Before in a vivid season, colours splash from an artist’s palette: ochre fields untold shades of leaves and grasses tumbling petals pink and yellow flashes […]
Category: Poems
A poem to sum up my feelings in this post.
Sudden Joy
The bay tree’s gone,chopped to let the sunlight in,but fighting back with fresh shootsand a surprisefluorescent yellow evening primrosegrowing at its roots. Yesterday, I walked in places new,soaked my idle boots in dewdodged overhanging branchesand brambles still heavy with plump fruit,past haystacks, across recently ploughed fieldsto sudden joy – a crop of […]
Self-Portrait with Hands
They have teased music from a classical guitar, woven brightly dyed wool into a winter knit, and pencilled themselves into a sketch. They cover my face now, as I pose before a speckled, frameless mirror tucked away, out of sight, under the stairs. She’s there, somewhere in the shadows, the one whose fingers plucked and […]
On the Soft Skin of the Underside
In the days of physical elasticity,instant sparks of electricityand youthful hunger,whether in daylight, twilight or moonlight,lips and teeth tended to tattoo and collide on the soft skin of the underside. Now I love to tangle in the copper hairon forearms, chest and belly, wherewinter frost has started to appear,but it is on the soft skin […]
Lazarus
Mynamecrumblesfrom my mouth,a piece of coral. You might think I’m smiling but it’s rictus –I’m as terrified of youas you are of me. If you could seeinto my spine,you’d find it’s hollow,encased in an armoury of external teeth –all the better to eat – and my eyes are even bigger than my mouth –all the […]
Starting Point
So varied is the starting point,the foundation of a poem:sometimes a thought, a word,image, phrase, feeling, sound,or something you have foundin a different writer’s wall,the brickweave of their soul. Kim M. Russell, 27th August 2020 My response to Poets and Storytellers United Weekly Scribblings #34: Foundation This Wednesday, Rommy asked us to consider the word […]
Rainbow Child
The humid heat had spread like crude oil on a seashore; it prickled and burned skin red, thick and sticky in every pore. A parasol and paddling pool were perfect for the chore of cooling and amusing you: buckets of water, nothing more. Sudden storm clouds above the trees gathered with a growl of thunder, […]
Rewilding a Soul
When she opened the cage, she felt bars beneath her fingers, a metallic chill that lingers and almost stops the heart. Her soul perched on the edge among shadows of danger, liberty felt so much stranger and the landscape was stark. The taming had taken its joyfulness, silenced its song and left it helpless. Its […]
Hunger
is a baby bird,a swallowscreaming for dinner,its beak wide open,a black holeready to swallowits mother whole. The raging acid oceangripes and grumbles,piranha enzymes frenziedby the food that tumblesdown the open gullet. But oh, the satisfactionof the elephantine belly,the joy of different flavoursthat coat the tongueand tease the gustatory cortex,a sweet and savoury tangobefore the chemistry […]
Feet to the Stars
You asked for a clean slate, one with your own face on, and a rainbow of colours to brighten up your frown. You tried so many different smiles, noses and eyebrows, a range of wigs and hats, but it wasn’t until you turned upside down, with your hands planted firmly on the ground and your […]
writing in north norfolk 