The Poet Blames her Pen

Mind a cauldron of chaos,doggerel has made me vomit,it’s bitter and thick on my tongue.Some words give me indigestion. But I love the fruity fragranceof words that saturate my brainlike a sunny day. I see them falling into aerobatics,like flocks of birds delighting in the sky,clapping their wings in applauseas they descend into stanzas,oscillating until […]

Heavy Metal Heart

Metal heartDark down-tuned vibrationsReach to the very depths of my soul EchoingThrough the deepest cavernsSeeping salty into sea and soil I’m earthyWith your cross-leaved summer heathThick with cotton grass and sphagnum moss My blood singsFlooding all the sensesWith the beat of your heavy metal Kim M. Russell, 12th June 2025 This Thursday at the dVerse […]

Leaning on the gate at the bottom of the garden

framed by leaves,I watch dragonflies rise from the water, where boats bob,chinking their moorings, percussion to the song of the gentle breezeweaving through trees. A distant lawnmower chugs and splutterswith the harmonising engine of a passing boat, the drifting scent of barbecuesand something frying at the local pub. No humans mar the solitude.No voices shatter […]

Bathers

When they emergefrom the water in their soggybathing costumes,their bodiesare like the landscape: dunes and waves, grit and pearls,sand and pebbles, seaside girlsin a rainbow of hues,reds, purples pinks and blues,shivering in the breeze. The lighthouse calls from granite rocks,a chalk stick tall and white,and they sing that songto a summer sky: “I wanna marry […]

A Peek over the Horizon

It’s five o’clock:a patch of sky unfolds hueslike Italian paper,marbled mauves and blues. Peeking over the horizon,a new dawn breaks;by sunrise,the wrinkled ocean wakes,stifles a yawn, wraps the beach in waves and sky:Nature’s early morning surprise. Kim M. Russell, 2nd June 2025 Monday has come round again with the quadrille at dVerse, the virtual pub […]

This is the Time of Ghosts

Through lingering shadows of the past,times of struggle, revolution and dissent,they anchor themselves deep and fastto an increasingly unsettled present. Helplessly, they wait in public places,hotels, malls, and libraries where,helpfully, a librarian ghost traceshaiku as he escorts you to a chair. Eerily, they haunt crannies and nooks,entering museums and classrooms,easing themselves into pages of books,etching […]

Solitude’s Promontory

A found poem uncovered in ‘The Art of Solitude: Buddhist Scholar and Teacher Stephen Batchelor on Contemplative Practice and Creativity’from Maria Popova’s The Marginalian Solitude is an art –we must learn to wait in acceptanceof a moment,          of a piece of music,                    the polyphony of birds,                              the patter of rain. Alonebefore a sheet of paperor […]