It was Mitch who booked her flight, packed her bags, and drove her to the airport. He arranged for Sabrina to collect her at Heathrow and promised to call every day. He organised a flight attendant to accompany her on the plane, and the kindly woman ensured that Rosanna ate and drank, and that she […]
Untying
1. we lived on earth as humble bards all scribbled lines and wine glass shards bitter taste, tattoos and scars of long-lost poems we used to write the ones that kept us up all night and never seemed to turn out right 2. we fumbled and began untying knots of words, and gave up trying […]
Where It All Began
It seemed so much bigger then, red brick staunch against the weather,grey asphalt where we ran together,played kiss chase (you missed my lips and kissed my ear), made icy slides in winter.Those hungry waits in line outside the small canteen, air laden with indescribable smells, fingers crossed it was my turn to be water monitor […]
The Wherryman’s Return
Once I was lost in Norfolk mist that dims the view of wherrymen, grips you like a watery fist and pulls you further to the fen. I left her at the cottage door, waving with her handkerchief; it was the very last time she saw me, my darling widowed wife. But I still wander past […]
Sowing Sunflowers
Seeds in a child’s hands, hard with zebra bands, are a long way from wind-swept fields, where Fibonacci yields are soon dispersed below a cloudburst of birds. In the garden, we hoe and then we sow our own. At night, we dream of tournesols. Kim M. Russell, 3rd May 2021 Image by Todd Trapani on […]
Earth Singing
Thousands of years of spinningmake me dizzy, and yet I see more clearly than I did before, despite the salty tears brimmingnot with creatures of the seabut plastic-coated. Scale and claw are permanently swimmingin pollution. Furthermore,I want to be relieved from the constant diggingat my flesh and bone, the chainsawsthat destroy my ancient trees, cause […]
First Bees of May
I watched a drowsy bee chewthrough its wintertime cocoonand emerge onto the edgeof a sunny window ledge.After a sullen start to spring,dandelions smile in grass.A dragonfly helicopters pastcherry and honeysuckle bowers,where flirty buds are burstingto unfold a flurry of pink flowersto bees, thirsty for heady sipsof pollen from dewy petal lips.That’s why a swarm of […]
Snow Globe Episode 8
For several days, things seemed to be back to normal. They ate breakfast and dinner together and Mitch even met her for lunch once. Rosanna felt a chill around him, a barrier that stopped her from reaching out to him or kissing him. The weather changed and she noticed a haze of little green buds […]
Finding Your Horizon
To find your horizon,you must losesight of the shore. To lose sight of the shore,you must findthe ocean, and to find the oceanyou must dreamof a stream that fills your headwith fizzing and chatteringas it bubbles up, and then follow that streamuntil it forms a river,that strengthens and flows through hills and valleys,past villages and […]
In a Dusty Window in Delft
It was Easter, we were looking for something to eat before a gig; we were tourists wandering a street, canal on one side, on the other a row of houses. Our eyes slid sideways to glimpse through windows, idle curiosity in a city we had never been before, the picturesque home of pottery and Vermeer. […]
writing in north norfolk 