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 […]
I have just read…
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 […]
writing in north norfolk 