 generations ago 

         all that Lesbia once was

         mythology is like a stain 

         no chemicals can remove

          its archetypes embedded 

           seashells in a fishnet

          impossible to untangle

            intrinsic to its design 

         she will always be there

 

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                 (2015) 2036

A Cottage Garden

A Work in Progress
135 

there’s a path along whose edge bees work

hot lips salvia, in front of a small fountain

frequented by small birds with tails that fork

hummingbirds sip from its flowing water

falling from the spout of a woman’s pitcher 

that feeds the fountain’s bowl

 

she does not stir while montbretias arch

fire lilies in front of an acanthus palisade

floral spears in a ragged line that march

white wispy flowers under nun-like purple hoods

cave-like spaces too narrow for penetration

but bees push their way in

 

she’s a statue lending a woman’s touch

to this garden a living woman loves so much

 

 

 

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                  2026