A pretty word is etiquette, similar to pirouette, yet it rhymes with petty mundane things like vinaigrette, eau de toilette, kitchenette, flannelette or washing at the launderette, leatherette or stockinette, or even string-pulled marionettes. I prefer the dark romance of a planchette or a silhouette. I’d rather be a suffragette. Kim M. Russell, 7th April […]
Category: Poems
Spirit in my Sanctum
I wasn’t told about a sitting tenant, didn’t ask for a housemate, certainly not an old creeper, a slipper shuffler, who leaves the seat up, the tap running and ghostly messages on the steamed-up bathroom mirror. I wouldn’t mind so much if he’d just leave me some of the bedclothes and stop levitating me when […]
Ghost in the Night
It’s a ghost in the night, keeping me awake with its whispering, muttering and sighing, and nudges in my poetic ribs. It pokes me with imagery and ties me up in allegory until I reach for notebook and pen (which I left on the armchair). Empty-handed (in inky midnight darkness) I creep gingerly downstairs. It’s […]
Cheese on Toast
I remember when we used to walk hand in hand along a sandy road that led to North Sea dunes, so deep into the night the lights had gone out in all the houses; we were guided by a sky full of stars and every time the moon disappeared, a nosy neighbour behind a curtain […]
River Cascading
Between deep gorges water flows: springs that glint over moss and lichen or energetic streams that tumble, shifting and grinding over rocks and boulders. Between deep gorges water flows, fizzing with minerals and petrichor, full to the brim with April showers, springs that glint over moss and lichen. In summer months, watercourses dry where water […]
I’m your little snow globe
Inside the roundness of my orb is a beach hut the colour of the sea, not grey as you’d expect on a wintry day but an optimistic shade of jade. There’s snow on its roof and sand at its base, a perfect place to write or watch the stars come out at night. I sit […]
April
April started just today and yet it seems so far away, a distant joke other people play when they are young and full of life. I remember being drunk with love, with music and the stars above, the cosy walks in sun and rain; I hope we’ll do it all again now that April’s here. […]
Expanding
My mind and the universe expand: looking back down the telescope of life, I see my younger self, a tiny planet, […]
March
My legs, leaden with a long winter’s sloth, awaken with a tingle and I begin to fidget, eager to walk, to work the stiffness off. At crack of spring, blackbirds and finches scoff loudly in the woods – a feathered quartet to rouse legs leaden from long winter’s sloth. Marvelling at the delicate hazy growth, […]
A Yellow Smile
On this March afternoon outside my dusty window, a smudge in sunshine becomes a glint of lemon and flutters into view: the first spring butterfly flashes me a yellow smile. Kim M. Russell, 30th March 2019 My response to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads Get Listed: Late March Edition Sanaa is back with ‘March: An […]
