When Kay went down to make herself some tea and toast, Edith was still haunting the kitchen, drifting between the sink and the worktop. Kay manoeuvred herself around her until she realised it didn’t make any difference, and Edith passed through her anyway, which was a strange but not unpleasant feeling, like a surge of […]
Pigs and Pixels
In this February’s issue of Visual Verse, the image is a surprising one, especially for those of us who like piglets. It’s by Tom or Judy Moore, a drawing rather than a photograph, and it was a bit of a challenge to write a poem in the given hour. My poem is on page 16. […]
While winter writes love notes
we hunker down in a world of whitenessinstead of flowers, the storm brings ice […]
I am grey
shadows in snowy woods facets of crisp ice the flit of invisible birds smoke and skeletal trees against ashen skies the light that draws a thin line across the horizon the gentle grey of a heron Kim M. Russell, 16th February 2021 My response to dVerse Poets Pub Poetics: True Colours? Mish is back for […]
Next Door’s Ghosts Episode 5
Once inside, she removed her jacket and shoes, and padded on stockinged feet into the living room. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Robert walked up and down one side of the room, pipe smoke trailing behind him, the little old lady had taken over Kay’s armchair and was busy knitting, while the […]
An Audience of Ghosts
Stained glass in the ornate dome is splintered by a single ray of sun, forming ghosts in the hippodrome, derelict music hall of burlesque fun. The eerie spotlight pans a vacant stage, traces phantom footprints in the dust, picks out shambolic sheen of bygone age, theatrical fixtures gilded with rust. Vacant seats echo with silent […]
Winter pulls its punches
just for a momentin its brutal course that covers all tracesof earth’s life force, icicles come alivewith a sweet green tinge and bloom as snowdropson the edge of spring. Kim M. Russell, 10th February 2021 My response to Poets and Storytellers United Weekly Scribblings #56: Hit Me With Your Best Shot This Wednesday Rommy asks […]
Dewy Mushrooms
A dewy forest of moons,a multitude of mushrooms,soaks in the weight of dawn. It’s snowing spore confetti,cheerful colour splashes:crimson, ochre, cream and rust. Puffballs and parasols,ink caps and champignons,frilly-gilled and plump of flesh, a festival of fungi sprouting earthy fresh. Kim M. Russell, 9th February 2021 My response to dVerse Poets Pub Poetics: Let’s have […]
Topiary
Trees whisper wintry secrets in the bare bones of their topiary, rubbing limbs with knurly suppleness, embracing silhouettes in their lacy canopy, growing side by side, content in their long marriage of species, a symphony of bark and knots, of sap and long-awaited buds. Kim M. Russell, 8th February 2021 My response to dVerse Poets […]
We are not all white stars
We are not all white starsthat fell from the sky. Some of us are amber and lignite,we never sparkle or ignite. We are beige and tawny yellow,ochre, black and brown. We are the colours of desert,sun-burnt grass and earth. I am a lion proud and wild,Mother Nature’s regal child. Kim M. Russell, 8th February 2021 […]
writing in north norfolk 