From the hill, the small town seemed to be composed of parallel streets lined with neat little houses and shops with awnings striped in primary colours. On descending the road that led down the hill and into the village, she noticed that the colours were deliberate: red for the butcher; green for the greengrocer; yellow […]
Memory’s Drift
Its leafy dome makes me think of you, the way you leaned against the willow tree, gazed through branches at a patch of blue – I knew I’d love you endlessly. In darkest shadows I begin to drift, aching for that happy summertime; now memory with ageing starts to shift, and poetry no longer rhymes. […]
Sett for Life
Don’t badger me about my burrow, it keeps me safe from rain and cold, from dangerous predators, humans too; my ancestral home is centuries old. My forebears’ powerful claws dug deep a sturdy network of chambers and tunnels, a realm with a semi-circular keep beneath the hills and wooded dingles, where I gather grass and […]
Mappa Mundi
This medieval vellum sheet’s where humankind’s geography, history and destiny meet. Christ, enthroned above the world, surveys creation: the saved enter heaven, the damned are dragged to hell. Eden’s gates are firmly closed. Observed by the serpent, Eve’s alone, hand outstretched, no fruit enclosed. Kim M. Russell, 1st May 2023 Image found on Wikimedia It’s […]
The Poet Gives Up
Vincent might have felt differently when he tried to paint a starless night in Saint-Remy: the poet detests the pungency of words stagnating in her mind like a humid day. She sees them fall, lumpen and heavy flocks of birds that scratch her with censorious claws as they ascend again into phonemes, oscillating with unsatisfactory […]
Assignation with Apples
Nature’s fruits and their aromas are laden with sweet memories: a windfall of sparkling baubles or a bird café of dulcet squabbles over worms in russet orbs that end as feasts for our feathered friends. Each bite of your acidic sweetness arouses a harvest of ripe blushes in an orchard under cover of night. ‘We […]
I followed Emily’s steps in Haworth
I didn’t realise we had so much in common: birth and baptism (of couse) attempts at gardening books and reading (of course) juvenile writing and poetry (naturally) novel writing and a diary (love of) art and music imaginary world and depression teaching contentment at home stay in Brussels I lived in Cologne and Ireland) return […]
The Rooks of Rapture
The moon, like a cataract in the eye of night, casts her milky tract of light on a rookery of nests; their twiggy bulks seem to rest in the fingertips of branches. Below, the night’s chill breath petrifies fierce arum spears still clenched tight like fists where death has left its earthy taint among bits […]
Gráinne Ellen
Her names originate from myth and legend, and she bears them with a graceful nonchalance. From the Celtic word for sun, Gráinne, daughter of Cormac, was promised to the hero Fionn mac Cumhaill. She could be a descendant of Gráinne Ní Mháille, landowner of Mayo and Irish pirate queen. It’s hard to pronounce, even if […]
Sonnet for Joni
One sunny April afternoon, I wanderedonto the edge of your atmosphereand devoured your records. I meanderedfrom old songs to new, from there to here, and found I could not choose. No favouritefor me. If I could mix all the melodies,all the lyrics, inhale your music, savour itlike spring air, I might forgive the parodies, the […]
