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, […]
Tag: dverse Poets Pub
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 […]
Under the Table at Grandmother’s House
Although my grandmother was quite open and modern in her outlook, her tastes were old-fashioned. This was reflected in the house where I grew up: in its solid furniture, embroidered cushions and tablecloths that hung low to cover the table legs. For a small child, the dining table was a house or a tent, where […]
Caged Moon (a septet)
Willows, the anchors of life, felted with silvery grey, captured the moon and his wife in a basket canopy, where daddy longlegs rattle and candle flies do battle: at the end of a hot day. Kim M. Russell, 19th July 2018 My response to dVerse Poets Pub Meeting the Bar: Septets This Thursday, Frank Hubeny […]
Choking Nature
Humans record artistic impressions of patient Nature’s handiwork in a line of wind-tattered trees, a blanket hem along the skyline and curving sculptured hills, where skylarks rise from barley singing, and dissolve into the darkening welkin. Hills become shadows, the silence palpable over still-hot fields. And yet, in boroughs, towns and cities, greedy humans waste […]
Poetic Pruritis
A quadrille fidgets between fingers and beneath the skin, itches to be free with scratch of pen or fricative of key. A peculiar gnat-bite tingles with heat and buzzes with sounds and rhythm, has the poet wrangling with words in a vexation of stanzas. Kim M. Russell, 16th July 2018 My response to dVerse Poets […]
Careless
Sometimes, I can’t remember who I am. I look at photographs and wonder, where did she go, that carefree girl, that careful mother, so careless with herself? I often feel disjointed, as if part of me has broken off, a branch hanging, buffeted by the wind of time, and wonder, is it mine? When I […]
writing in north norfolk 