Throughout the summer, we would tightrope walk along the length of concrete fence that bordered the reality of blocks of flats with smelly lifts, washing like bunting on balconies and the savoury scent of next-door’s dinner. At any moment, our threadbare plimsolls might slip and we could tip to the other side, where trees were […]
Tag: dverse Poets Pub
Washing Day
I can still smell soap bubbles in the scullery, steamy clean and floating through my early years; my grandmother’s hands red and hot, tea-towels boiling in the biggest pot as I turned the handle of the wringer, reminded always to ‘Mind your finger!’ I remember sitting on the back step while she raised the line […]
October Apples
Some of the windfalls have been collected and piled on a plastic garden chair. There are no signs of wild-life bites or nibbles, and only one green apple among them. They blush with October colours and scent. Among them, one is more than half russet, almost bronze, a bruised rogue among the beauties. It must […]
A Secret Guest
Hidden in plain sight, trapped in the linseed scent, the musk of old art and paint, behind the green and ochre of the Olive Trees for over a century, it forfeited the freedom of life en plein air. Vincent didn’t notice his secret guest, having picked off “a good hundred flies and more”. The grasshopper […]
Netsuke
Snug in the palm of my hand, fingers curled and caressing its smoothness, exploring miniature scales on back and fanned tail, tiny teeth in roar of mouth, the dust-filled creases of its head, flaming copper burnished with the faint scent of boxwood, my little finger fits the curve of its body, feels the kanji carved […]
Friendly Harbour
After months at sea, I find I’m still afloat. In the distance, I can see fishermen’s huts and friendly boats limping along the unforgiving coast. I see the shore, a busy harbour crowded with twinkling lights, welcoming on such a night, guiding me home. Kim M. Russell, 24th September 2018 My response to dVerse Poets […]
You can keep your clowns…
those unfunny comics with their distorted faces and noisy antics, brightly-coloured anarchists. No more animals in the ring! Uncage the wild and suffering bears and lions, the chimpanzees at infinite human tea parties. Give me the sparkles of lights in the darkness, knife-throw and fire-eatery, magic and mystery, sequins and grace, balance and flight of […]
Autumn Begins with a Comma
At the end of the summer Butterflies transform: Commas pause and magically become Dead leaves suspended from trees, Eventually turning, Falling into autumn. Kim M. Russell, 14th September 2018 My response to dVerse Poets Pub Meeting the Bar: School Days, School Days, Good Ole Golden Rule Days . . . also linked to Poets United Poetry […]
Everything Stopped
The room was silent. In one fell swoop of those planes the buzz just stopped – everything stopped, everyone stared at computer or TV screens, in disbelief at what they’d seen. Everything stopped, the world stopped spinning for a moment. So far from this tragedy and yet so close to anguished faces, desperate faces, faces […]
Quick
How quickly time passes, cuts to the quick of a quick lifetime of the quick and the dead, fills us with dread. Only the quick understand that, although our ashes and dust filter back into the earth, our souls dance on in the universe. Kim M. Russell, 10th September 2018 My response to dVerse Poets […]
writing in north norfolk 