As soon as she jumps on my lap, she throttles up and purrs, a rumble in her windpipe, palpable Tartini tones that make my heartbeat skip. I often wonder if she still vibrates, trills, and chirrups when I’m not tickling her around the face or nape, or playing with her ears. Do little purrs of […]
Category: Poems
A poem to sum up my feelings in this post.
Maladroit
My first bra made me self-conscious, all nipples and scratchiness, much like wearing my first bikini (never again!) or my first time skating in hired boots; my first kiss, trying not to crash teeth, dribble saliva or miss target completely; my first (and only) dinner party, or meeting other parents and toddlers when mine was […]
Repair
The puncture in my heart has been slow to mend. What the bumpy road tore apart is melding slowly, patched and glued together. It will take more than all my years to remount the bicycle of life, pump the pedals faster, blow fears away with breeze through hair and gasp of stuttering breath, to repair […]
Goodbye to Bees
Now that autumn is here, with winter on its heels, I observe ever-changing foliage through windows blurred with misty condensation. I think back to liquid sun- drops, pollen-perfumed bumble-kissed summer lullabies, and whisper goodbye to bees until they appear next year. Kim M. Russell, 25th September 2019 My response to Poets United Midweek Motif: Honey […]
The Long Night
They kept vigil throughout the night, watching every movement, every breath, every flicker of dwindling candlelight, shadowy fingers of encroaching death, until the welcome morning light gently caressed the child’s fretting face and soothed away the livid, bright red of fever. All those missed heartbeats crashed together with relief at the sight of the child’s […]
Waiting for Sleep to Come
Each night I walk observing graves tended and untended, order and disorder. My head- stone is blotched with moss and lichen, my brief story blotted out. I shimmer in the silver moon- light, skim long grass and weeds dusted with dandelion and thistle seeds between lych gate and porch, where closely-mown grass scorched over summer. […]
My Dark Existence
I go to sleep and wake to a steady drip and wonder if it’s radioactive or pure and clear, like the streams I once knew. Above ground, no fresh water remains: no trace of rain or cloud or sky. There is just the twilight of this cave, the weak rays that find their way through […]
A Message from the Crows
She lingers by the lane, in the interregnum of autumn, an exhalation of green, watching glossy crows gather over stubbled fields of faded ochre, sewn delicately with bales and rustling with dragonflies. The end-of-day sun casts a murder of shadows, letters from above, the winged initials of her one true love. Kim M. Russell, 12th […]
Bird Brain
Her brain is a riot of knapweed on which twittering finches feed, keeping her awake at night and drowning out each thought when she rises. She longs to see a chestnut or a walnut tree with broad crown and dangling fruit, or bushes of plump blackberries, but she cannot leave these walls, cannot stretch her […]
The last time I saw her
there was a clamour in my soul’s anatomy, a sixth sense enmeshed in a daughter’s flesh. I held her fragile hand, touched fingernails, like fractured shells embedded in sand. The lump of imminent loss stuck in my throat like a dry piece of toast can never be swallowed. I cannot forget how her sacrifice spread […]
writing in north norfolk 