In the first week of childhood’s September, going back to school was unreal, when I discovered a new sense of smell: I inhaled new uniform, shoes and plimsolls, and the scent of sharpened pencils in satchels. I breathed stale lost property masked with polish from parquet floors of classrooms and the hall; chalk-free blackboards and […]
Tag: dverse Poets Pub
Boxing Hares
I spotted them between the trees, ears like streamers in the breeze, striding with their long legs in enigmatic zig-zags to an impromptu arena of fresh grass, two mad March hares: an ardent buck boxed around the ears by an exhausted doe, surprisingly fierce. My response to dVerse Poets Pub Quadrille: Thinkin’ Inside the Box […]
Flight of a Bright New Poem
It germinates in the slow melody of water glinting in the shallows of the mind’s eye, the interplay of reeds and light that whisper through the open window in the dead of night. A brilliant fluorescence lifts and shifts shape into a metallic demoiselle rising in the mesmeric shimmering of wings, and the early morning […]
Unseen to the Naked Eye
In the prelude to a storm, I watch the sky bruise, hear thunder introduce lightning in a breath before it pirouettes across the sky. As the show fades into the distance, ghosts appear in a pale fluttering of moths filling the garden with clouds. Unseen to the naked eye, in the grass or in the […]
Hiroshima Spores
I wasn’t alive in August 1945 – I arrived eleven years and a day after Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki. I knew nothing of the horrors of those atomic bombs until I saw ‘The Bomb’, Episode 24 of ’The World at War’, a documentary series I watched with my father and, more recently, with […]
Punctuation of Life and Death
When you lose someone, the world warps: a comma butterfly (settling on a nettle) distorts – flicks open wings to burnish, only to crisp in the sun. When you lose someone, summer colours tarnish; tastes and smells curdle like mouldy blackberries on a parched tongue, and all the while you long to hear their voice, […]
Breaking the Silence
the moon greets the dawn shimmering from night’s silent well breaking the stark silence of a winter morning, a single crow calls in sleep’s dark cocoon there are sounds no one else can hear beyond the heart beat, air in lungs and surge of blood in ears from the depths of sleep, muffled ticks are […]
Missing Pieces
Earth is a puzzle of constantly changing shapes and landscapes; we are missing some pieces from the cosmic jigsaw as we spin and see-saw through space. It’s being pulled apart by the human race. How can we put our Humpty Dumpty planet together again? Kim M. Russell, 30th July 2018 My response to dVerse Poets […]
The Hollow Sound of Winter
Geese fly overhead, chain-stitched in a skein by the beat of wings. The gaggle alights on a lazy wind, flowing like water into the marshes, their harsh, hollow honks onomatopoeic echoes of winter past present future. Kim M. Russell, 26th July 2018 My poem for dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night This Thursday I’m hosting […]
Sprig Spell
I build the spell with witch hazel, a woody frame to brighten gloomy days with spidery flowers in sunset sprays, sublime with spicy scent. I bind the spell with tendrils of evergreen ivy to ward off evil spirits, its heart-shaped leaves glossy with friendship and fidelity. I add some sprigs of rosemary to help you […]
writing in north norfolk 