Sharing

Our cats are generous, they really like to share, filling the house with litter smells and their moulted hair. The yuckiest thing they share with us is left outside the house: the bloody feathers of a bird or the insides of a chewed-up mouse. Kim M. Russell, 8th October 2018 My response to dVerse Poets […]

Precarious

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]