A part of me remainsin the branches of the willow tree,giggling in the honeysuckle,and writing poetryin dust you will never wipe away. I will linger in your shower steamand permeate each dream,smiling at your silly songs,I might even sing alongas long as you don’t mind. My body may be gonebut my spirit still sighs,this is […]
Late Developers
Those late developers stare with dull, black, accusing eyes,pale leaves still strive for the sun’s weakening rays, flowers that should track summer shiver into autumn days. Might they warm themselves on their own golden gaze? Still closed in sulky pouts in early morning haze,have they the strength to open in a blaze? Time casts longer shadows, […]
Do you name your trees?
Late afternoon sunlight blinkslike my gold molar when I laugh. It jokes among the honeysuckle leavesthat hug the cherry tree. They are mapped with age spots and veins,frustrated at their fading. On the third shelf up,surrounded by fiction books and poetry, the photograph of my mother as a little girlstares from a frame made of […]
After the Smog Came
Nobody listened to the warnings, so when it came, it was a shock. The atmosphere was so badly poisoned by toxic smog from burning forests, exhaust fumes and waste, it leaked into space and discoloured the face of the moon. It just disappeared. After a number of years, older children had forgotten about it and […]
Before and After Flying with Dragons
Before in a vivid season, colours splash from an artist’s palette: ochre fields untold shades of leaves and grasses tumbling petals pink and yellow flashes […]
A phoenix poem must first burn
one ember ignitesinto undaunted new linesphoenix wings aflamepoems learn to fly againleaving their ashes behind Kim M. Russell, 9th September 2020 My response to Poets and Storytellers United Weekly Scribblings #36: ‘a phoenix first must burn’ Magaly is back this Wednesday, inviting us to birth new poetry or prose inspired by the phrase ‘a phoenix […]
Sudden Joy
The bay tree’s gone,chopped to let the sunlight in,but fighting back with fresh shootsand a surprisefluorescent yellow evening primrosegrowing at its roots. Yesterday, I walked in places new,soaked my idle boots in dewdodged overhanging branchesand brambles still heavy with plump fruit,past haystacks, across recently ploughed fieldsto sudden joy – a crop of […]
Self-Portrait with Hands
They have teased music from a classical guitar, woven brightly dyed wool into a winter knit, and pencilled themselves into a sketch. They cover my face now, as I pose before a speckled, frameless mirror tucked away, out of sight, under the stairs. She’s there, somewhere in the shadows, the one whose fingers plucked and […]
How Many Times
How manytimes have I eavesdropped onyour dreams? Laid my ear on your heart asit beat next to mine? Strained to hear your hopes and fearsas they whispered behind sea blue eyes?Drunk salt tears from eaves thattell no lies? Kim M. Russell, 7th September 2020 A triquain quadrille for dVerse Poets Pub’s Monday Eavesdropping
Eavesdropping
i am eaves- dropping on the rain dripping and the leaves whispering spiralling autumn secrets in a richly coloured helix hoarding them in gutters leaving them in piles to rust disintegrate into delicate skeletons cart- wheeling into winter colliding with snowflakes and falling stars Kim M. Russell, 7th September 2020 My quadrille for the dVerse […]
writing in north norfolk 