I have just read Rajani Radhakrishnan’s new chapbook, The night is my mirror, in which she says, ‘In the long days of isolation and solitude, words were hard to find’. The words she has found resonate with me very clearly; they have been written fluently and with great self-understanding. Her metaphor of poems as pieces […]
Poetry Pea – No Verbs
I have a haiku in the last Poetry Pea Podcast of 2020, a wonderful collection of haiku with no verbs! Please listen to the Patricia’s dulcet tones presenting the podcast or just read the show notes – there is such a wide range of topics and techniques from around the world. You can get to […]
Pandemic Bell
This year the bells have lost their hammers,no call to Christmas mass or carol service,just the silent ring of frost and the corvid’s clamourbefore it pecks the unseeing eyes of a much too early lamb. No jingle of shop doorbells, no one-horse open sleigh,just the tinkle of baubles on Christmas trees,the twinkle of lights in […]
Mother’s Milk
A staid image of a placidwoman dressed in blue,only hands and face exposed,no crown bejewelled,your child swaddled:this was how I thought of you. I didn’t know the churchimagined you as tripartite too:royally dressed in ermine and silk,breast exposed, a womanof human flesh, blood and milk,miraculously still a virgin. It wasn’t you the angels preserved,but the […]
Hat
I have just received a lovely early Christmas present – my fifty-first poem in Visual Verse! It’s inspired by an amazing image by Oscar Ukonu and is on page 47. I recommend reading all the poems in the issue but, if you want to go straight to mine, here’s the link. You can also read the […]
Year’s End
The initial blast of snow that would only last an hour or so – was it a figment of the fearful mind or a tentative reminder of the rapid passing of Time? I imagine the Old Man sifting moments at his desk; the book of life opens itself and he sets about drafting the rest […]
This Is No Swan Song
Down in my bones, I feel that this yearhas not been our swan song.Though the waves came higher,and broken reeds were flungacross an uneven path,we were dazzled by sun-flecked tides.With the coming of winter,something else haunts the landscape:a swan drenched in mud-scent,alive with the tang of the river. Kim M. Russell, 16th December 2020 My […]
Sugar Daddy Revisited
Daddy,you have eaten all the sugar,left me hungry and bleeding,a blistered foot without a shoe;you know I must killand sculpture youas a marble statue,bastard, you. Thou wast my universe, my cosmic mistress;if I had known thy crazed intentto render me in alabaster, a lifelesslump of death,I should have beggedfor one last breath. His breathless body […]
Logs in the Basket
Logs are frozento the touch,land in the wicker basketwith a thud.Dusty damp coalfills the hodand newspaper crownswait to lightkindling in the grate. As yesterday’s newsgoes up in smoke,flames roar to lifein our inglenook. Kim M. Russell, 14th December 2020 My response to dVerse Poets Pub Quadrille: In the Inglenook Linda is back this Monday to […]
A Change of Mind About Sharks
After years of needless fearof creatures I will never face,I’ve had a change of mindabout sharks being dangerous,blood-crazed and murderous. Last night, I watched a programmeabout the wonders of the deep,and marvelled at the pyjama shark,a stripy type of cat-shark (you know how I love cats). It lives on the bottom of the ocean,among kelp […]
writing in north norfolk 