Even as it falls from a rowan’s red berries,a ripening myth of the goddess Hebes,saucer ready to collect each dropof liquid life, I smile while I am sopped. Rain in my hair and on my neck, fallingin cool cascading rivulets, soakinga sweater you once lent me in yourgarden in an unexpected downpour. At supper time […]
Category: Poems Inspired by Artists, Music and Other Writers
The Gorgon’s Wedding
A hiss of hair uncoils from its lavish cageof silk and lace. She guards her stare,lowers turquoise lids, coated lashes brushpale powered skin. Friends and familygather, and then he’s standing therewith his best man, in matching corsagesand the darkest sunglasses. He turns to herwith a smile and love lights up her eyes.The murmur in the […]
Sounding Out Spring
Vowels ploughed into other: opened ground.The mildest February for twenty yearsIs mist bands over furrows, a deep no soundVulnerable to distant gargling tractors. Seamus Heaney In the north, the Ploughis ridden by the moonand frost continuesto clench the earth.Early morning walkingwakens words,enlivens lines from puffsof frozen breath,vowels ploughed into other: opened ground. Punctuated by stoneand root, […]
Artemisia
muscle, artery and veina slice of knifespray of blood and painand fall of head in handsnot mine but mineis vengeanceswapping bloodfor turpentine and oilthumbscrew torture of a sybil for a quick deatha last breath Kim M. Russell For NaPoWriMo Day 1 A story about the body Artemisia Gentileschi – Self portrait as the Allegory of […]
I Have Never Seen
The image in the March issue of Visual Verse, Volume 9 Chapter 4, is a vintage water colour by Susan Fenimore Cooper, which has inspired amazing writing from contributors, who had an hour to write 50-500 ekphrastic words. As ever, I recommend reading them all. Mine is on page 40, or, if you want to read […]
Schmetterlinge
This month, Visual Verse Volume 9 Chapter 4 gave us a bright image to cheer up the February gloom and, as usual, an hour to write 50-500 ekphrastic words inspired by a picture from Yasin Aribuga. The responses are fabulous and varied, and I recommend reading them all. Mine is on page 69, or, if you […]
Bath Time on New Year’s Eve
I love Dee Mulrooney‘s image for January’s Visual Verse Volume 9 Chapter 3, the starting point for ekphrastic writing of 50-500 words, for which we are given just one hour. I recommend reading all of the fabulous submissions, among which are familiar names. Mine is on page 73, or, if you want to read it […]
A poem in the current issue of Visual Verse
I am delighted that Visual Verse chose to include my poem on page 23 of the latest issue, Volume 9 Chapter 2. The image by Monica Silva is gorgeous, and all the pieces, prose and poetry, are fantastic. I recommend reading them all – or you can go directly to my poem ‘Horsehead‘.
Tell Me True
My grandmother always peeled an apple with grandfather’s penknife, careful, keeping it all in one piece. I watched it twirl and curl, with a whiff of sweetness, pinched between her fingers. She taught me a rhyme, that we said every time: apple peel, apple peel, tell me true, who am I going to get married […]
A Serpent’s Tale
This month in Visual Verse: An Anthology of Art and Words, we have an unusual image by an unknown artist from the Wellcome Collection, which has inspired a wealth of strange tales and poetry. I look forward, on the first of every month, to the Visual Verse challenge of one image, one hour, 50-500 words. […]
writing in north norfolk 