I’ve never known such heat to punish our small island as it has this summer. However, while all around us fields frazzled, some even burned, and gardens wilted, our sanctuary has remained green and lush. When the heat indoors proves too much to handle, I escape to cool breezes and shadows beneath the willow to […]
Elizabethan Kisses
Since summer’s wind has heated up our skin, there’s not a corner of our bed that’s cool, no furtive meeting of soft lips or limbs. Help me with caresses; play by the rules. Come winter, bring us closer with your touch, let russet leaves begin the year’s decline! Us mortals cannot stand the heat so […]
Tingle
In this stifling heat I conjure up the redolence of forest snow, the ice-trapped secrets of moss and fern, and the tingling overtone of pine – how I long to bottle it, make it mine. Kim M. Russell, 23rd August 2022 For this week’s Tuesday Poetics our guest host is Jo, also known as Worms, […]
On a Late Summer Morning
Somewhere in the countryside, a raucous cockerel crows, roused and astonished by rose- gold kisses that burnish the sky; they set the frazzled foliage on fire, untie twisted tendrils of rising mist to offer up the magical gift of a morning in late summer. Kim M. Russell, 23rd August 2022 Linda is our host for […]
Lion Tongue
I trail scorch marks in my wake as I breach each firebreak. My voracious carnassials devour every blade of grass and flower, the leaves on every shrub and tree. Once I charge, there’s no stopping me. But when you feel the biting chill of winter coming over the hill, you embrace my crackle and roar; […]
Voice
I close the cottage door with a soft click and turn onto the road that leads past cottages and bungalows. The smell of hot earth and sun-scorched hay stubble settles over the village’s fields and lanes, where wilting scarlet poppies congregate. Before the small hump-backed bridge, I turn right, feel prickles of dry grass through […]
MIND THE GAP
The image for Visual Verse Volume 9 Chapter 10 was unusual and challenging, an image by John Crozier, which really appealed to me, as I’m originally from London. We are given only one hour to produce 50-500 ekphrastic words, so I am thrilled that my poem appears on page 7. If you want to read it first, […]
Ghostly Bedfellows
I’m so pleased that I was long-listed in the Globe Soup June micro fiction competition, which had the theme of ‘cats’ and accepted fiction, non-fiction prose and poetry with a word count of up to 100 words. Ghostly Bedfellows In the grey shadows of predawn, I’m woken by companions of the past and the present, […]
Red Ox Staring
I’m still wearing my husband’s reading glasses but will be collecting a new pair of varifocals on Friday. I’ll also be getting my hair cut for a bit of air on my very hot neck – the temperature is rising! In the meantime, the image for Visual Verse Volume 9 Chapter 9 is a collaboration […]
The Quiver of Wings
A dull thud, the blue tit drops to the patio, and Anna hastens to open the French door before lazy cat George thinks a snack has dropped from heaven. She cradles the tiny, feathery body in her bare hands. No heartbeat. But a glimmer of sky is reflected in the jet of its eye. Anna’s […]
writing in north norfolk 