I have an ornate cardboard box, quite large, with lid and metal handle, stuffed to overflowing with tangible memories, crackling paper photographs. I treasure most the black and white that echo with my mother’s laugh, when her eyes were wide and bright, her skin was smooth and her hair was soft, when she could lift […]
Category: Poems about Childhood and Youth
My Mum’s Smile
Every summer in my earliest years, My mum aired a hand-sewn quilt And placed it on my bed. On sunny Sunday mornings, We would trace a patchwork journey, Each square a story Of the girl my mum used to be Before she belonged to me. Mum met everyone with a smile, A blossoming bud gleaming […]
Magic Words
When I’m safely cuddled up on a grown-up’s lap, I listen to the secret words that they often whisper in case a wicked witch is near, in the dark where she can hear. Words like once upon a time or the chorus of a nursery rhyme carry me off to other lands, to fairy wings […]
Train Spotting
Troops of ivy-throttled trees line the abandoned railway track. Snorting round the bend, an asthmatic locomotive coughs along to the clickety-clack, smoky echoes of a ghost drumming up memories of day trips to the coast: screaming in a tunnel, waiting on a platform, waving at passengers who always waved back. Kim M. Russell, 2016 Image […]
Honesty
In spring, at the end of my grandparents’ Otherwise tidy garden, I gazed for hours At scruffy clumps of white and purple flowers: Granddad called them honesty, Which puzzled me. I watched their pretty petals perish, Leaving brown paper parcels of seeds, Waiting to be buffeted on a breeze Whose windy fingers would peel away […]
The Full Moon of Brighton
In the whining draughts Of my grandparents’ house When I was very small, I’d sit on my potty by the open fire, Safe from the bathroom’s arctic chill. My grandfather would return from work With the offer of a cuddle and a smile; I’d jump into his arms, flashing a sighting Of my bare derriere, […]
Seaside Beauties
My response to dVerse Poets Pub OpenLinkNight #176 For tonight’s Open Link I have reworked an old poem I wrote as a bit of fun last October about seaside beauty contests, which fascinated me when I was a child on day trips with my grandmother. I was reminded of it when I looked out of […]
Ironing on a Wet Tuesday
My response to dVerse Poets Pub Poetics: Empire of Scents This Tuesday Grace has set us the challenge of writing a poem about scents. It’s a wet Tuesday, Rain spits at the closed window And I’m listening to the radio, Following in grandmother’s footsteps. The iron steams. Clothes, rescued from the line Are scented with […]
Mitcham May Queen
My response to imaginary garden with real toads Poetizing the Maypole When I was young it was a treat On the first Saturday Of every May To watch at Mitcham’s Cricket Green, Where cricket’s been played For more than three hundred years, The crowning of the May Queen. Children danced around a pole, Criss-crossing […]
Grandmother’s Ghost
My response to Carpe Diem Special #208 Sara McNulty’s 4th “fantasy” shadorma cloud of scent old music hall song fused as one memory grandmother’s hands and warm smile cooling my fever sweet reminders of a happy past a present a future with grandchildren of my own cooling other brows © Kim M. Russell, 2016 […]
writing in north norfolk 