rain strokes the earth, greening leaves and grass, the porter scent of turf smoke fills the hills and, in the river, water chuckles at a joke, a limerick or the jaunty song a musician whistles on the long road home from a late night session and whispers in the rover’s ear: go n-éirí an bóthar […]
Category: Poems
Phantom Shadorma
snow ghosts drift in a late blizzard rags tattered dignity phantoms of the fantastic suspended in ice and we hide behind heavy drapes misty panes bated breath while winter and spring battle it out once again Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to dVerse Poets Pub Meeting the Bar: Phantom Form – Shadorma Amaya is […]
Growing Old
I may have a senior railcard and silver streaks in my hair, but my fallen leaves rustle and sing like the dancing leaves of early spring. No flying south for winter, I’m no grizzled, dingy skipper but a quiet blue or marbled white, gently fanning the paling light. When I pull on my Dr Marten’s […]
Shepherd’s Warning
Early this morning the sky screamed at me a red warning that echoed off branches and filled the garden with icy chill so I filled my lungs with daybreak and screamed back. Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Scream Sumana asks us if we have ever come to that […]
Sculpting the Coastline Together Again
My fingers itch as I watch clouds racing across a bracing sky. Wind wrestles everything into flux, bowls waves against an unforgiving fractured coast. Sea booms and boasts, spits salty spray, whips hair, seaweed and marram into a melee. My hands tingle with a defiant energy, gather crumbs of cliff and tumbled rocks, melt them […]
Noisy Faucet
Throughout the night, while other folk were fast asleep, their noisy faucet mumbled cyan, vaunted a tragedy of paraffin, a gradual puddle, ready to flame into Koi no Yokan, a nod to the arsonists’ tradition, scantily clad in new lovers’ promises. Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Wordle #187
Hearthful of Flames
‘Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it, and passers-by see nothing but a little smoke at the top of the chimney and then go on their way’ – Vincent van Gogh A fire roared in his soul. All his neighbours saw was smoke; they gossiped […]
A Fruitful Late Afternoon Train Ride in March
All along the railway, the landscape’s studded with beechwoods, earthworks and tracks, serenaded by rocking clickety-clacks, and accompanied by clouds that scudded in from the east on a bitter weeping wind. Through dusty, grease-smeared glass, sidings sport orchards as we pass, sprouted from cores tossed from train windows: a magical hoard of apples glows, embers […]
My first try at a Tanaga
Memorable March landscapes glimmer. Morning song escapes, giddy with green budding light, new life breaking like a tide. Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads Fussy Little Forms: Tanaga Marian says that she wrote this prompt in the early morning as her town woke up under a blanket of fresh […]
The Silvering
The undulating spines of misty hills crouch sharp and black below billowing clouds that pitch and roll. We walk along the lakeside track, a jagged, treadled seam, pierced and riddled with the gleam of ancient cobbles, flints and stones, skiddy with old leaves and stale lake breath. Along the path, the oaks feign death but, […]
writing in north norfolk 