Remember all the lies, belittling stares, derisive laughter, heat of scarlet shame, a wake that followed after preserved in ink, the aspic of the literati picking on the bones of every poet at the feast? You hoped they’d disappear, stuffed-shirted corpses, gilt with attitude and privilege, but no, their breath still lingers, the cloying scent […]
Category: Poems
Between the Shelves
She wrote him a ballad between the Classics and the Poetry shelves in the public library, inhaling papery pheromones. She spotted his shadowy figure between periodicals and autobiography, held her breath to stop the erratic timpani of her heart and the blood-red symphony surging in her ears. The poem slipped from her sweaty fingers, drifted […]
Early Rising
It’s four o’clock and it’s still dark outside, but blackbird chorus glimmers gently through the curtains gap. The window’s open wide and I can smell the chlorophyll, the dew, the dreamlike whiff of rain-soaked earth, and you asleep beside me, unaware of dawn: late risers hold morn’s moody light in scorn. Kim M. Russell, 9th […]
No Fallacy
Below brisk grey skies, the landscape folded in on itself, exhausted from the iron rod of a long dark winter. One April morning, I awoke to the whisper and whistle of spring: tentative promises opened in snowdrops bowing and pearled with dewdrops, fanfared in sunshine and a blaze of blossom, intent on sparkling and banishing […]
at the water’s edge
a boy crouched at the water’s edge his fingers felt the waves the pull of the current tangle of chickweed wash of passing swan tickle of trout inhaling scents of far-off places breathing them out he watched his toy boat skip ripples on the breeze blow under willows where ducks gather water voles bask in […]
Corona
It came in the guise of a gaseous envelope in the sky of sun and other stars. No eclipse this time – just a pearly glow around the muted disc of moon. Chinese New Year celebrations were cancelled and Italy’s strict lockdown won’t be lifted soon. How appropriate that this is the year of the […]
Twisted around her wrist…
a bracelet of cowslips and oxeyes, meadow flowers of summers long gone. Her refusal to add pimpernels, rubies among silver and gold, surprised me. But she was drawn with childish glee to sunny dandelions and buttercups that cast a buttery glow under her chin. So many seasons of bracelets twist around the couplet of our […]
Lockdown with Cat
I am the cat who walks by herself, proudly practising social distancing from others. I purr at the spring sun stroking my fur, while my human peers from a prison of windowpanes, longing for a friendly hug, a shared coffee and conversation. In the meantime, we’ve had to ration cat food until the next delivery. […]
Space Origami
earth is still distorted by pollution like a piece of paper folded into an origami globe, its faces and edges blurred with rubbing here in an ever-shrinking space, it’s hard to remember how primroses and daffodils turn their faces to April sunshine air and water are clearer now, canals and rivers abound with fish and […]
Tender Buttons: Fern
A potted fern rusts in the corner. Why is it trapped in porcelain? An alveolus from the lungs of a forest, a socket for the wind’s teeth. the fern in the pot sucks and nibbles at the room’s stale air, exhaling just enough oxygen to stir the net curtain. Kim M. Russell, 4th April 2020 […]
writing in north norfolk 