Between the Shelves

She wrote him a ballad between the Classics and the Poetry shelves in the public library, inhaling papery pheromones. She spotted his shadowy figure between periodicals and autobiography, held her breath to stop the erratic timpani of her heart and the blood-red symphony surging in her ears. The poem slipped from her sweaty fingers, drifted […]

Sullen

After countless years and so many sullen stars, we yearn for sparkling seas, fast running rivers, snowy mountain tops and vast green plains on our home planet beyond the moon. We have longed to escape the monotones of this metal box: utilitarian grey and brown, the tasteless sustenance, our heads blown by shifting body fluids, […]

This Island

This island was mine, I lived alone with everything upon it, unnamed but known to me. Fresh springs sparkled for my eyes only. Twanging music accompanied the lullaby of voices on the wind and waves. Now I collect sticks for firewood and share the bounty of my isle, with no hope of unconditional love, a […]

Joe and Nelly e-book

Yesterday I found out that my children’s novel, which I self-published on Monday, was #6 in the Amazon Hot New Releases in Horror & Ghost Stories for Children. Not having any experience in marketing and promotion, I had no idea about this, and it took a friend to make me aware of it. Being #6 yesterday was […]

Early Rising

It’s four o’clock and it’s still dark outside, but blackbird chorus glimmers gently through the curtains gap. The window’s open wide and I can smell the chlorophyll, the dew, the dreamlike whiff of rain-soaked earth, and you asleep beside me, unaware of dawn: late risers hold morn’s moody light in scorn. Kim M. Russell, 9th […]

A Wing and a Prayer

The wings of my prayers are capricious, unlike my solid carapace, too delicate to reach the height of heaven, too flimsy to withstand the heat of hell. Tickled by the honeyed scent of spring, I open my elytra, ready to spread my alae, about to fly – when I’m thwarted by the shadow of a […]

at the water’s edge

a boy crouched at the water’s edge his fingers felt the waves the pull of the current tangle of chickweed wash of passing swan tickle of trout inhaling scents of far-off places breathing them out he watched his toy boat skip ripples on the breeze blow under willows where ducks gather water voles bask in […]