I loved both my daughters dearly, aye,the eldest with coal black hair and eyes,the youngest fair-haired, gentle and kind. They grew up together by the North Sea shore,until a knight came knocking at our doorwith gifts of rings and gloves, and more. My daughters often loved to roamon the shore where the breakers foam.One day, […]
Poignance
A seven-year-old girl, wearing torn trousers, a traditional embroidered blouse, and pigtails with different coloured ribbons, sits in the middle of a circle of children among the burnt grass and rubble in front of a bombed-out classroom. Chattering the language of a ritual that goes back centuries, the children shout, clap, whistle and giggle. Their eyes […]
Wind Watching
I cannot hear the discordance of autumnbehind the double-glazed window.I only hear the hum of the fridge,the floorboards expanding and contractingthe gentle thuds of a cat on the stairs,and creak of a door in a draught. But I see the wind chimes swinging wildlyfrom the branch of the cherry tree.I watch the wind tear at […]
Moon Between Tall Buildings
I’ve stood on streets between tall buildingsand looked at the moonsometimes between their dark shadowssometimes peeking from behind them,and I’ve wonderedif the moon looks the same in Africa,Australia, South America, Japan. I know it looks the samein the villagewhere I live,but thereit sits in skywith nothing tallerthan a treeto play peekaboowith me. Kim M. Russell, […]
Song of the Earth
After millennia I singeven louder,despite salty tears brimmingwith pollution. I seek relief from constant diggingat my flesh and bones. My axis is creaking,surface quaking,I’m sleepless and heart-sore. My blood still flows with poetry,and will for ever more. Kim M. Russell, 2nd November 2026 This Monday at the dVerse Poets Pub we are writing quadrilles with […]
Verbifying Rain
The recent rain is puddlingand the fields are tractored with mud. Burst riverbanks leave us muddlingas we wrangle with the flood. On the other side all moisture’s wrung out,just an aridding cough of dust. There’s not a sign of rainclouding, only doubt,withering crops and hardened crust. If we were able to cloudburst,we would miss our […]
Irreverence
Black shadows hoverby the roadside,eyeing up carrionas traffic thunders by. The splatted carcassof a young deer,unused to passing vehicles,is a temptation, an invitationto peck at exposed innards,a banquet for carnivorous birds,a murder of cackling crows. Kim M. Russell, 27th October 2026 This Tuesday at the dVerse Poets Pub, our host for Poetics is Punam, with […]
Autumn Magnified
At this time of the year, every sense seems magnified: trees are brighter; pungent scents of leafy mulch and wood fires drift across gardens and, here in the UK, fireworks will soon fill the sky to remember Guy Fawkes and the failed Gunpowder Plot. I love the cosiness of wool in jumpers, scarves, gloves and […]
Tide
Like sea-washed shells,pink as babies’ nails,poems surf the mind’s tide,riding on the swell. Salty words spill overochre sand; greywhispers of sprayon pebbles, they write themselvesin the ebb and flowfor the poet to harvestbefore they’re windblown. Kim M. Russell, 22nd October 2026 Lillian is our host for OLN today at the dVerse Poets Pub, when we […]
Rain Woman
Why do you follow me,grasp my hand, pulling constantlytowards a perpetual downpour? I don’t want to drown with you and yourblack felt hat, from which rain spillsin dank cataracts or rills. How does it feel to never dry?Although your fish-eyesare closed, I feel your stare. Slippery as an eel,you swim nightmarishly throughmy restless sleep. I […]
