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 […]
Category: Poems
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 […]
Geranium Revisited
It emerges like a blush from variegated leaves, a beauty hidden in a bush beneath overhanging eaves. Its petals radiate scarlet and the whole plant exudes the intoxicating scent of harlot, earthy and a little rude, with citrus zest and peppery hot, a geranium blooming in a pot. Kim M. Russell, 5th September 2019 My […]
Reading Together
We get to know each other first, talk about books and reading until some children are fit to burst, they’re so keen to find out what I’m offering. I take out a book and the child says ‘Easy!’, explores the cover, reads the title, explains what they think it’s all about, and then we read […]
Crow at the Castle Gate
There is no lonelier spot than the castle on the moors, hung over with scudding cloud where a lone tattered crow soars. As it guards the castle gate it utters raucous caws, eyeing the path with a shiny eye while sharpening beak and claws to pick at the first stars of twilight, a shadow unzipping […]
writing in north norfolk 