more urgent now to return

                                to that table   those chairs

                                                those

                                               bottles

                                               of myth

                                                   we

                                       poured nightly

                                                Market Forces

                                   

                        There's a force plants bulbs for profit

                                    then severs their stems in spring

                        there's a green fuse drives daffodils

                                                to genius

                        while bulbs divide     beneath

                        such forces in our genes

                        though life's beset

                                    beset by forces unforeseen

                                                            like cancer

                        unfairness is a market force   as yet misunderstood

                        it's not the caprice of callous gods   

                        have not the gods long left us?

                        then where's the meaning   cause and effect

                        where's the profit in untimely death?

                       

                        we go on as we've always gone

                        hear news

                        who's up    who's down

                       

                        & wonder why it was not us

                        may these cut flowers

                                    these daffodils

                                                bring cheer

                        life comes full circle

                        with bold display

                        cut flowers on its grave

                       

                        © Dick Russell, 2013

The Henge

Blue stones were pushed to the henge on rollers

floated down rivers on rafts

then Tess came there

he saw her riding among solitary stones

looking for sanctuary      Just a brief glimpse

in his mind's eye    Tess    stress      tristesse

Naked lengths lain in a warm ward

where swing doors trolley cold pails

"Her past, her past"   murmurs by the elevator

"Explains her painting’s strangeness"

those swing doors bringing brass bands

profile parades      Does he/she remind you of...

grey shades inlaid in the brain

until spring painted brighter colors

            She sought advice from a hermit  

            clambered down to his beach through the fog

            but when she arrived he had gone

            just a note pinned to his door

           your past has the shape

           of a long bodied dragon, a Chinese dragon

           with legs, many legs, ducking and weaving

           like a low cloud chased by wind

           go stand by an eucalyptus tree

           breathe deeply and be free

A fog had crept up from the sea

voices off were magnified

while mist filled hollows with its balm

a sparrow chipped its cares out

He sat

fogbound

thinking of Tess

mute with music contained

© Dick Russell 2014
revised version of a March 9th 2013 post

Drinking Under the Moon

                                    by Li Po

A jug of wine         among flowers

in the moonlight      nobody close

so I raised my cup to the bright moon

bade it drink with me

just the three of us

bright moon     my shadow     and me

shadows only imitate

the moon cannot comprehend

in spite of that we were happy

you must enjoy life in Spring

I sang   the moon listened

I danced   my shadow capered about

we were once all strangers

now    we are such good friends

we drink

we laugh

we laugh

we drink

though we’ll part

we'll all meet once more

to journey beyond time

T’ang Dynasty

translated by David Sen, Dick Russell

© Dick Russell, 2013

               Elegy

                  1

Father-in-law Tsi loved his youngest daughter best

I    a poor scholar   became his son

I coaxed her   when I had no money

she dressed me from her own straw case

                         of oddments & old clothes

a few sweet words

she even sold her beloved gold pin

so I could get drunk

Seeking wild vegetables for food

collecting fallen twigs for fuel

she used to look up at the old trees

wishing their leaves would fall

Now I have high office

I cannot share my fortune

now I could repay her

I can only commemorate her

                  2

We used to joke

about what happened after death

now my eyes mirror

the long   long sorrow I've seen

Of the clothes she left

I kept only a few

her sewing box unopened

it would tread on my heart

I remember her kindness

I'm gentle with her maids

tell of our poverty   burn money

so she will not suffer in the other world

All those who have lost love

understand my sorrow

only those who were once so poor

know how sad I am

                  3

I sit alone

mourning my lost love

knowing I'm near

to my own death

One man loses a son

he accounts for it as Fate

another writes three poems

in remembrance of his wife

We cannot change the past

I just hope to lie beside her in our tomb

but I fear she may not be there

I won't even meet her

in the next life

I stay awake at night

never closing my eyes

wanting to reach out to her

to caress away her frown

the worry soaked into her face

Yuan Chen

T'ang Dynasty

Translated by David Sen, Dick Russell

© Dick Russell, 2013

YEATS COUNTRY

Forever they spiral up the tower

smoothing stone with their shoulders

to stand at peak and mimic an hour

of a ponderous gyre about the sun

while cars come and go

and a green bottle lurches towards Sligo

shadows collide on a wall

silhouettes   leaves

sparrows flying up under the eaves

above a secluded room away from the throng

where priapic youth and gaunt girl

play socket and sprong

careless juxtapositions

ambiguities    a cockney with a courtly girl

a book across a wallet

and when meaning is expressed

collisions and repulsions

easier to own a Venus

than to stroke a muse's breast

To enter Yeats country find a Murphy girl

a modern day Maud Gonne

clothed in granny's furs from Harrods

who will bring you to the tower

leaving you there    a lighthouse keeper

dashing your hopes of spending an hour

in a secluded room

in Yeats bleak country poets stand agape

oblivious of landscape

gnawing old bones

questioning the memory of stones

that have long leached light from shape

looking for her foot's lost imprint

where her shadow lingers indistinct

So besiege the tower with determined tread

stand at the peak and demand to know

with cross knit brows and sculptured head

why a green bottle lurches towards Sligo

© Dick Russell, 2013