I search the garden, behind every bush and tree trunk, in among the trellises of cascading beans and peas, all the places a precocious six-year-old would deem a magical queendom. She wasn’t in her bedroom or the den, not lurking in the ghostly shadows of the infinite corridor, so the garden is the only place […]
Back to the Garden
What will we do when satellites fall from space, when sky is sky and not an overwhelming channel choice? Besides, nature shows would have nothing to show us when most species are extinct. We’ll have to make do with whatever is left in the wilderness of our back garden. Offer me fruit and maybe we […]
Dandelion Dream
a dandelion now and then interrupting the butterfly’s dream Chiyo-Ni tickle of a downy clock early morning wake-up call Kim M. Russell, 3rd May 2019 My response to Carpe Diem #1656 Tan Renga Challenge May 2019 (3) Dandelion and […]
Spring Cleaning
The old trellis is still standing, top-heavy with verdant honeysuckle leaves and studded with dark pink buds. Below the greenery, old woody branches tangle with dusty shadows, hunchbacked hollows of musty undergrowth. Straining against my hands, secateurs crack and break brittle branches, their sharp echoes scattering birds and, deep inside the remains of an old […]
Beautiful Ugliness
banana-tree unworthy to look at beautiful ugliness Yozakura shelter from the pouring rain welcome shadow in the sun Kim M. Russell, 2nd May 2019 My response to Carpe Diem #1655 Tan Renga Challenge (2) Beautiful Ugliness This month we are creating short chained verses or […]
Passing Spring
ready for summer bare feet on nature’s carpet blossom-covered grass Kim M. Russell, 1st May 2019 My response to Carpe Diem #1653 passing spring (yuku haru) In the last episode of ApriI the classical kigo was ‘passing spring’ (yuku haru). We have an example of a haiku by Basho with this classical kigo: Spring passes […]
Smouldering Fireplace
smouldering fireplace the sweet perfume of burned herbs loneliness grabs my throat Chèvrefeuille spent embers crumble and fall in smoke of burnt-out passion Kim M. Russell, 1st May 2019 My response to Carpe Diem #1654 Tan Renga Challenge (1) Smouldering Fireplace Today we have the first episode of May 2019 in a month of Tan […]
Ghost of a Chance
What is this twilight, this world of shadow? Neither day nor night, we name it limbo, the crumbling ledge on the fiery edge of hell. We think we know it well, and yet the glow of hellfire is tempting compared with the empty darkness of uncertainty. Anything to stave a spiritual void beyond the grave. […]
Morningsong
Morning breaks slowly; in the emerging light, robins and blackbirds rehearse their words, tuning up quietly before they release their songs like raindrops into the stream of morning birdsong to seep into my dream. Kim M. Russell, 30th April 2019 My response to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads Tuesday Platform Poems in April Day 30: […]
Picnic Under the Stairs
When I was nine or ten, we moved from a two-bedroom ground floor maisonette to a three-bedroom top floor maisonette on the same estate. I got the box room: it had a huge box that was the top of the stairs, which took up almost a quarter of the floor space, leaving room for a […]
writing in north norfolk 