Gazing at flowery constellationsclustered around the silver birchby the back gate, friends and relationscome to mind in a surge of blue.I don’t need to searchmyself, my heart or mind for embersof memories. I remember you,and wonder who will think of me,perhaps standing beneath a tree,ankle-deep in azure forget-me-notsblinking here on Earth, while Itwinkle above them […]
Month: April 2024
Medusa at the Supermarket
A hiss of hairuncoilsas I avert my stare,lowering turquoiseeyelids, mascaracoated lashes brushingmy pale powdered skin.I’m in the fruit section;with one hand I caressa pomegranate,with the other I pushback the stray curl.A couple and their little girlknock me with a trolley, unawareof me standing there,the darkest sunglasses pushedback on my head. I peerat their shopping, turn […]
Homecoming
What a welcome home,greeted by fields ablazewith magical lemon rapeseedflowers; by roadsides singingwith choirs of golden garlicmustard, their tiny torches burning;the shiny butter of celandineand pale lemon-drop cowslips,once shy, but now fillingevery patch of grass! Kim M. Russell 29th April 2024 Image of cowslips by Tina Sāra on Unsplash It’s Monday, at the dVerse Poets […]
Albatross
It’s a ghost in the night that keeps me awakewith whispering, muttering, sighing,and nudges in my poetic ribs.It pokes me with imageryand ties me up in allegoryuntil I reach for notebook and pen. It’s a ghost in the early morning, a wispof verse draped across my aching neck,a metaphoric albatrosschecking rhymes, ensuringenjambment and caesura makesense, […]
Seven
Seven linen shirts spun from nettles and sewn with blistered fingers.Seven white wings thrumming overhead, returning from winter wastes. Seven brothers searching for a blistered sister.Kim M. Russell, 25th April 2024 Image from Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash On the 25th day of Na/GloPoWriMo, I have no idea what the prompt is at NaPoWriMo as […]
Plastic Earth
I’ve been thinking about getting a globe lamp for my grandson, so he can see the Earth lit up in his room and explore its mysteries and beauty. At six years old, he is interested in so many things and I would love him to extend that to geography and ecology, to look at our […]
Putting Pen to Paper
It’s happened again!I don’t know if it’s the penor the paper, but there are blotsand a swarm of purple spotsof ink where there should bewords. Or maybe it’s me. Changing the cartridge to bluedidn’t help, so it’s not the huethat’s causing the kerfuffle. I got up and filled the kettleto make myself a cup of […]
Bathing in Green
Drab khaki workaday realities disappear,become green bubbles in a flood of birdsong, and the garden is bathed in a green mere,viridescent ripples echoing all summer long. Green creeps from grass to leaf to tree, alongeach branch, farther than any wings can reach, over the top of the green-swathed beechand curly willow, from which a sole foliole, […]
A Call to Wise Women
Misunderstood throughout historyyou were tortured, drowned, burntand now, amid the intensityof climate change, plague and war,you have seen humankind at its worst. Forget the shamans,Mentors and Chirons,all male, muscle-bound,bristling with testosterone. We need you wise women,you Earth mothers who listento sky, air and soil beneath your feet,the quickening of the seasons’ beat.You understand the textures […]
Hunting Bedfellows
In the shadows of predawn, I’m wokenby companions of past and present,hunting my dreams until they’re broken.My ghostly bedfellows curiously hunt,purring, kneading, butting, knowingI will fill their dishes in the morning.They hunt me through the nightbut, once fed, they lick their lips,clean their paws and slipout to disappear into a brightnew day, off to haunt […]
writing in north norfolk 