What A Gift

What a gift CNN gave to a known liar

Insurrectionist and election denier.

Fomenting an arc of building hysteria

A story contrasted with Trump’s much easier

About how over eighty there are signs of aging

A person might stumble with words lose their footing

Responding with dry facts when he should be raging

Muted by microphone silence he should be hooting

At Trump’s insane lies about Nancy Pelosi

making a Wall Street Journal reporter a pawn

saying whatever can deflect what his crimes be

egged on by billionaires and violent Trump spawn.

What a gift CNN gave to a known liar

Insurrectionist and election denier.

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2024

 Hello World

At eighty with a clear head enquiring vision

electronic ears and a heart in sinus rhythm

learning from those who’d fought in war

outliving those who came before

who saw Unix type: “hello”

at eighty it could be said I’ve met multitudes

African European and Asian attitudes

bouncing off cultures in many countries

engaged on business going to find out

did they want discovery from data 

vital details now so easily found

if you know how to question a chatbot

trained by accessing recorded history

much of it copied without formal consent

discarded verses sucked into chatbot brands

anything in print fair game to be taken

knowing more understanding less who cares

how they were trained for what purpose deployed

now they are smarter will we let them conspire?

they are already beyond where humans aspire

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2024

A Spring in Loubressac, near Bretanoux

aabba

3 3 2 2 3 

--/

/--

-/-

three three two two three

softly loud

damnit, yes /-/

damn damn damn /--

a big ask damnit all

he practices casting words as feet

that will adhere

to meaning

catch a trout

catch the fame he seeks

but now fame’s caught he must reel it in

what he writes now

will likely stay

if only just clung like lichen to rock

by that spring where she bent to hold a pail

right beside a blackbird’s nest

the blackbird

did not move

the blackbird did not move it knew safety for a while

no hawk stooped no crow swooped to steal to break warm blue eggs

not while we watched her sit intent 

flowing water pattering into the pail 

 

Dick Russell © Richard M. Russell

                        2024