We survive the nightand sing into growing light,coaxing the sun to brighten upour early morning walk.Sparkles reflect in puddles and rills;we marvel at how light spillsfrom branches overheadand feet stamp ghostly musicfrom crackly leaves and twigs. Kim M. Russell, 17th November 2025 It’s Monday again, and we are writing quadrilles, poems of exactly 44 words, […]
Tag: dverse Poets Pub
All Souls
I hear them through the chilling autumn mist,the muffled footsteps of returning souls;their heralds are the jackdaws and the crows. Before the sodden churchyard has been kissedby daylight skipping in between headstones,I hear them through the chilling autumn mist,the muffled footsteps of returning souls. The scarlet red of poppies will persist,although the blooms of summer […]
Pivoting Peacefully
Pivoting peacefully from oneto another ghost from the past, I see life through different lenses: some bring regrets close uplike a microscope, and others distance me from memoriesI don’t want to forget. But then there’s the present: the poems waiting for me to write,the grandsons I want to see grow up, and I pivot towards […]
Bare November
Our coven is gathering in the forest, where trees are already bare, although holly bushes are covered with berries, and an abundance of mushrooms sprouts among trees. Samhain was well-attended, but at this gathering we’re welcoming a greater number of neophytes than previously. My teenage daughter, Stella, accompanies me, although a neophyte she is not. […]
The Letter
The fragile paper almost torewith the pressure of her pen,ink blotting, words bleeding.So she wrote it out againon thicker vellum. The original words had fallenlike confetti from her hand – butwhen she copied them out,they did not express her emotion;they seemed flat. Heart fluttering with frustration,hand slick with perspiration,she focused on the punctuation;the final full […]
Quality Control
Clay is moist in their hands.They probe it with damp fingers,feel resistance until they simultaneouslythrow it on their wheelswith a wet thud. Percussion. The rhythm of the kick wheelgives them impetus to kneadand sculpt, and shapes emerge, breathingtogether with their creators,merging into a breeze. A windy symphony. Each pot has its maker’sfingerprints, though pots strivefor […]
Mist-Layered Morning
Under the bone of a mist-whirled fading moon,skeletal flowers are drip-laden, rotting yellow starsagainst the rain-glistened brown of soggy loam.Drifting through the mist-layered morning, soft as a whispertangled with chimney smoke, the descant of birdsong,and a fox’s tenor bark. Kim M. Russell, 3rd November 2025 For this week’s Quadrille Monday at the dVerse Poets Pub […]
Invasion
Among the roots of dying and dead trees,they creep, no fun these parasitic mutantsall feasting on decay. No friends are these;Armillaria are spored pollutants,the bogeymen of stumps, and oh, so potent.With eerie shapes and honey fungus breath,they’re saprophytes of dieback, rot and death,as white as ghosts, they haunt both branch and bark,and trunk and roots […]
A Poet’s Nightmare on Elm Street
Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep, or poetry will follow you. Light slices through darkness, where poets encounter the unexpected. Imagery lurks in corners of dreams like monsters underneath your bed. Elm Street might be shady but, like mushrooms, poems need darkness to sprout. And poets, there’s no point in cowering and […]
The Ghost Train
One of the best plays I’ve seen at the Theatre Royal in Norwich was Arnold Ridley’s ‘The Ghost Train’, a stage comedy-thriller, written in 1923, set in a remote rural station, where railway passengers have been stranded overnight. The station master tries to persuade them to leave so he can lock up for the night, […]
writing in north norfolk 