It’s a quarter past six on a Sunday morning. October darkness sits heavy as a blanket, waiting for first light to gently lift it. Strains of Billie curl into a hug like raspberry flavoured steam from my mug of tea. The cats have been fed, husband is tucked up in bed, I’m alone with Billie, […]
Category: Poems
On the Other Side of the River…
away from city sounds and lights a spectral owl waits for the untethering of the moon. Moored with the boats, she floats, horns above water, her light spilling into a river speckled with fishy stars, anticipating her ballooning release once inky darkness floods the city’s streets and bars, extinguishes the lights of buses and cars. […]
Truth
Like me, said the albino magpie with machine-gun-like chatter, truth isn’t always black and white, and he took off from the tree, flying free. Kim M. Russell, 3rd October 2019 My response to Poets United Midweek Motif: Truth Susan is back for the Midweek Motif, honouring Gandhi’s birthday with the truth. She has taken a […]
Do Cats Purr When Humans Aren’t Around?
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 […]
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 […]
