Leaf-flame disappears from trees,doused into a sodden massbeneath my boot-clad feet,kicked until the limp leaves liftand fall – again. Drizzle develops into steady rain,but neighbours are intent on rakingand burning. Pungent billowspermeate lank laundryon the washing line. Boots off, safe and dry indoors,the first fire of the season roars,releasing smoky memoriesof the November mornwhen she […]
Sporous
Early raindropspatterand the blackmatterof the forest exhales,richand slow,happy spores that spread and grow. Exquisitemother-of-pearl,puff-balled and ink-cappedmushrooms twirla polka with scarlet dotted toadstools,at the annual fungus festival,tripping psychedelichappiness with fly agaric. Kim M. Russell, 2nd October 2020 My response to dVerse Poets Pub Monday Quadrille: In Need of a Happiness Project Lille would like us to […]
Greening the Mind
Word-bound, I watch the coming winterhaunt the garden, eager to paint it silver. I count the rags of blue sky overhead,topped with grumbling thunderheads, savour the smell of rich black earth, the gleamof gold and lemon, not quite drowning out the green. Trees drip with limpid air this green-gold morninglike words from my poetic pen, […]
Blue Moon
once in a blue moonthe beauty of a momentseldom and fleeting Kim M. Russell, 2nd November 2020 My response to Carpe Diem #1838 Blue Moon On 31st October, we had a Blue Moon, even more special as it occurred at Halloween, and the second full moon in a month, which is why today’s theme is […]
A Time of Ghosts
In the shadows of change, of life and thought,they anchored the past to their unsettled present.Obligations did not cease with death. Ghosts were obvious and continued to be potentimages of past sins, promises and regrets,seeping from the jet-black trappings, guilt-laden luxury and ornate statuary in graveyard and cemetery.The pleasurable shudder between living and deadhaunted Victorians […]
Blowing in the Wind
so many questionsthis year there are only leavesblowing in the wind Kim M. Russell, 28th October 2020 My response to Carpe Diem Celebrates Its 8th Anniversary October 2020: #1837 blowing in the wind With only a few days left of Carpe Diem’s celebration month, today’s challenge is to create a haiku, even a troiku from […]
Autumn’s Folly
She paints the landscape red and gold,cossets fruit, more than we can hold, silvers webs and tinkers with the lightonly to plunge us into wintry night. Her leafy folly flutters and decays,the fruits of her labour last but days, winter haunts her with ghostly mistand bids her goodbye with an icy kiss. Kim M. Russell, […]
What you can’t see can’t hurt you
I was pregnant and staying with friends in the one-storey lodge house of an old priests’ college in the middle of Ireland. Although allowed in the college grounds, my friends kept to their own garden, put off by tales of a death in the swimming pool, long fallen into disrepair, and ghosts from the private […]
A Walk in the Cemetery by Moonlight
A celebration before winter darkness,fingering crumbled earth with brightness, moonlight creeps through autumn turbulenceto gild gravestones hunkered in silence. Pale breath of lunar light tongues dustamong tattered leaves now turned to rust and scattered on well-trodden stones,traces epitaphs and seeks out bones, meagre offerings for a midnight repastbefore the cold season’s hollow fast. Something […]
Medusa’s Demise
The metallic stench of blood slicks the rockand tickles the throat. No wonder snakes suffocate the silence with their incessant hiss.Some break away, alarmed by the cold kiss of death; some curl and spiral, others loopand tie themselves in knots. Spattered drupes of carmine, like red snakes’ eyes, gleam –Medusa no longer has the power […]
writing in north norfolk 