The blue-tack tucked in the side of the drawer reminds me of days when I listened to your voice non-stop. My younger self wrote your lyrics with a blue ink italic calligraphy pen on index cards; I even copied artwork from album sleeves, shaded in with rainbow-coloured pencils. Leaves unfurled and fell with your smoky […]
Judith’s To Do List
The maid, Abra, must be ready and willing.Wear finest and most revealing garment.Ensure that everyone in the camp is sleepingbefore entering General Holofernes’ tent.Instruct Abra to wait in the gloom for a sign.Extinguish all but one of the candles, and pourHolofernes a jeroboam of wine.Keep within reach his sharpened sword.When he slumps into sleep, signal […]
A poem on the Katzenworld Blog
The lovely humans at Katzenworld have kindly published my poems ‘Feline, on their blog today. You can read it here: https://katzenworld.co.uk/2021/04/08/purrsday-poetry-feline/?fbclid=IwAR34kvvthpUrtyyDEJpXlgO0EyDgfK9LwQfpHJSQe8C30qoAv8Qy9oEI7Gw .
Feet
The souls of soles, when bare, kiss earth, and sink into its vibrations. Shoes dull the senses, feet despair of boots and pumps, need sensations of soil and moisture, and the flow of air around each toe. Feet welcome liberation every summer; the change from bare white trotters to tanned exultation, collecting grains of sand […]
Alice
I lie beneath this rusted cross of curlicues,surrounded by these muted churchyard hues,alone among lichen-covered stones,in the peaceful housing of my crumbled bones. You’re imagining my life, how bright my smilefor parents, siblings, husband, perhaps a child;you know my my name, the date when I was born –and died – but no idea of those […]
Whispering Branches
Through the window I can seeand hearmy corkscrew willow tree;it whispersancient storieson a blossom-scented breeze,but secretsgathered in its rootsare only ever sharedbetween the writer and her muse. Kim M. Russell, 7th April 2021 My response to Poets and Storytellers United Weekly Scribblings #64: Beloved Companions Rosemary is hosting today and sharing a photograph of […]
Eddying
Ayoungstream fillsthe spring woods,fizzes and chatters,bubbling up from its aquifer. At first it forms a tiny pool,clear and natural,eddying,untilspringfloods. Kim M. Russell, 7th April 2021 Image found on dreamstime.com My response to NaPoWriMo Day Seven Today’s prompt asks us to choose a syllable-based form: the shadorma, a six-line, 26-syllable poem or stanza – a poem […]
Adrift
You square no one, rain and earthneglect the thrust and seduction ofyour repulsive cell. Always adrift inthe same vast night, nobody putsup a fight and sits tight, cosmosand black hole of anybody’s wrongdestroying another darkness, horneffects of addiction, after you misseach other. Sit it out for the first time […]
One year ago today…
It’s a year today since I self-published my children’s book, which is also enjoyed by adults:
Dazed
a glass of winenot mineblood redagainst whitelinenshimmerswith candlelightstirs emotionsand baffles headsmakes us dazedand confusedas someone once saidwith one flickof a napkinthe glass is dashedwhite linenadorned with rosy blush Kim M. Russell, 5th April 2021 Image by Edge2EdgeMedia on Unsplash My response to dVerse Poets Pub Quadrille: In Praise of the Grape Linda, our host for […]
writing in north norfolk 