It’s a dream that never comes to me: there is no blossoming chestnut tree, no garden of rioting summer blooms, not even a house with empty rooms. My childhood garden has no calm, no mother to rock me in her arms. Because it was so long ago, I search for it with heart of woe. […]
Category: Poems
A poem to sum up my feelings in this post.
Just Visiting
I wander unknown streets, pavement hard beneath my feet. City detritus blows in wintry wind, dust and grime of the sinned against and sinning, surviving in brick and cement, not living. Lost like a dog or cat, snow in my hair, I feel as if I was never there. Just a ghost in the burbs, […]
A Celebration of Light in Darkness
It’s the rasp of a lucifer strike on a matchbox to light a candle prayer or birthday wish; the romance of a moonlight kiss; the twinkle of a star in the density of night; the slow creep of misty morning sunlight; the afterglow of sunset as it fades to twilight; fairy lights nestling in the […]
A Toast to Autumn Drinkers
The shades and tones of changing foliage remind me of bottles displayed behind a bar: the honeypot tint of mottled leaves; the richness of wild cherry and dogwood dyed in aubergine; maples softly glowing crimson; hawthorn and blackthorn flaming fervently among the beery browns. Raise a glass to autumn drinkers huddled around the open fire […]
Tasting Books
‘Alex- A few moments of reading pleasure in return for an evening of sensual delights. Denis October Bacchanalia 1994’ Found on the flyleaf of The Physiology of Taste – Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin Spidery writing offers pleasure on the pages of a mildewed book discovered in an antiquarian book stall by the Seine. Taste is something […]
Navigating November
there is no dawn or dusk no proper time of day like the depths of the dark forest we navigate November running fingers on bark and fungus to find north we lean in close listening for sap to rise and bubble signs that queuing behind winter is spring Kim M. Russell, 15th November 2022 Free […]
Wood Witch
The lonely lady peruses the history of rainy summers shining through tree stump rings. She traces bark with gnarled fingers, tastes the snow of past winters, listens to whispered stories shelved for centuries in the library of knowledge stored in every tree, shrub and hedge. The forest shares its secrets, its treasures, and its warnings […]
Still Embraced by Summer
this summer’s overtopped itself with fern and willowherb below a tree a grassy lea with fern and willowherb it’s hard to find the perfect verb at least it is for me when winter comes and no bees hum at least it is for me most summer’s overdressed in green and days are always warm with […]
Kindly Moon
At twilight, there she is, an old friend rising in the east and setting in the west, above fields shorn with harvest. She’s on the look-out for geese complaining after thousands of miles flight. And she smiles, this kindly moon, as they cross her face, knowing they have no perception of space, just a birds-eye […]
The Fervour of Fermentation
The seasonal fermentation of my October passion becomes more fervent, and I am more observant as her larder, fully stocked, is temporarily unlocked: piles of acorns underfoot; hedges full of autumn fruit; birches seed and conkers brown, sycamore helicopters tumble down; and, multiplied by recent rain that’s made the grasses green again, hordes of mushrooms […]