I emerge, face first,from vertical brushstrokes daubed like a rainstormof bright colours. You might think I’m dressedas Harlequin, but you’re wrong – I am arrayed,dismayed, fighting my waythrough pulsating oiled emotions, scented with linseed,tickled with brushes, waiting to open my eyeson the finished portrait. Maybe I will be finished.Maybe I will recognise myself. Kim M. […]
Tag: dverse Poets Pub
Farther Down the Line
Gone are the dayswhen train whistlesblew my blues away.What once tookan afternoon nowtakes under an hour:steam has progressedto diesel and electric.Thanks to local fanatics,a little steam trainstill trundles past on time,blowing a fainter whistlefarther down the line. Kim M. Russell, 13th January 2026 It’s Tuesday and time for Poetics at the dVerse Poets Pub, this […]
I Cannot Smile Today
I cannot smile today. All day,tears have leaked, spilled down my faceand under my chin, a mirror of the rainpouring outside. Inside I am mourningthe loss of my feline friend, and I can’t wait for this overcast dayto end. Kim M. Russell, 12th January 2026 It’s Monday and, at the dVerse Poets Pub, we are […]
Alphabetically speaking
(Because the alphabet is the brickwork of language)Cave walls had ancient words scratched on themDestined to become poetry. Echoes of lost tongues lurk inFossils long predating homo sapiens,Gorgeous, mysterious and soul touching. Humans staked a claim on poetry —In error I hasten to add —Just as birds wrote theirs in the sky. Kingdoms come and […]
Watching Mum Get Her Hair Done
The hairdresser circumnavigated my mum’s head,conducting a symphony of blonde curls, a pointed, shiny, metal comb in one expert hand,a can of hairspray in the other that turned hair into cement. But I didn’t really watch my mum get her hair done.There was too much else to take in. My eyes were drawn to shiny […]
Hoping for an Epiphany
I cannot recall ever having an epiphany or a lightbulb moment, although I would welcome one at this moment in time, when the world has become dark, full of war and disaster, my cat is dying from cancer, it’s almost the anniversary of my mother’s death, and it is so cold – although today a […]
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 […]
In Retrospect
The end of year approachesand I am hunkering down, Avoiding the weak winter sun glinting offfrail filigree and dancing on the sparkling frost. Instead of opening advent doorsamid lighted candles and Yule trees, I look back at loved ones who disappearedfrom my life this year and cannot shake the loss. Come New Year, I must […]
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 […]
writing in north norfolk 