Within my rooted being lies a box of green,lined with dewy moss to quench and revive,clasped onto my sea-shell collection.A self-portrait, the stones I carvedby the sea with salt in its veins,embryonic, in a cosmic womb,its dark edges are still dissolving.Wrapped around a framework of bonesoverflowing with ragtag paraphernaliaof my stumbled tumbled dreams,a hazy recollection […]
Tag: dverse Poets Pub
All Things Must Pass
I love the month of May. The nights are growing longer and it’s been warm enough to sit on the patio until early evening. Although most of the blossom has disappeared from the trees, we have a large rose bush covered in pink flowers, and honeysuckle covers the trellis, as well as the trunk and […]
Treasure
I’ve been hunting for treasurein the junk shop of life,where siskins drip at leisurehoneyed liquid notes,and the morning daisy rises fresherthan the golden dandelion.I’ve been searching at my leisurewhere birds and insects soar and dive,and all around me find Nature’s treasure. Kim M. Russell, 16th April 2024 Image by Sue Bell on Unsplash Grace is […]
I Stood by the Lychgate
I stood by the lychgate of our parish church;confetti drifting across stony graves and crossesreminded me that I had left you in the lurch.In my satin dress, I weighed up gains and losses,but still I could not step inside the porch. The wedding car just left me standing there,my father said he’d washed his hands […]
Still Beautiful
In frosted lightof a moon-horned night,this place is beautiful.With each new sunrise,in field and woodland,marsh, moor and farmland,it’s beautiful. But wherever humans treadthey leave a wastedtrail of destruction – and this blue planetis still beautiful. Kim M. Russell, 13th May 2024 It’s Quadrille Monday at the dVerse Poets Pub, that “magical twice-monthly time when we […]
The Perfume of Peonies
She raises the pink peonies, cool,damp leaves and petals a balmto her industrious fingers. Those dual-headed, blowsy globes grasped in her palmexude a fruity wisp of sweetnessthat makes her life much easier to bear.No customers notice the neatnessof her blouse, the pretty headscarf that she wearsto cover the cuts and bruises of her husband’s violence.She […]
Walkabout
It seems as if I have walked foreverthrough this life, on this pathfrom birth to death. Sometimes I have walked togetherwith friends and family,sometimes alone. Often the path meandered,for a while it took me off course,past woodland, pasture and meadow,past sheep, cow and horse. Now often on my walkaboutI sit down to ponder beneath a […]
The Knowing
Mother sat in a wicker chair on the doorstep of her cottage, rug over knees, wrapped in a shawl, looking up at the sky. She’d had a comfortable summer, her appetite had improved, and she rarely had to hide blood-streaked mucus in her handkerchief. Now she was constantly coughing and nodding off. We argued about […]
A Room of One’s Own
surplus to requirementsjust over two point fourno room in the cramped flatand nowhere else to godreams to engenderI had to keep them safe, so… I found a box and put a room inside sofa surfing’s difficultbeing a burden’s worseit’s easy to lose friendseven easier to lose trustlife on the street’s dangerouspavements are cold and hardin […]
No Words
There is no such thing as completesilence. Just no spoken words.There is the muffled pad of socked feetacross the kitchen floor; the clock’s ticktock; the soft and loud song of birds;wind in trees and the creak of a branch;the hum of bees and distant traffic;white noise in the middle of the night;the low rumble of […]