from the Beloit Poetry Journal: 1990
Purim Spiel --a poem of hope
The elder, alter older -
a tree
alone with its thoughts
Of kings, of Isaac snatched
by the ram's horn
again
the thorn
burning for Rivka by the well
Between them wide as an ocean
white wake foaming
a cormorant with flaming tail
Fuming from the waves
its signature of white on blue
a warrant sent
Against the world
but wait!
the story changes...
Back track
the firebird on its flume
red tongue panting like a dog
In heat. Esther. Queen
of Persia prancing for her idle king
A worshiper of things
he lays his power down
upon her ceding haunch
And she, she rollicks in her duty
rolls his Majesty
about the gilded room
Until a tree
grows in his mind the Alter
Elder is at stake
its point
Can touch the heart and
stop it
Cold, a twitching stick
with eyes wide
As oceans, as the
desert city
on the desert's edge He sees.
Taking in at last
breath
the Jews dancing
for their lives
their purled queen
the sequined
Rider blossoming like snow
like the bloom of the dark
crocus below
The bruise under that white
skin, a king's passion
pressed against her breast
the alter
Of his lust, her love
but not for him - the world
Lays itself before her
renews the pledge To her
As with each morning
clouds mount
the skies and ancient trees
will come again to crown gray mountains with new green.
Jacob Russell
#1232 Gate OPEN/CLOSED
#1231
24×31 Oil on Canvas
View more work at Saatchi Art, and on my web portfolio: ART BY WILLARD For photos on this blog, click MY ART on the right panel and scroll
History–in my lifetime!
I was six months old and Roosevelt said it was a day of infamy, then Truman dropped a tiny sun on Hiroshima and General Ike took off his uniform, put on his civies and gave a speech about the Military Industrial Complex, and threw the hat that Dickie missed but Kennedy caught and lit a fire in Vietnam giving Nixon a 2nd chance to give his famous two handed 4 finger sign of victory before Ford could say the long nightmare was over, and Carter walked down Pennsylvania Ave to the White House and visited Three Mile Island and hostages in Iran gave the White House to Reagan who began the Great Unraveling and reminded us every day how defenseless we were against the now tens of thousands of Suns-of fusion bombs waiting their signal in silos and submarines for Bush One with crooked smile and crooked son under his arm, who would have to wait for Clinton to tuck his cock back in his pants to take his turn at looking so awful that America would even elect a black man who wasn’t really and had a great smile and wore that suit like he owned it when he shook hands with Trump and smiled his great smile, thinking of the millions he would get for doing such a bang up job for his real friends after he left the white house to the wrecking ball with Orange hair… who fragmented into deadly shrapnel as it left the White House for a bowl of oatmeal with frozen lips and rockets burst over Whuhan in the shape of a giant virus and mighty winds and fire swept across the land to the drip drip drip of melting glaciers and rising seas and everyone looked up looked up looked up, and said–see? See?See?…. nothing to see! And pretty soon, there wasn’t!
Happy New Year
More Truly and More Strange #631
From Wallace Stevens, Tea in the Palaz of Hoon.
9×12 Watercolor, Pen and Ink. This is from 2016, but didn’t have a photo.
Want? It’s free, or for whatever you want to donate, plus shipping.
Matted, framed with glass.

#1229 “What we saw that night so long ago”
9×12 Collage. Watercolor, pen and ink
View more work at Saatchi Art, and on my web portfolio: ART BY WILLARD For photos on this blog, click MY ART on the right panel and scroll
#1228
18×24 Acrylic ink, watercolor, pen and ink
View more work at Saatchi Art, and on my web portfolio: ART BY WILLARD For photos on this blog, click MY ART on the right panel and scroll
#2027
11×14″ Watercolor, Pen & Ink

Study of dead wood
Pen & ink. 11×14

#1226 Cat Walk!
11×14″ Ink, watercolor





