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 […]
Blue Period
As in Pablo Picasso’s depressive art, the long path through a winter dark with anguish, despair and frailty is a spectrum of indigo melancholy: from blue-tinged ice, cobalt and navy to the hopefulness of aquamarine, it echoes our blind faith in the seasons. And then, suddenly, pieces of sky drop to earth in hosts of […]
writing in north norfolk 