In the moody half-lightof the Imbolc landscapebetween birch, ash and oak,there’s an unspoken oath. Brassy hazel catkins shimmer,lemony lamb’s tail buds glimmer,and there’s a gleam in Candlemasbells’ nodding waxen flowers. Everywhere, for the first timethis year, is the vow that temperatures will climband imbue everythingwith the welcome scent of spring. Kim M. Russell, 1st February […]
Category: Poems
Opening Time
It’s raining old women and sticks; the lights are on, but the pub’s still closed. They’re gasping for pints and packets of crisps, squeezed tight together under the awning, from which fat globules of water drip, trickle off ends of unkempt hair and find their way past grimy collars. Between the telephone box and bike […]
If
there hadn’t been hesitant sleetthat eventually turned to snowheaped like hills on the empty street, it might not have fluttered silently,like luminescent moths outsidethe window, a continued quietude when the flakes ceased gentlyfalling, that might not have been brokenby the boisterous warble of a robin. Kim M. Russell, 27th January 2021 My response to Poets […]
Sad Song
“The clear vowels rise like balloons” S.Plath ~ Morning Song A favourite song floats into the mind on a passing whimsical wind, prompted by a blackbird’s incidental trill or the postman’s whistle, and I am there again, mouth wide open, lungs bursting with the thrill, in a crowd of hearts beating to the same rhythm […]
Holme
It sounds like home. It’s a morning walk on a Norfolk beach,wind strewing salty seaweedlike hair on a northerly breeze. The flatness hid the traces. It was a sea henge with an upturned oak stumpat the centre of a Bronze Age ring of trunks:fifty-five split and ancient hearts of oak. And hearts were split. Some […]
A Cup of Winter Tea
Steaming cup in hand, I shiver outdoorsas the moon freezesin a cloud of mist and sequin starsnot even northern breezescan penetrate the chill from Earth to MarsI know that under the snowplants sprout and bulbs are ready to unfoldand the tea I made half an hour agois stone cold Kim M. Russell, 20th January 2021 […]
Joining the Dots
Like a child with an activity book, I join up the dots, spy with my little eye pictures in earth and sky, from horizon to horizon: the shapes of flocks of birds, clouds and the occasional rainbow – which must be coloured in. We are joined by bone […]
This Tangled Life
At dusk, I watch the moon risefrom a tangle of bare branches. All those daytime emotionsballed up in a flocculent pocketunravel as I squint my eyes. Planets are at my fingertips; I weave them across the sky,create novel constellations,a loose knit of past and present. The future’s still a golden fleeceI have yet to find. […]
This Snow
This mid-January morningall the blemishes are coveredand soil scars have been stitchedby the dusty blackbird’s tracks. Even the washing looks whiter,not frozen stiff, but dancing, blownby the wind that brought the snow. Kim M. Russell, 16th January 2021 A chilly little poem for earthweal open link weekend #53
Hagstone
Earth, wind, fire and water, each of them a divine daughter, waged a war on heaven and earth, so powerful that it gave birth to weather-witches, hags and crones, who traded in claws and bones, feathers, fangs, skulls and shells, to strengthen herbs and magic spells. Each bound to their own element, some witches crooned […]
writing in north norfolk 