In the solitude of lockdown and the peaceful safety of a village on the Broads, news drips in slowly. If it wasn’t for social media and local TV news, we might forget for a minute that the sea is creeping ever nearer, destroying sea defences, toppling homes from cliffs, and eating up the coast while […]
Category: Poems
A poem to sum up my feelings in this post.
Redneck Philosophy
No time to think about a bag for life,I leave recycling the rubbish to the wife.Cigarette butts and packets fly out of the car,no time to wash my hands with a beer on the bar.At work, it’s the same if I can’t find a bin,there are cleaners to tidy the areas I work in.I eat […]
On First Encountering a Stallion
In a dust-clouded paddock, a summer stallion,Not midnight black but deepest brown,Rolled one eye, expressive and defiant,Cautiously curious and determined to be dominant.Tendering my trembling fingers, openPalm of one hand in silent supplication,I kept the other in my jacket,Shuffling cubes of sugar in a pocket,Relishing the sweet sting of anticipation.Startled and skittering from a sudden […]
November Monday
Monday is the colour of sky,the first day of the weekas fresh as washing on a line. This November Monday,there’s a musty yellow scent,an ochre aroma of decay, like a pumpkin or a melon,overripe and mushy mellow,not citrus-sharp like lemons. This Monday’s weatheris washed into a muddy green,sun and wind and rain together, mixed up […]
November Burning
Leaf-flame disappears from trees,doused into a sodden massbeneath my boot-clad feet,kicked until the limp leaves liftand fall – again. Drizzle develops into steady rain,but neighbours are intent on rakingand burning. Pungent billowspermeate lank laundryon the washing line. Boots off, safe and dry indoors,the first fire of the season roars,releasing smoky memoriesof the November mornwhen she […]
Greening the Mind
Word-bound, I watch the coming winterhaunt the garden, eager to paint it silver. I count the rags of blue sky overhead,topped with grumbling thunderheads, savour the smell of rich black earth, the gleamof gold and lemon, not quite drowning out the green. Trees drip with limpid air this green-gold morninglike words from my poetic pen, […]
Autumn’s Folly
She paints the landscape red and gold,cossets fruit, more than we can hold, silvers webs and tinkers with the lightonly to plunge us into wintry night. Her leafy folly flutters and decays,the fruits of her labour last but days, winter haunts her with ghostly mistand bids her goodbye with an icy kiss. Kim M. Russell, […]
A Walk in the Cemetery by Moonlight
A celebration before winter darkness,fingering crumbled earth with brightness, moonlight creeps through autumn turbulenceto gild gravestones hunkered in silence. Pale breath of lunar light tongues dustamong tattered leaves now turned to rust and scattered on well-trodden stones,traces epitaphs and seeks out bones, meagre offerings for a midnight repastbefore the cold season’s hollow fast. Something […]
Wind Music
Safe inside, we listen to the howling wind as it rips up foliage and tears limb from limb branches from ancient birch and oak. Ghostly draughts creep into every nook and cranny, they squeeze under doors and whistle dirges down the chimney. Outside, the wind, still duetting with the trees, sighs in more steadfast branches […]
Prayers of Bone
Beware this Halloweenand the days in between, when knuckles crackbehind the back, of the flesh-eating ghoulthat sips your soul, carves telling stonesfrom finger bones, Our Fathers and Hail Marysstrung on calcified rosaries. Fingers that once folded in prayer,this Halloween beware! Kim M. Russell, 21st October 2020 My response to Poets and Storytellers United Weekly Scribblings […]
writing in north norfolk 