For years I feltlike a brown duckdabbling and upendingin poetic shallow water, tugging at words and lineslike duckweed and worms,pulling them into forms. One day, I felt the spanof my wings growand began to soarwith sonnets. Kim M. Russell, 11th January 2021 My response to dVerse Poets Pub Quadrille: Dabbling in Poetry De is our […]
Poems in the Frost
At the break of a chilly day,when the ghostly winter-greybark of beech trunks glintedin the low sun, I squintedand found, written in the frost,as if they had recently been lost,a scattering of words: poems scratched by birds,the cursive trail of a snail,the imprint of a pattern of ovalfox pads, toes of mole and mouse,just outside […]
Ludwig’s Friday Morning
Originally posted on writing in north norfolk:
My response to FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES Prompt Challenge #11 It was hard to choose a favourite song but I love the picture Joni Mitchell paints of Beethoven in ‘Judgement of the Moon and Stars’, so I took the first line from that song. No tongue in…
On the Fourth Anniversary of Your Death
Like the sky maps sketchedin the bird brains of the geeseflying overhead this morningin their flocks and vees,your gentle face is etchedinto my genealogy.I hear their honk and chatterloud and clear; they fly byas if it doesn’t matterthat a day cannot be erasedby hoar frost. Yes, it’s here again,sparkling like it did four years ago,stiffening […]
Dance of Joy
Beethoven shoutedhis incomprehensible joy,a wind that daredthe whole worldto dance helter-skelter,glitter on the river,to dance as melody,irresistible harmony,a symphonyto nature’s inhuman splendour:the gust,the tide,the breaking vinein the figure of a dance. Kim M. Russell. 7th January 2021 My response to Poets and Storytellers United Weekly Scribblings #51: Looking Back and Writing Forward, also linked to […]
In conversation with the aged librarian
Sonnets echo through the shelves of the library, disturbing ancient dust and ghosts of poets lost, to keep you company, stir your memory, protect your heart and soul from time’s frost. Among your books, you are never alone, with full moon or candle to shed light. Besides, heart-learnt words in blood and bone blossom into […]
Rejuvenation
2015 was to be my first full New Year as a free woman. I had left teaching the previous summer, although still working as an examiner, and embarked on a writing course with Penguin Random House, on which I hoped to complete my children’s novel, Joe and Nelly. But I had an itch that I […]
Sea Turtle
I’ve been around for millions of yearsand shared the Earth with dinosaurs, who are extinct. You may think me slow,but in the ocean, watch me go, gracefully swimming (it beggars your belief)among swaying seagrass and coral reefs. I come ashore to the same beach to rest,to bask and sometimes dig a nest after decades of […]
Goodbye 2020
bone-weary we wavegood riddance to the old yearlight beyond the hill Kim M. Russell, 30th December 2020 My response to Carpe Diem #1842 End of Year As 2020 draws to a close, Chèvrefeuille reminds us what a dreadful year it was, a year of illness and loss, with a lockdown even at Carpe Diem Haiku […]
This Isle of Noises
The corona virus has all but silencedthis isle of noises,masks have muffled our voices,damp squibs at the festival of light. Unmasked revellers light bangers and screamers,sparks of hope for dreamers,while Caliban sobs in a cornerover glasses drained of wine. Kim M. Russell, 28th December 2020 My response to earthweal weekly challenge: A Feast of Earth […]
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