From the classroom windowthe spangled playground sparkled,criss-crossed with blackbird braille,a whirlissimo of fat flakesas if blown from polar fur. Come home time,there were two or threefeet of snow and a magicallyvanishing world as the vanilla stormstole brown and green. I was five years old, my motherwas at home nursing a sick toddler,so the teacher told […]
Category: Poems
A poem to sum up my feelings in this post.
Farther Down the Line
Gone are the dayswhen train whistlesblew my blues away.What once tookan afternoon nowtakes under an hour:steam has progressedto diesel and electric.Thanks to local fanatics,a little steam trainstill trundles past on time,blowing a fainter whistlefarther down the line. Kim M. Russell, 13th January 2026 It’s Tuesday and time for Poetics at the dVerse Poets Pub, this […]
Alphabetically speaking
(Because the alphabet is the brickwork of language)Cave walls had ancient words scratched on themDestined to become poetry. Echoes of lost tongues lurk inFossils long predating homo sapiens,Gorgeous, mysterious and soul touching. Humans staked a claim on poetry —In error I hasten to add —Just as birds wrote theirs in the sky. Kingdoms come and […]
Watching Mum Get Her Hair Done
The hairdresser circumnavigated my mum’s head,conducting a symphony of blonde curls, a pointed, shiny, metal comb in one expert hand,a can of hairspray in the other that turned hair into cement. But I didn’t really watch my mum get her hair done.There was too much else to take in. My eyes were drawn to shiny […]
Light Fractured
On frost-fractured morningsI pause to ponder the intricacy of lighton ice-sugared pinecones scattered like flotsamamong the silvery filigree of leaves and twinkling twigs that litter the path.And I remember winter’s mission:the extinction of useless lights and drawing of grey cloud curtainsacross the sky. But I knowthat light cannot be completely erased: it’s there in the […]
In Retrospect
The end of year approachesand I am hunkering down, Avoiding the weak winter sun glinting offfrail filigree and dancing on the sparkling frost. Instead of opening advent doorsamid lighted candles and Yule trees, I look back at loved ones who disappearedfrom my life this year and cannot shake the loss. Come New Year, I must […]
Little Wave
She is of water, a female element, a liminal creature,cold-blooded, not quite fish, not quite human,a little wave swimming free. She was curious about the man who bathed in the waterfall,where she loved to sing, a descant tinklingabove the splash and gush. She fell in love with his earthiness, the way his feet were plantedfirmly […]
Ode to November Rain
A respite from early snow, it pours from bruised clouds and makes the fields sodden.Drumming against my windows,I hear it in the garden,washing away words that robins have trodden. It gushes in the gutters,punishes the water butt ‘til it overflows. I listen as it muttersrhymes I never wrote—a refreshing respite from the silent snow. Kim M. […]
Numbed by Numbers
I add up the digitsof the date of my birthand come to thirty,my year of agoraphobia. I add up the digitsof my daughter’s date of birthand come to twenty-four,my age when she was born. I add up the digitsof the date we got marriedand come to twenty-six,my age when I was snowed in. I add […]
So This Is Dilham
There are gulls between the goalson the village football pitch,tugging at lingering wisps of mist,their white wings stark against dirty green. They ignore the jackdaws, yinto their yang, pick at the last daisies,the ones that haven’t been squashedin mud, hoping for a tasty snack. No fish and chips here, too farfrom the coast, no shops […]
writing in north norfolk 