Heavy tide inhales wind and gasps out chilly salty spray, tangles tongues with rain, spattering the windscreen with Neptune’s saliva. Waves wallop the sea wall – no gulls today. In the dry heat of the car, a disembodied voice on the radio mourns the devastation of last night’s storm. The car behind sounds its horn. […]
Category: Poems
Valley
The valley’s wet with soupy mist pouring down its flanks; the river’s murky with muddy flood gushing down its banks. The morning sun has shed its blood and set the clouds alight; the hill’s a blackened silhouette where daytime meets with night. Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Sue Vincent’s Daily Echo Thursday Photo […]
No Room for Passion
In a room too small for tantrums, surreptitious snow storms smother her with quiet quilts. She is a swirl of flakes and ice, cradling the little heat that’s left in the whiteness of her breasts. Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Imaginary garden with Real Toads Fireblossom Friday: Poetic Imagery This week Fireblossom is […]
A Bunch of Sunshine
You can keep your bouquets of pungent lilies and blushing roses, cultivated beauty intertwined. What I would like is delicate frills, the brilliance of daffodils: a natural bunch of sunshine. Their trumpets trill the breath of spring, their breeze-swept petals fluttering, their yellow flowers are a welcome sign of the end of wintry blasts, warmer […]
Padlocked Hearts
Feet bounce echoes off the iron bridge in a language we don’t understand, unlike the fluent water beneath. We walk hand in hand, gripping tightly, afraid to leave our love behind with all the other padlocked hearts. Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Photo Challenge #207 In November 2016, I wrote a […]
Cracked Shell
On the paved path under the glossy bay tree, newly fallen from a nest, the jagged crack of half a freckled sky blue eggshell tears a hole in the day like a spring morning chorus of anxious mother birds, beaks open in raucous warning. Kim M. Russell, 2018 My poem for the dVerse Poets Pub […]
Unturning Worms
How the helminth of malice squirms! A gangly parasitic worm, it knocks us out of orbit and turns us hard-hearted. We glide in our inchoate masks, our faces smile but inside we bask in misery. Searching for company, we find the imperative of ignominy; it puts us in the public lens and misery’s company has […]
Newborn
The waiting was breath held underwater, the longing was a crushing ocean wave, and the scalpel cut was the sharpness of moonlight at the end of a stormy day. Now his smile carves deep into my ribcage, his fingers worm paths under my skin, and the smell of his head is fresh-baked bread that I […]
Geraniums
How did the flaming falsehoods start? You brought a pot of carmine petals as a ticket to her heart. You swooped with cardinal flowers to validate your fiction, but the firm line of her crimson lips confirmed her comprehension. Geraniums aren’t perjurious, they cannot hide their shame; only roses know the secret of the fabrication […]
You and Me
together in lamp’s twilight pool you and me cup of tea TV glows in the corner quiet and content Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads You and Me This week Marian tells us about her love of Alice Cooper, a recent concert and the song ‘You and Me’. She […]
writing in north norfolk 