Words Above the Door

This is a space for books and words,stories and poetry live here,with enormous windows for watching birds,cats and occasional deer.The garden outside is wild and green,a space filled with shrubs and trees,while the inside breathes imagination;when you enter, a line or a poem, please,or a prayer for further creation.Bric-a-brac fills all available space,on the walls […]

(G)love Story

Enclose my hand with yourslike a glove of velvet or woolthat swallows my hand whole. Caress my tingling fingerswith the fabric of your soul,whether rough or smooth. Let me slip into every finger-hole,feel the warmthand comfort of weft and warp. Enclose my hand with yours. Kim M. Russell, 2016 Detail from Man with a Glove […]

A Stretch After Winter

Time stretches into timelessness,lifeless days under leaden skiescounting crows in a damp terrain.Morning sky is flushed with roseand evening’s much the same. But soon the sky bursts into flame.A thrush trills an early clarion calland sunlight filters through a hazeof snowdrops and catkins.Time stretches into timelessness. Striding out on a day like thisforces chilled air […]

Music of the Moorings

A sunny afternoon spent by themoorings watching boats; a smelldrifts off the water ofsun cream, lazy days and freedom,when days are long and warm,and barbecues singe gentle winds.Holidaymakers escape the limits ofsweltering city life in summer;I watch them navigate the dyke as I lingernear a patch of water lilies inthe shade of trees. I feel […]

It’s Wednesday

and this is what I know:married thirty-one years,living in a place wherebeauty is everywhere,yesterday we drovefor just over an hourpast the salt marsheson the North Norfolk coast. In an ice-blue skylapwings flash wings;skeins of geese fly overheadand a variety of ducks glideacross the briny water below. It’s a landscape of shiveringbird calls, marsh birds pouringover […]

Dancing, Naturally

A murmur of whirring wings,an eddy of starlingsconverges and separatesin the helices and pirouettesof an aerial ballet. Follow the moon and Earthas they trip a tantriclight fantastic,cheek to cheek, face to face,inhaling each other’s breath. Why let words get stucksomewhere between uswhen hands and bodies talk?Express them in movement,in the way you dance and walk! […]

Timepiece Anniversary

Time is a constant artistmarking our years together,reflecting seasonal colours. It’s a sculptor tracing years on skinfrom the moment we begin,a novelist writing our book. Now we have time to pauseand marvel at the winter suncomposing poems in our garden. Kim M. Russell, 30th January 2024 Thirty-one years ago.

Vernal Rebirth

We’re surrounded by the dead and dying,tangled and defying, branch and tree like giant corpses nourish everything.Even sleeping trees can conjure growth into green froth of luminosityin village, city, copse and forest. From lifeless days under leaden skies, wewatch sleeping trees slowly conjure spring. Kim M. Russell, 25th January, 2024 Over at the dVerse Poets […]

Woman of Earth

she aroseout of soil and mud                                 all but swept                                 from shimmering lightPandora, womanof flesh and blood                                 her heart the slow                                 beat of the forestnaïve and curiousbeautiful and mysterious                                 whisper of a tree-                                 top windwith only a stopperedjar of clay to her name                                 imbued with nectar                                 of the godshappy to be given lifeto become a wife […]

Frequently the woods are pink

Frequently the woods are pink,hunched over, shy and nude,creeping round churned up fields. Carrion crows, grey as fading ink,pick at drowned worms, rudeand raucous as they wield sharp, curved beaks then sinkthem into mud, cackling a lewdcaw. Breaks in the treeline reveal the village church, a chinkof grey stone to lighten the mood,bobbing on the […]