She bustles in, weighed down with his clean underwear, pyjamas, barley water and boiled sweets, his reading glasses, now repaired, holding back wisps of her grey hair. She has to catch the bus at the same time every day and sit for hours, making repetitive small-talk with a man who doesn’t know her name, has forgotten, […]
Tag: dverse Poets Pub
Gifts
In German, Gift means poison, something he may not know. He brings her gold, perfume and clothes, sometimes a diamond, sometimes a rose, until she doesn’t even see them piling up in lonely high security, the toxic perfection of their mansion. So she searches on the internet for something that she cannot get from him […]
Kintsugi
Most people like their gardens to be neat and tidy, organised into geometrical flowerbeds and manicured lawns. Any plant that shows signs of running riot is tamed into submission and so-called weeds are relentlessly chopped and ripped out of soil. Not so in our garden. We allow it to grow in its own way, creating […]
Battle Royal
Above warm earth where gilt sun glows, a message writ in scrawl of wings, jet black on silver as they rose: a raven and a peregrine. At war with plunges and with throes, two handsome birds beloved by kings; a storm of plumage in the sky marks battle fought for mastery. Kim M. Russell, 2017 […]
Going Underground
swept down rain-wet steps at the Broadway shoes slip surfing the crowd going underground Oyster swipes through the […]
Wired for Sound
in the middle of a field eyes squeezed tightly shut mouth open wide fingers in ears sound is suspended now and then a motorbike roars and whines cars hum in the distance senses open to patch of blue taste of earth and thud of heart Kim M. Russell, 2017 My response to dVerse Poets Pub […]
Discovering the White Rabbit
After early showers on a capricious Saturday in May, lunchtime is bathed in balmy sunshine. The shady toll path bustles with strollers and joggers, all inhaling spring’s steamy promise, and echoes with a coxswain’s voice counting rowers’ strokes. On the opposite bank, a swan stretches; alert to danger, she watches over cygnets hidden in a […]
Sad Pathetic Fallacy
The world was disappointing, dry and thirsty, full of sadness, longing for some artistic creativity, when the slate sky flickered with metallic electricity. Thunder rumbled. The brawling river, rushing with rain-swollen flow, swung into a roaring curve below towards a thundering waterfall, rearing in glassy surges, snagging on the riverbed, like King Lear on the heath: […]
The Poet’s Kitchen
A Sunday morning treat I like to make is crumpets topped with a mixture of cheese, spring onions and mayonnaise. First you have to prepare the topping by grating plenty of tangy mature cheddar cheese in a bowl. Cut up the spring onions nice and fine, inhale their fresh, green scent, and stir them into […]
Parole
What has been imprisoned under the lawn all winter? Frozen mud, rendered malleable by spring warmth, releases rusty skeletons of ginger bud cases, last spring’s copper fairy lights. Stones and flint jingle underfoot, sigh a heavy scent from crumbly lumps of black earth, exuding worms from clumps, evicting glossy beetles from ivy tangled in the […]
