The promontory, a bare stone bluff, lifts its foetal dinosaur hump above the insular pub tucked into a crumbling crack in the leavings of prehistory. Under a china sky, a waymarked trail knits together threads of hills, field walls and pasture ridges, barns, farms and villages, all muddied with winter. Boots gouge rocks, imprinting scars, […]
Category: Poems
Stardust
How wonderful it would be to catch just a pinch of stardust on a rooftop in Oslo, Paris or Berlin: a handful of micrometeorites, traces of ancient cosmic dust, falling through the atmosphere, merging with terrestrial grime and rust, tiny flakes of matter from the start of our Solar System – and wish on it. […]
Following Threads
A poem found in Science Alert in an article by Peter Dockrill in paint-laden brushstrokes fractal patterns trace cognitive changes like snowflakes self-repeating and replicating in each work of art analysing artists’ souls following flimsy threads of neurodegenerative decline Kim M. Russell, 2016 Salvador Dali’s The Basket of Bread (1926) and The Swallow’s Tail (1983). […]
Good Riddance to 2016
This last year has stolen Childhood memories, Sprayed terror like graffiti On walls of peaceful cities, Torn stars and heroes Like leaves off autumn trees, While we clung to a glass cliff In a year of tragedies. A wave of coulrophobia, Caused by the election, Was surfed by post-truth politics On a tempestuous ocean. 2016 […]
Rope Trick
Twisted strands of silent bangles, Bloody hands from knots and tangles, Slung and tied, she is suspended Vertically, rolled and upended In an age-old circus trick On a rope tensile and thick, She slips up fibres like a snake Up vines, praying they will not break. Kim M. Russell, 2016 – Natalia Drepina My response […]
Crime Passionnel
The sound of knife on fabric, Like a jackboot on glass, Echoed the stroke of impatience Around the tram terminal, Where the suspicious eyes of the rum cull Spotted the perfumed familiar gloss Of his tragic, unfaithful mistress In a passel of prospective lovers. On her face, a blue and purple discolour As she lay bleeding […]
Adorable
They named you Casper, friendly little ghost discovered off the Hawaiian coast, hula dancing and egg laying among the stems of dead sponges manganese-anchored to the muddy ocean floor, which you colonise and clean, digging among minerals. How could you know how valuable and dangerous your high-tech metal farm could be, so remarkably deep under […]
Birth of an Ice Cloud
Ice clouds are born as crystals created from water vapour attracted to individual small atmospheric particles: a microbe or volcanic ash, pehaps. The process known as ice nucleation is the formation of wispy cirrus clouds that hang where temperatures are low and humidity is high in an otherwise clear sky. Kim M. Russell, 2016 Image […]
A Foggy Christmas Eve
On the eve of Christmas, fog and darkness clotted, carriage horses plodded, following disembodied flares down narrow streets. On the eve of Christmas, ancient church bells muttered as first snowflakes fluttered, and invisibly stuttered out the hours in muffled beats. On the eve of Christmas, with baubles and overpriced dolls, drums and sugar mice bright […]
Cold Hands
Your hands were always cold, my dear, Despite temperature and weather, The only time they warmed, my dear, Was when we were together, When you put your arms around my waist And intertwined your fingers. I can feel your breath upon my cheek, The scent of you still lingers, But now there’s only icy hands, […]
writing in north norfolk 