Light Fractured

On frost-fractured morningsI pause to ponder the intricacy of lighton ice-sugared pinecones scattered like flotsamamong the silvery filigree of leaves and twinkling twigs that litter the path.And I remember winter’s mission:the extinction of useless lights and drawing of grey cloud curtainsacross the sky. But I knowthat light cannot be completely erased: it’s there in the […]

A Kind of Insomnia

When everything else is deepin hibernation,I feel a kind of insomnia,wishing I could join bear,bat,hedgehogand squirrel. Instead, I find myselfamong sheeny black corvidsflying inand outof slate-grey clouds,grateful for the occasionalpale blue sky. Kim M. Russell, 15th December 2025 This Monday at the dVerse Poets Pub we are writing quadrilles, those poems of exactly 44 words, […]

Little Wave

She is of water, a female element, a liminal creature,cold-blooded, not quite fish, not quite human,a little wave swimming free. She was curious about the man who bathed in the waterfall,where she loved to sing, a descant tinklingabove the splash and gush. She fell in love with his earthiness, the way his feet were plantedfirmly […]

Zero

a word that rhymes with heroends like a surpriseor an echo oh do the zeros in a millionaire’s bank balance echo? a black hole in the cosmosa cipherholder of nothing nought     nil     zilch     empty does it ever hunger for quantity? Kim M. Russell, 1st December 2025 It’s Quadrille Monday and, at the dVerse Poets Pub, […]

Ode to November Rain

A respite from early snow, it pours from bruised clouds and makes the fields sodden.Drumming against my windows,I hear it in the garden,washing away words that robins have trodden.   It gushes in the gutters,punishes the water butt ‘til it overflows. I listen as it muttersrhymes I never wrote—a refreshing respite from the silent snow. Kim M. […]

A Roof Against the Rain (a quadrille)

You’re my roof against the rain,where I’m safe from thunder-grumblesechoing across the sky and sharplightning forks stabbing the earth.Life’s not always a stormy downpour,it can be a refreshing shower.I’m glad that you aremy roof against the rain. Kim M. Russell, 21st November 2025 Today Sanaa is delighted to host Open Link Night at the dVerse […]

So This Is Dilham

There are gulls between the goalson the village football pitch,tugging at lingering wisps of mist,their white wings stark against dirty green. They ignore the jackdaws, yinto their yang, pick at the last daisies,the ones that haven’t been squashedin mud, hoping for a tasty snack. No fish and chips here, too farfrom the coast, no shops […]