Memory’s Drift

Its leafy dome makes me think of you, the way you leaned against the willow tree, gazed through branches at a patch of blue – I knew I’d love you endlessly. In darkest shadows I begin to drift, aching for that happy summertime; now memory with ageing starts to shift, and poetry no longer rhymes. […]

Sett for Life

Don’t badger me about my burrow, it keeps me safe from rain and cold, from dangerous predators, humans too; my ancestral home is centuries old. My forebears’ powerful claws dug deep a sturdy network of chambers and tunnels, a realm with a semi-circular keep beneath the hills and wooded dingles, where I gather grass and […]

Mappa Mundi

This medieval vellum sheet’s where humankind’s geography, history and destiny meet. Christ, enthroned above the world, surveys creation: the saved enter heaven, the damned are dragged to hell. Eden’s gates are firmly closed. Observed by the serpent, Eve’s alone, hand outstretched, no fruit enclosed. Kim M. Russell, 1st May 2023 Image found on Wikimedia It’s […]

Sonnet for Joni

One sunny April afternoon, I wanderedonto the edge of your atmosphereand devoured your records. I meanderedfrom old songs to new, from there to here, and found I could not choose. No favouritefor me. If I could mix all the melodies,all the lyrics, inhale your music, savour itlike spring air, I might forgive the parodies, the […]

[when i think of you]

after e.e. cummings i see your bike left haphazard on the edge of the forbidden cricket pitch fringed with golden hued birds-foot trefoil and clover, sky overhead cross-hatched with vapour trails, like the lines that sketch your face now; your face then was freckled, your breath sweet with bubble gum, lips stained orange with the […]

View from an Open Window

No curtains in this humble room,no fabric flapping on the breeze;a smudge of smoke in the distant gloomand a street devoid of birds and trees. The clouds are tinged with morning pink,a forecast of downpours yet to come;a thought to make my poor heart sinkand resolve to spend the day at home. This view of […]

Time Not Passing

It is not a wild clock vowing vernal explosionor a dog day gilding the fields with harvest. It does not melt in summer heat’s contusiononly to wallow in its ancientness. It’s not flamboyant mushrooms on a rotten tree,a decomposing meadow of rain-soaked hay, autumn’s brittle leaves scurrying on a breeze,or a grieving sky at the […]