Her life is mirrored in the bird:grey with a touch of crimsonin the parrot’s crest and feather tips,and her unsmiling lips. Red’s lucky for some,but she is a captive,tamed and longing to flybeyond blue curtains to sky and leaves, green as the bowl,from which she sips her tea,and green as her envyof the parrot’s wings. […]
Category: Poems Inspired by Artists, Music and Other Writers
Self Portrait with Clouds
I’d heard the voice but never seen its owner,loved the songs but never seen her face,but then I found her self-portrait on a coverwith the words; inside the music and her voice. It was the first time I’d ever seen a portraitor even a painting on a record sleeve;now there was a blonde woman’s blue-eyed […]
Take Three Words
Drizzly It’s one of those days when the distinctscent of petrichor permeates the day; it sneaks through open windows and leavesan invisible trail like snot on a child’s sleeve, or the track of a single plump raindropas it trickles down the window pane. Wipes As a child, I loved to watch the window cleanerwhen he […]
In a Hotel Lobby
She waits, her legs tucked in demurely,an open book in her hands,but she doesn’t see the words; one eyeis on reception, its counterpolished and bee-wax-scented. Surelyhe isn’t late? The couple on the otherside of the late-night hotel lobbylook married; he stands,coat draped over arm while his seated wifetries to catch his eye. And then the […]
Catching the Heart off Guard
There was a time whenI knew nothing about life on thecoast: how the shore is buffeted by wind;waves spray salty brine above dunes; andseals follow you, riding thewaves glittering in morning light. Now I know the sound of gulls, they arethe music of the sea, laughing at humans workingon boats. Gulls know the beauty of […]
A Darkling Tableau
Where once grasses buzzedwith jazz of cricketsand loud grasshoppers,cornfields have been razedto stubble, and strawploughed in umber earth. Herons stalk soddenfields, through soggy standsof russet bracken,on towards winter,in ancient rhythm,still pulsing with life. It’s the yawn of time,when the hearth’s tonguesets culture on fire,to glow through the blackdome of night untilthe coming of spring. Winter’s […]
Dogwood (a quadrille)
A summer blizzard cloudof feathers from a pillow fight,understated blossom clustersshimmering in sunlight hidehard timber once carved intothe cross on which Christ was crucified.Until its grey bark bursts into red,dogwood crouches in hedges,creeps around woodland edges. Kim M. Russell, 16th July 2024 Alma Thomas, Arboretum Presents White Dogwood, (1972), acrylic on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum […]
Nets of Inspiration
I tread water, in time,in my sea of consciousness,adrift in space, untilmy mermaid legs are grippedby cramps. Salt water spillsas I climb a rock to restand set myself the taskof repairing torn netsof inspiration and castthem to the waves.Some days, words slipthrough my head like silverminnows. Other days, I seemto catch a whole ocean. Kim […]
On Opening a Book
earthy musty vanilla redolenceerupts into comforting scentsof paper inky words dreams stories poetry from past agespaper that was born in reamscut neatly into pages book weight in happy handshas a balance of coverand leaves caressed by fingers pristine dog-eared annotated abusedthe satisfying sussurus as they turnand the individual paper colour white yellowed crackling edgescrisp fresh […]
Boxing Clever – a cento
Within my rooted being lies a box of green,lined with dewy moss to quench and revive,clasped onto my sea-shell collection.A self-portrait, the stones I carvedby the sea with salt in its veins,embryonic, in a cosmic womb,its dark edges are still dissolving.Wrapped around a framework of bonesoverflowing with ragtag paraphernaliaof my stumbled tumbled dreams,a hazy recollection […]
writing in north norfolk 