My grandmother always peeled an apple with grandfather’s penknife, careful, keeping it all in one piece. I watched it twirl and curl, with a whiff of sweetness, pinched between her fingers. She taught me a rhyme, that we said every time: apple peel, apple peel, tell me true, who am I going to get married […]
Curious Beneath the Stars
Beneath a skyful of stars, we are curious about the universe, birth and death. Remember that a star’s last breath isn’t just a cloud of stardust and gas; it’s attracted to other stellar souls in nebulae, and bright new stars are born. How curious! Kim M. Russell, 31st May 2021 Image found on Wiktionary My […]
Crafting Words of Earth and Water
By a river’s boulder-strewn gravelly bed,haiku unfurl in a meadow flecked with dandelions and cowslips. A sonnetfinds a foothold on a face of rock and in fine fissures ballads grow.We smell them in clods of earththat tumble crumbly from the plough;hear them in the songs of birds,trickle of streams and ocean’s roar;taste them in a […]
Ogden’s Extraordinary Emporium Episode 2
We waited until our evening meal was over, when Miss Pecksniff nodded off by the fireplace in her room, and then, warmly dressed in our outdoor clothes, left by the servants’ entrance. I locked the door and placed the key in my reticule. Bella and I clasped gloved hands and set off through wisps of […]
Ogden’s Extraordinary Emporium Episode 1
A sheet of printed paper landed at our feet, swept along with the autumn leaves by our governess’s skirt. Isabella – she preferred Bella – picked it up and read: ‘OGDEN’S EXTRAORDINARY EMPORIUM – ONE NIGHT ONLY’. The spidery black words filled us with anticipation. The address was not far from the house where we […]
Dark Confessions Day
It’s #DarkConfessions Day and I’m celebrating the new anthology from @blackboughpoems with a photo of my copy and a snapshot of my poem, ‘We Only Come Out at Night’: Time spent isolatedwithin these four wallshas etched our skin with extra flaws
A Serpent’s Tale
This month in Visual Verse: An Anthology of Art and Words, we have an unusual image by an unknown artist from the Wellcome Collection, which has inspired a wealth of strange tales and poetry. I look forward, on the first of every month, to the Visual Verse challenge of one image, one hour, 50-500 words. […]
I am waiting
for the silvery shudder of sunshineto chime in a new day like church bells, to tempt me with glittering streamsand creeks threading seaward, to swells of waves like the ones in my dreams.Following this confusing map of the sea, I strain to hear dark-bellied geese creakand grumble along the sparkling tide-line, and long to paddle […]
Tread Gently
Tread gently in this skyscape,where a single cloud can weighheavy on the soul. Some escape;cumulonimbi the shade of sludgebluster grumpily across the skyuntil the sun sets, and blackbirds trill in hedges. An owl hoots a reply,to a distant barking dog.It is then that I see dead people, looming like vaporous fog,and left-over dust and gasestransform […]
May Flowers
The cherry tree has been stripped of blossom, but the first of the honeysuckle is blooming in our garden, in time for this week’s flower moon. Its scent floats on the breeze, having survived the wind and downpours to which this May has subjected us. This morning, the sun is shining on a cascade of […]
