I was recently reminded I’m getting old, a greying guest of nature, mother and wife. In an attempt to solve the riddle of my soul, I gnaw and chew life out of life. Stiff fingers falter, they fumble, writing is a spidery scrawl on a page; as I peck at the keyboard, words tumble, I […]
Month: April 2017
Flames
the hills glow orange kissed by flames of spring sunset dry grass is singing Kim M. Russell, 2017 Image found on Pinterest My response to Carpe Diem #1188 Burning the hills (yama yuki) Today’s kigo is ‘burning the hills’ (yama yuki), which Chèvrefeuille says is a common activity in spring, when the dry grasses of […]
April Drizzle
Amidst an army of slim trunks and branches, starkly silver across the bruise of swollen clouds, a shimmering shaft of optimistic sunlight explodes with April drizzle. Ephemeral rain-shadows dissolve into prismatic bows and rippling puddles sparkle with liquidity, intensifying spring and her growing pellucidity. Kim M. Russell, 2017 Image found on Pinterest My response to […]
Distance
Only a phone call away, only a bus or train ride, I know you can drive, and still you are distant. I bought you sweets on the way home from school, was thrown into space by a motorbike and still ran up all those flights of stairs to the top floor and along the balcony […]
Another Cinderella
Fairy tales are never true, happy endings are not for me and you, pinioned by our rustic lives as daughters, sisters, mothers, wives. With the future so uncertain, we cower behind our dingy curtains, praying for footmen, never a prince – they’d be so much harder to convince that beneath our neglected exteriors breathe princesses, […]
Last Traces
skeleton crystals melting into spring rivers last traces of snow Kim M. Russell, 2017 Image found on Pinterest My response to Carpe Diem #1187 unmelted snow (yuki no hate / zansetsu) Chèvrefeuille has reminded us that this month it’s classical spring at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai and all our prompts are classical kigo (season words) […]
New Pond
old pond’s spring water clouding with fresh abundance ripple of tadpoles Kim M. Russell, 2017 Image found on Pinterest My response to Carpe Diem Universal Jane #14 Basho’s “Old Pond” Chèvrefeuille tells us that this weekend-meditation is a new episode of the special feature in honour of Jane Reichhold, ‘Universal Jane’, whose favourite haiku poets included […]
Sugar Daddy
Daddy, you eat all the sugar and leave me bleeding, a blistered foot with no shoe, you do, and I will have to kill and sculpture you into a blue marble statue, bastard, you. You were the universe, the moon my mistress, if I had but known your crazed intent to render me a manless, […]
Friday Night at the Cardiff Novotel
(after Philip Larkin’s ‘Friday Night in the Royal Station Hotel) Light spreads brightly downwards from the wide- screen television between high windows that face the car park, where taxi headlights flare. At the bar, men in short-sleeved t-shirts flash tattoos, down beery dregs and, glancing at the score, jostle in a noisy exit. Receptionists issue […]
M4 Westbound
A slow roll forward. Then a grinding halt. Afternoon is coming to an end and we are still hemmed in by metal. A slow roll forward. Then a grinding halt. Not a sign of an accident and no breakdown on the hard shoulder. A slow roll forward. Then a grinding halt. No emergency vehicles or […]
writing in north norfolk 