As a child, art was my first love; I drew, chalked and painted freehand, thinking I knew it all. Then came the lesson on perspective. I couldn’t see the point in the distance where all the lines joined up. My landscape of road and houses was lopsided, a landslide tumbling down a non-existent mountain. A […]
Month: November 2019
Haiku for Cats
Holding up my purring cat to the moon I sighed. Jack Kerouac rain on the window cup of hot tea in my hand purring with the cat Kim M. Russell, 11th November 2019 My response to Carpe Diem #1778 Free-styling haiku In a new episode of Carpe Diem’s ‘Never Change A Winning Team’ month, in […]
Basho’s Journey
coming to the eye especially at this time May’s Mount Fuji rising in a clear blue sky […]
At the crossroads of summer and autumn
between passing moons even the fish are waiting in cricket silence between passing moons constellations are clearer cosmic dot-to-dots even the fish are waiting beneath frosted leaves the pond hesitates in cricket silence autumn performs her striptease distant thunderclap Kim M. Russell, 9th November 2019 My response to Carpe Diem #1777 Classical and non-classical in […]
Burnished
How many brass lamps must be burnished before my wish is granted? Not even the golden lamps of autumn are furnished with a genie to do my bidding. And heaven has so many stars on which I’ve wished, all silver, like the moon, which gave me seven lines that rhyme, and this poem can be […]
Dark Future
You go to sleep and wake to a steady drip and wonder if it’s radioactive or pure and clear, like the streams you once knew. Above ground, no fresh water remains: no trace of rain or cloud or sky. There is just the twilight of your cave, the weak rays that find their way through […]
The Authenticity of Autumn
Woodland paths glimmer in the breath of dawn and shadows withdraw, musky miasmas of mulch. Leaves spin, dizzy helicopters, colours bright as fire, until they land in a dog-pile and rot underfoot. Wracked with weather scars, ancient trees slow, branch and root, their fissures adorned with fungus and spiralling mushrooms of sulphurous yellow, orange and […]
Arranging the Plum Flowers
under moonless sky arranging the plum flowers by waning lamplight Kim M. Russell, 7th November 2019 My response to Carpe Diem #1776 arranging the plum-flowers (Taigi) Today we have ‘reprise’ of an episode of ‘Revise That Haiku’, a special feature which challenges us to revise a given haiku by one of the classical haiku […]
This Morning Glory
November sunrise In kaleidoscapes of cloud bad weather warning Kim M. Russell, 6th November pink morning glory in full bloom covered with crystal dewdrops Chèvrefeuille My response to Carpe Diem Tan Renga Wednesday (4): crystal dewdrops (hineri with a twist) This week’s Tan Renga Wednesday has a twist: we have been given a two-line stanza […]
Without black there would be no contrast
nowhere to hang the moon and stars fireworks and bonfire sparks no colour to express the dog of depression no clarity of words in books no shadows in the sleep-soaked room at night the pair of complicit magpies haunting the garden (two for joy) would be all white their once glossy jet feathers and impertinent […]
writing in north norfolk 