Thursday, August 8, 2013

   

    Remembering Bruce Choppin


                          1 

       I learned from Google that Bruce was dead

       He died in nineteen eighty three in Chile
       "in problematic circumstances"[i]
        on his way to a job in Singapore

        I took over his apartment
        on Morningside Drive
        after he left New York

        one evening a girl came by
        to retrieve some stuff 
        but she took one look
        went off in a huff
        some parting jest?
        I never asked

              2


       The Girl In New York


She was Lebanese    clever    strongly made
I with important “work” and a big head
words woven in harmonious brocade
won’t bring her back to life-for she is dead

she killed herself     and since I was obtuse
I’ve felt regret all through these busy years
for we met for coffee  -  talk was no use
I know now at an age when all coheres

when I heard she was dead I was shamed
I’d sensed her despair but did not reach out 
gave nothing of myself    though as yet unclaimed
except by ambition and nagging doubt

She is dead    beyond questions    beyond love
my work!  so what was I so afraid of?


               3


         Images


             oil paint
  a trembling mare
  a field of corn
  a crimson scythe
  a stallion

stars swoop down to tongue
                                         Lethe
      a dark river
      white cliffs
      tongue flicks
      her liquid image
      her dewdrop

  now an iron foundry
  a din of words
  & candlelight

Ladies
I know you     ladies

            tail thumper run
            run white scud

2 wolves

a big double bed
sunlight

& still the sunlight


               4


          New York


     now that the sun
        lies in the avenues
 shadows move the streets
 this heat has become an emotion
            of
         pillars
         pillars
                 cloying
misted
         pillars
         tiles
         steam

     the heat dampens impulse
an opulent belly bejeweled with droplets of
                 shower
the bowl of the lavatory is a misted image
          this heat
          this heat
             feels
     as fingers in the vulva
          this heat
     melds the edges of
             sex
    go only
       goes only
           with the beat of the humid
                                                 heat
   & the flop
        wet kneed
              to sleep


                                                © Dick Russell, 2013






[i] http://www.rasch.org/rmt/rmt84e.htm

Sunday, August 4, 2013



Coq Roti

            for Britt Ronnegren


   each word
recreates that table   window    chair    and door

     and there are other objects with more of
our emotion

                        the candles
                       those goblets
                   the face of that clown

        at Coq Roti
       steak au poivre
       and a wager about brandy
      that lost one crown

our eyes own everything

love your eyes
which bring glimpses of north light

need the north light
             of your eyes
like a painter

       painting


                 happily



         © Dick Russell, 2013

Friday, July 26, 2013


             For A Family Saga


                   They were happy then
                    his children brought friends
                    home     Mr. Mather would get out a fiddle
                    they’d roll back the carpet and dance

                     kindly but strict
                     great grandfather Mather
                     managed the rolling stock
                     at night in the yards

                     in his spare time    
                     Mather made violins
                     made music for his family
                     most able bodied men were then in France

                                   except Brugner with TB

                      Brugner born but a score and seven
                      years before young death
                      had hung his work in an art academy
                      and was much missed after…

                      Peggy and Jack     he had them sit for him
                      Rebecca and Lizzie     he painted their portraits
                      covering his canvases with varnish
                      in the manner of the masters

                      Lizzie told fortunes read palms
                      read King George’s hand
                      my grandmother helped her
                      their profits high in the hundreds

                      & Brugner dying at twenty seven
                      had painted fine things
                      portraits     landscapes     Tyne river scenes
                      nothing uglier than a storm cloud

                      Of the sisters Lizzie was most fond
                      but Rebecca lived longest     outlived all of them
                      Donnelly married her
                      of Donnelly little is known

                      emigrant Black Irish
                      came back for the fighting
                      he had a wife in Canada
                      unknown to all

                      my mother brought up by a "widow"
                      because Rebecca married a bigamist
                      but her child never knew
                      lived thinking Donnelly was killed in the First War.

                      kindly but strict
                      great grandfather Mather
                      killed by a train
                      one night in the yards

                      the night Donnelly was confronted
                      that same night

                      Mather’s distress left him heedless of danger
                      worried about his pregnant daughter
                      he walked into a moving train

                      of those violins that Mather had made
                      none were retained
                      for selling off his father’s fiddles
                      brother Jack was blamed

                      when grandmother lived with us
                      there were two large oil paintings in her room
                      Peggy and Jack
                      & two landscapes in water colors

                      there was also a small oil
                      of a Tyne river scene
                      later lent to a friend for safekeeping
                      destroyed by an IRA bomb.



                      © Dick Russell, 2013

Sunday, July 21, 2013


        Song of the Turning Key*


                 for Yuri Daniel (1925-1988)


              I'm a turning key   a turning key
              I'm one of three   one of three
              there's two spare ones   then there's me
              the best of the three    that's me

              I'm a locking up key   a locking up key
              I've got a dirty job   a very dirty job
              I lock Daniel in his cell all night
              & try as I might   try as I might
              I can't resist the turn of the screw
              that uses me   that uses me   so miserably
              the proudest key of the three   that's me

              I'm an unhappy key   an unhappy key
              the nasty screw that uses me
              don't like Danny and he don't like me
              he's threatened to throw me away

              I'm the littlest key    the littlest key
              if I'm thrown away   they won't find me
              I'm such a little key   Oh can't you see
              I'm the saddest key of the three    help me

                        ENVOI



Smoke


beside a path
charred circles
after fire
flameless embers
breeze sifts ash
in the air

if I could incant
my words
like smoke
my clear words
might dissolve
in meaning

but Polish poets
Jews   Gypsies
chimneys
camps
smoke


copyright © Dick Russell 2015

*(from Spring 1968, published in Workshop New Poetry, UK)
                                © Dick Russell, 2015

Friday, July 19, 2013


       Her Blank Canvas



In early light she stood prepared
looking at islands over sea
at mountains faraway   outside
her studio where a new canvas
stood   blank upon an easel

some orcas came at high tide.
they were so close   from where she watched
looking down   they could have been carp
in a pond     but less gentle
                          
after the orcas
she was made aware 
like walking lame when steps are more
significant
                          
the whales breached light

she paints



          © Dick Russell, 2013

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