They have retained their lustre, yet it is dark beneath closed lids. They filter light to conjure colour in dialogue with the brain, resonant as Shakespearean actors. Tired after years of looking and seeing beyond words, they require lenses, windows on blurry landscapes and distorted Giacometti figures. They are prickling thistles, friable pillows of delicate […]
Month: June 2019
A Pair of (Still) Blue Eyes
We have retained our lustre, no vile jellies, and yet we know darkness. We orbs are oratory with the resonance of a Shakespearean player. We have a direct line to the brain, filtering light to conjure colour. But we need lenses, windows on blurry landscapes, distorted Giacometti figures, aliens in our owner’s ocular world. We […]
Poetry Pea Podcast: Something a little naughty
Although I haven’t been able to do any writing recently, I have a slightly erotic haiku in the latest Poetry Pea Podcast Series 2 Episode 12: Something a little naughty. You can listen to the podcast as well as read the notes to accompany it on the Poetry Pea website.
From Fret to Regret
My teenage passion was fingering frets, twisting my fingers into chords and positions, resonating the sound hole of a Yamaha. When telephone wire silhouettes strung across yellow and orange sunsets resemble strings, I regret giving up my dream of playing like Williams or Bream. Kim M. Russell, 17th June 2019 My poem for dVerse Poets […]
Eggs and Other Things in Your Basket
From the steps at city hall, the market square resembles a tin of sweet wrappers, brightly striped in sunshine and glistening in rain. A walk between the stalls makes me sea-sick: I roll down the lurching incline, a sometime sailor, bantering with Norwich traders over fresh fruit, fish and flowers; exotic spices, eggs and cheese; […]
Night Sounds
Above the garden, diamond sparkles fill the sky and the moon is a thin slice of lemon light. An owl floats, a slow ghost fading into shadows. Even the breeze is soundless. I’m beginning to feel that I’m alone on this planet, when far away an interrupted cry causes a rip in the silence – […]
Cruel Paean
For the past few weeks I’d caught it echoing across the village, a lazy iambic chant. When you heard it too, we smiled together at the rare sound of the cuckoo’s two-note song. We forgot that it’s a cold-hearted parasite, hatched and nurtured to the tune of another bird’s lullaby. We were oblivious to its […]
Spring Snow
spring snow everything wakes to silence in the mountains purifies earth and heaven with its whiteness this crystallised hope our enemies perish from the grip and bite of ice new shoots start to show Kim M. Russell, 6th June 2019 My response to Carpe Diem #1675 Troiku Month (4) spring snow Today’s haiku is by […]
Chestnuts by the Eaves
people in the world too busy to stop and look stuck in their own lives hardly notice these blossoms dripping from branches they only see leaves chestnuts by the eaves welcome shade on a hot day close enough to touch Kim M. Russell, 5th June 2019 My response to Carpe Diem #1674 Troiku Month […]
One Fine Day
There’s a sparkling space between orchestra and clear soprano voice, a tragic butterfly in a bell jar, bright wings shimmering before she’s pinned. Puccini’s signature violins swirl and an incidental flute curls, a ship’s smoke on the far horizon, as Cio-Cio-San’s dream spills: one fine day, she’ll see Pinkerton climbing up the hill. The voice, […]
writing in north norfolk 