It’s joy to wander on a North Norfolk beach with wind streaming in my hair and rustling the marram grass, and the primeval sounds and smells of the sea. I love to watch lazy seals in the sun, seagulls whirling overhead; to feel sand oozing between my toes, the round hardness of pebbles in my […]
The Origins of a Poem
inky streak of cloud in peripheral vision raindrop of a thought Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Poets United Midweek Motif: Beginnings Susan has given us a whole range of images, saying and poems to help us ponder the question of ‘how to begin’, which she says has generated books upon books in every […]
A Victorian Rose
I have an old, brown carved box, daily polished but never locked; the lid is broken and tied with a string but I treasure it above everything. In it I keep little squares of paper, mapped with grey mildew spatter, with hair inside, and a little picture with a saying from the holy scripture, which […]
Writing in Tongues
I trill in notes of birdsong I laugh in springs and streams I bark with dogs and muntjacs join owl and fox with screams sometimes I breathe in purrs sometimes I growl with rage when my pen clots with feral blood as it wrestles on the page but when it flows, it’s a crashing wave […]
Morning Breeze
blossom surfs the breeze sun shifts shadows in branches silent butterfly Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Carpe Diem’s Crossroads #4 morning breeze In this new episode of the special feature ‘crossroads’, in which the challenge is to fuse two haiku into one, we have one haiku by a classical haiku poet and one […]
Mountains
I have never stood at the foot of a mountain and looked up at it, not even when I lived in Ireland. The nearest I got to one was the Hill of Tara, from where I could see pretty much the whole of County Meath. But I have looked down from an aeroplane and marvelled […]
Widdershins around the willow…
past a clump of daffodils, wild and self-willed, tangled in the tall grass where the bindweed grows. In corkscrew branches, a sunlit wood pigeon mutters a throaty warning for pilgrims to this place of Salix magic where Nature is budding green curtains of respectability to replace her tattered rags of dignity. Kim M. Russell, 3rd […]
Against Grief
It sits on my shoulder, craving attention; I try to ignore the surreptitious tears it draws from my soul’s well, and snot green bile so bitter it chokes. It puts up a fence around happy memories; I have to tear it down, time after time, posts and nails, tangled barbed wire. It rewrites stories; they’re […]
Daffodils
are sunshine condensed in a bulb embraced by soil, waiting to burst with yellow vitality… nature’s haiku spring everywhere. Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Carpe Diem #1402 Daffodils (one-bun) Today our challenge is to create a ‘one-bun’, a form that was invented by Jim Kacian. It is an ultra-short haibun which has just […]
Faith
It has taken over four years to regain faith in myself. Just before I retired from high school teaching, I was sick, exhausted, and unsure if I was doing the right thing. The plan was to finish a novel I started years ago before the pressures of teaching took over, so I enrolled on several […]
writing in north norfolk 