This being human is a circus trick.Day after day you perfect your act:a t i g h t r o p e w a l kbetween now and then,a flourish,and then back again,one foot in front of the other.It’s juggling swords,eating fiery words,putting your head in a lion’s mouthand inhaling its meaty breath.It’s the highsand […]
Category: Poems
A poem to sum up my feelings in this post.
Magpie Eye
Of all the ancient stares of birds,the one that leaves me lost for wordsis the magpie’s when it looks askancewhile pecking at the grass and plantsin our wild garden. I watch him pluckingworms from muddy soil and chattingin his raucous voice. I tell him not to speak,at least not with a brimming beak,but his shiny […]
Caught in the Headlights
In the sizzling silent dead of night, pain grips with talons, like an owl in the headlights with eyes of blood red. Snowy wings soar high towards the glimmer of dawn with an aching sigh. Pain rotates like an owl’s head caught in the headlights, talons and beak glisten red, cutting like scissors. I lie […]
A Seasonal Relationship
this is the season of the wistful goodbyeto early morning’s frosty chill hellosnowdrop, crocus and daffodil a skyinstead of cloudy grey spills clear bluewhen the promise of sunshine thrills anewas winter turns its back on us againthe pang of regret will pass amen Kim M. Russell, 10th March 2021 My response to Poets and Storytellers […]
To the young poet of the future
Dear poet, I picture you gazing at a star, concerned that you are still so far from being the poet you wish to become. From my position of restrospection I promise that your journey is the best lesson: you will be buffeted by storms and squalls, fluctuations in the weather of the soul, soothed by […]
Quiet Tights and Masks
After a summer of bare legs in sunshine,I looked forward to a winter woollen-warm with tights, 120 denier thick,soft to touch and clinging to my skin. I ordered an array of face masks, stylish,colourful statements of my Covid fashion,but tights and masks remained unworn.I was required to stay indoors, invisible to all and sundry,in pyjamas […]
No Swan Song
In my hollow bones, I feel this year will not be the final swan song. Though the waves come higher, and broken reeds are flung across uneven paths, our eyes are dazzled by birded fields and sun-flecked tides that yield the departure of winter. A verdant fern unfurls unseen beside a bubbling stream and something […]
Garrulous and Green
this morning serenadedbirdsong just a gush of liquid notesspilling a stream of consciousnessfilling cracked and solitary heartswhistling an untimely declarationof spring Kim M. Russell, 24th February 2021 My response to Poets and Storytellers United Weekly Scribblings #58: Two Into One Will Go Thank you for featuring Candy’s newly-invented form, Rosemary, which I think you know […]
The Oblivion of Snow
‘For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.’ Wallace Stevens It started with a silent flake, a branched crystal, not unlike a flower or a tree, or the paper doily cut-outs grandma used to make. It started with a snowflake, but […]
Invisible Umbilical
The unborn sleep and waketo their mothers’ heartbeatswith flares of dawns and sunsets. Expectant with gentle curves,fields are still blotched with snow,while limp and drowsy meadows transform into the smoky greenof seeding grasses and flowers,patches of shifting light and colours bound together by an invisible umbilical,dewy cobwebs and the hum of early bees –there are […]
writing in north norfolk 