Leaves murmur in the woody copse. Twilight is more alive than sombre day and we fly outside time. Together we haunt waxing shadows; heart-stirring hoots bind us to sorrow; unearthly hiss and sigh, blinking discs of eyes and graceful drifting over tangled grass – a fleeting meeting and then they’ve passed. Kim M. Russell, 2017 […]
Category: Poems
Slipping
The circus is over; curses escape rouged lips, the mask slips, dripping with clay lumpen and grey. Clown hands squeeze, poking dreams filled with screams trapped in a false face – a frozen grimace. Kim M. Russell, 2016 My response to dVerse Poets Pub Tuesday Poetics: The Metaphorical Mask, also linked to earthweal open link […]
Bay Tree Blues (or Greens)
Your branches no longer rub against the gutter, there is no friendly creak in boisterous winds; your limbs were amputated, disintegrated in the garden shredder. You still stand strong, birds sing among shiny winter green leaves, while you breathe out your noble pepper aroma. Kim M. Russell, 2017 My response to dVerse Poets Pub Quadrille: […]
Dedicated to a Dandy
Snout-fair and sweetly pargetted, you are a percher, peacockizing in your silken man-millinery, holding a slim cigarette between long fingers adorned with flashing jewellery. You may toss your scented hair and flash your painted smile, they may buy you popularity, but only for a while – until your skin wrinkles and your dazzling teeth fall […]
Leaving the Library
Inside the library, readers are turning leaves, devouring stories and stuffing words up sleeves to ponder at their leisure, while some are just hiding from the autumn weather. Outside the library and just inside the door, brittle leaves skitter in huffs of dust across the floor, cart-wheeling freely, while some are just hiding from the […]
Seasonal Impressionism
allusive brush of mist and dew dissolves fields the landscape becomes a swirling maelstrom trees are beaching whales Kim M. Russell, 2017 My response to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads Fussy Little Forms: Shadorma This week Marian is hosting the weekend mini-challenge; she says she was thinking about how she’s been a bit stuck lately, […]
Too Late for Blackberries
This year I missed the clusters, drupelets of ruby and jet that glowed with autumn lustre and others unripe as yet. I was too busy being a poet caught in imaginative rambles to pick sweet fruit from brambles. Kim M. Russell, 2017 My response to dVerse Poets Pub Form for All — Chaucerian Stanza or […]
Toads in Tandem: Creature Comforts
Izy Gruye and I tangoed together in a poetic tandem over on Imaginary Garden with Real toads. Our poem is called ‘Creature Comforts‘ – click on the title to find us!
Defrosted Landscape
The power cut was over, the lights came on and the TV muttered to life. They opened my door to fetch a few bottles of beer and then forgot about me, standing in the shadows, my mushy insides knotting with ice crystals, shuddering. A week later, they found it, the source of a lingering stink they […]
Hope
Hope is a drop of water in the midst of drought; a small boat without oars but plenty of room if we squeeze together; footprints in the dust that lead to somewhere safe; a kind hand and an honest smile on a stranger’s face. Kim M. Russell, 2017 My response to dVerse Poets Quadrille: Hope […]