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 […]
Category: Poems
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, […]
Falling Stars
Gemini and Andromeda burn among a welter of stars: some are rising, others have fallen, they are the souls of mortal children. Remember to catch the falling stars, polish them until they sparkle and glisten, love them so much they won’t explode or disappear down a black hole. Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to […]
To My Unborn Grandson
Dearest boy, I am counting down the days and knitting. I am amazed at the butterflies of anticipation, imagining your eyes, mouth and nose, your tiny fingers and toes, the fresh-baked smell from the top of your head. I can’t wait to sing the songs I once sang to your mother, and the ones mine […]
Empty Hands
We enter this world with empty tiny hands, learn to grab a friendly finger, a proffered slice of apple, a toy or a mother’s warm hand. Soon we discover the pages of a book, the weight of a pebble or a pen in hand; and we find our hands are always open, ready to seize […]
Concepts and Metaphors
Under an overflowing ashtray sky, the train stops. Frost seethes on scrubby sidings, where naked trees stretch pale, angular limbs. The engine rumbles and we’re gliding towards the tunnel of night, on tracks lit up with winter aconite. Kim M, Russell, 2018 My response to dVerse Poets Pub Poetics: Finding \Emotions and Concepts in Things, […]
