Thorny limbs snatch at naked skinon the twilit forest path; glancingright and left, we seek knots of berries,black and shiny as jet, followingbrimstone and comma butterfliesthat drift like graceful ballet dancersarrayed in spectacular sunset hues. We dodge wasps weaving among spursand landing on fruit that bursts with juice;pick flies and spiders from the clusters,brush cobwebs […]
Category: Poems
A poem to sum up my feelings in this post.
The Egg and the Key
I found an egg, smooth and new;it was warm so I gave it to you –I wanted to see what you would do. Flocks of birds surrounded us two,they dived and swooped and flewuntil the sky turned a leaden hue. You took my hand, so I followed youto the aquarium at a nearby zoo,and the […]
Creature Comforts revisited
An old collaborative poem I wrote with Isadora Gruye several years ago has been resurrected and shared at Collaborature today. You can read it here.
Clair de Lune
On a bright summer’s day in Cologne,the leaves infused with rays of sunlighton a tree-lined street, and quite alone,I was delighted to hear moonlighttumbling from the strings of a guitar.I lingered by an open window, listeningto blue notes above the hum of cars,caught in a dream, like glimpsinga crescent moon through cloud.I leaned against the […]
no longer drifting
sculpted by salty waves and sandthe driftwood was almost out of reachon the dunes above the beachthrown high in a stormit had once been part of a living treetorn from itsrootsand manufactured into something practicallike a boat or a tableby the time it reached the shoreit was unrecognisabletwisted by the artifice of the ocean into […]
Persistence
Echoing rain muffles the air.Distance seems to be lost to cloudsclosing in like damp sheep. Sheeting raindrips and drums, persistent and loud.At the window, I hug a mug of tea, distantly,listening to rain disappear into the distance. Kim M. Russell, 15th April 2025 On 15th April we are halfway through NaPoWriMo, with the online gallery […]
On the Norfolk Broads
It’s never silent among the reedsand water lilies: inquisitive swans gliding in a boat’s wake hissand honk; there’s the bittern’s boom, an otter’s splash, and a breezewhistles through overhanging leaves. Passing boats rumble, blast their hornsby the bridge, the tide slaps at moored-up craft rockingand swaying in the moorings. But at sundown, everything is quietin […]
A Knot Around my Heart
I tighten fast inside your tourniquet,your words a knot around my heart, head exploding withunweathered and untethered light. How did you weave a poem so densein its changing tempo and major to minor shifts that make metighten fast inside your tourniquet? The alliterative tick of verbsand the gaping assonance of bouncing beat evokesunweathered and untethered […]
The Crone Can’t Spell Anymore
As a linguist and English teacher,and even before, as a learner,I never had problems spellingor remembering the meaningof…things. Entering my seventieth year,signs of ageing have appeared.I have begun to trip and stumble,words no longer tumblefrom my fingers. My handwriting’s scribble,as if a dyslexic spider resides in my pen.What I type isn’t what I see on […]
Rising Sun
In dawn’s quietudethe rising sun is a full stop on the horizon,a sizzle from red to orange, rudein its nakedness, all the while risinginto a still slumbering sky.Its light is concentrated in one place,a gold reflection like a cat’s eye,shimmering across the Earth’s face. A rusty vixen trots from behind a tree,the sunlight burnishing her […]
