‘The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of flowers.’ Matsuo Basho Silence drips into the sodden solitude of a deep druidic wood, goose-pimple chilled and tangle wild. All at once, the path Is broken by a sunny glade scattered with spikes of new nettle growth and, ringing through the leafy […]
Category: Poems Inspired by Artists, Music and Other Writers
Beautiful Prisoners
giant crack willows burst open with verdant joy slender prisoners on early release, riding the breath of an April breeze Kim M. Russell, 17th April 2019 My response to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads Poems in April Day 17: Somewhere in the midst of stirring April Sanaa is our host today and she brings us […]
April Morning
The morning’s dust-tongued with short-lived frost and seabirds moon-blown from the coast compete with bell-voiced wood pigeons. These early muffle-toed strolls are full of promise: spring winds roar in a leaf-foamed coppice and all the quiet moments in between, while hare-heeled boots touch damp earth with a kiss. No dark-vowelled dreams could have predicted this […]
Poetry as a Cry in the Dark
I call out to you in the dead of night. Dawn seems so far away. Enlightenment is shrouded in shadow. A moment of solitary despair. A moonbeam of ecstasy and words appear. The hoot and screech of owls pivot the changing light. Even a poet feels the weight of sleep heavy on her eyes, when […]
Cosmic Curiosity
How curious can rabbits be? Imagination and bunnies run riot beneath a canopy of stars, dodging the full bright of a dazzling moon to catch a distant twinkle before it crashes and burns. It’s not counting rabbits but constellations that send us to sleep, prehistoric slideshows projected on the inside of day-sore eyelids while we […]
The Beauty of Scars
The world can’t change its heart of scars, they are tattooed on every inch: silver words of sorrow and hurt birthing poems from blood and dirt, reminding us where we began and giving hope that we might end in a place where everyone appreciates the beauty of scars. Kim M. Russell, 4th April 2019 My […]
Smudged
The day has not yet ended, we’re not ready for our beds, and the moon’s already rising while the sun’s on the horizon, smudging trees and meadows into charcoal shadows – a momentary impasse, a blur of branches, leaves and grass until the stars come out to play and night ink-washes day away. Kim M. […]
The Point of Return
pristine pages of possibility flutter out the window into the sky fragile words on wings of air hovering ready to fall […]
This poet needs…
to ease the itch of words that wake her up at night; to sing in a different language, one with imagery and bite; to linger in lines where no other poet has been yet; to smile to herself when other people get where she comes from and what she needs. Kim M. Russell, 24th January […]
Sonnet to a Poet’s Hands
The young man’s hands were slender, quick and strong, composing sonnets to his unknown muse, creating worlds in drama and in song to challenge the emotions and amuse. The busy writer’s hands were stained with ink and words. His skin was cracked and raw with rhyme. The scratching of the pen spurred him to think […]
writing in north norfolk 