Tuesday, June 18, 2013



                                     Going Viking



          Vikings in Byzantium
          swaggering about islands
          one eye on the Empress
          another on Norway

          From Novgorod in Ruskis
          to Constantinople
          sailing down rivers
          in the dim   dark days

         While colleges in Ireland
         were training skalds
         some voyaging to Iceland
         gateway to Vinland

         Thence went eagles
         ravens and crows
         wolves ran before them
         yipping of hammer blows

         Lost in the North
         wandering west
         each man a chieftain
         going Viking...

         Ravens on whalebone
         eagles on ivory
         Russians for neighbors
         just like in old days

         Goose Bay    Labrador
         Nome    Alaska
         pilots in stetsons
         mending the fence

         Going Viking...!


                                 © Dick Russell, 2013
              

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Northumberland Raga

(Roughside, near Tarset, Hexham)

                        1 (after Lorca)


I last saw Roughside at sunset
on top of its hill    its chimneys smokeless    asserting domain
over pressing congregations of fir trees
manufactured trees    plantation growths
like cancer choking life from the throat of the hill

I rapped on the padlocked door
heard not even the rustle or scratch of a mouse
not even an echo    just absence    
not even a ghost nestling in that old stuffed chair

There was only an owl    a short eared owl     
regarding me silently from the gable

I once had a cottage where I lived with a girl
who passed away so completely
she's gone forever
over the hill and faraway from the might have been

Roughside stands empty except for the owl
and was it was her owl?  
the one she reared with raw meat from a chick
that flew from fence post to barn roof    
rust dusted its talons

And I said:  No we can't keep it
We must let it go
And when we were walking
down the hill in those days when the fir trees were just planted
in the time when breezes blew freely and Roughside had plums on its plum tree and adders basked in the sunlight
songbirds were mobbing an owlet and it was her owl and I thought it was dead
I thought I had killed it by letting it go

But it was her owl and now it is mine
and no one else's    because it was her owl
my owl!  

                        2


Basil Bunting died
when we were in France that spring
long ago he gave me good advice
refusing his help as a referee
warning of abuse of that word "the"

Roughside to Corbridge was but twenty miles
if I had gone   Was I too shy?   Too proud?
Briggflats    Scarlatti    talking about Pound
who in Northumberland tilled such ground?

now yearning for quiet country life
making poems at Roughside
yet money harries me back

                           *

Thwarted by traffic a magpie loiters at roadside
then hops towards a metallic gleam
like me hoping to get back one day
to that ore bearing seam

                           *

I'll find an idea in a loose leaf book
an idea I can peck some substance out
about a cuckoo    we heard one calling
near Romilly's Brard in Loubressac

that we    like cuckoos    pushed our way in
to her song bird's nest    while in Aynac
some friends bought the old mill for a song

                            (cuckoo)

as water wastes through the mill-race
images of what would be clothe the bone
she pointed...

               a poem-bone at my face

                           *


Roughside  where I lived  was a rough male place
hospitable to short eared owls and sheep

Brard more feminine with bees and a goat
children picking orchids     I had heather
she    apple trees    songbirds and a dovecote

I'd no running water and it was hard
she'd piped water    and wine    from a spring
maybe Heaven is a little like Brard

high on the moors    far from usury
even bereft of Barclaycard    and broke
Roughside was good till a man from the bank
climbed up from the road to save a stamp

may a crow perch on that bank manager's nose
peck out his eyes for coins to close


                           *


And B. B. might have said

your poetry fears being naked with us
shrouding its meaning with unnecessary rime

trapped in my mind's hall of mirrors
where embarrassments flash often
I think of Heather breaking the stillness
when she stripped and dived naked
swam in a rock pool    iridescent
left me standing  awkwardly  present

I try to recapture that magic light
a magpie hopping away  my dream fades
the world intrudes


                           *


Some images claw light from dark
climb hand over hand from a cave
in an aerie  eaglets shudder
wing beats shatter cold air

others glean darkness from sunshine

sunlight through lacework  willows
weeping    shading field and
horses standing in water  Anglo Arabians
with a colt watching a stallion
and some mares standing deepest

above the moorland buzzards soar
where troubadours once lamented
solitary men    that many might have helped
had they had less pride.


                           *



poetry wants to be naked for you...
bold words if spoken boldly
else pathetic, whispered by that sensitive
young man we grow tired of

brush strokes gold in black hollows
                  watching each moment
poised on this one rock  watching
each moment stream Tyne water down

there are ways of working  turning
words on a wheel towards meaning
there are ways of laying down tools
signifying  completion


                              *

  
then owlet flew with slow wing beats
from fence post to barn roof
rust dusted her talons

moon rose over Stonehaugh
yellow bloom in purple leaves
above black edge



 © Dick Russell, 2013

Sunday, May 26, 2013


Black & White Raga



As the game begins

Queens dominate their own color squares

white and black Queens opposed on the d file

tension builds as they contend the center
then white pawns slip into position
encroach on black squares
black Queen moves to a white square but it is too late
white has taken hold of the game

our opponents
playing games of increasing complexity
weighing advantage   disadvantage
terror   lesser terror
right & wrong

unlike chess masters they cannot see far ahead
but like chess masters they delight 
                      in defining equality
qualified    of course    by who's next to move

& sometimes they move surreptitiously  like pawns
or savagely like rooks
stately like Kings

they are renowned for never exposing Queens to  early attack
guarding the center
developing strong points
minimizing weaknesses

in between two games
one hand reaching
hesitant to move

because that move
restricts subsequent choice
there is no going back
especially for pawns

when pieces encounter conflict
they can move away

pawns must stay and fight

meanwhile musicians play a cyber raga

                 DO WHILE misunderstood

                 PERFORM UNTIL, Black = White

in between two songs
one hand on a taut drum
damping percussive effects of crowd
the other on cymbals

needing silence again they play
weaving meaning
on a thousand line octave


© Dick Russell, 2016

Thursday, May 9, 2013


      St James' Bell



      St. James' bell    St. James' bell
      it isn't named in London's rhymes
      but I'll not return to Camberwell
      now St. James' bell no longer chimes

      St. James' bell    St. James' bell
      he rang it often when a boy
      before singing hymns    and singing well
      in St. James' choir they sang for joy

      jubilantly they played in Myatt's Fields
      its Easter flowerbeds ablaze
      with tulips, daffodils
      sparks of spring that pierced dazed

      bomb battered London
               they sang for joy
      though some were fatherless, iron
      in their hearts    a chill alloy

      that belled pure notes in spring
      when sudden gusts shook dust from trees
      drab Londoners changed their skins
      donned country airs    shelled new peas

      but where they sang none sing there now
      St. James' choir    St. James' bell
      both made redundant    silent now
      except my memory hears this knell

      St. James' bell    St. James' bell
      it isn't named in London's rhymes
      but I'll not return to Camberwell
      now St. James' bell no longer chimes


      © Dick Russell, 2013



Sunlight  A Work in Progress 56 Sunlight shows what sound waves signify trickles from a fountain fill a bowl  with water which magnifies tri...