I hope it’s only temporary, this cotton-wool muffle of everyday sound, with random crackle of static, constant shower of white noise and high-hat cymbal of gravel on an empty road. I’m bombarded with percussion when I want to hear words, a human voice, the television and the ring of the telephone. Until normal service is […]
Tag: Imaginary Garden with Real Toads
If I hadn’t written that poem
‘The world is never the same once a [good] poem has been added to it’. Dylan Thomas If I hadn’t looked up to search the heavens, would my soul ever have been soothed? I waited patiently for shooting stars to zip across the deepest, darkest winter sky – but the clouds were dense, obscured the […]
Ockclay Orkway
Big Ben’s famous ockclay orkway leads the countdown with a bong, the signal for the ewnay earyay, lit up brightly with irefay orkways – until it all goes Pete Tong: Big Ben’s creaking eargays and revellers’ drunken fumbles. You wake up in the orningmay with a hangover and belly rumbles – and nothing’s really changed. […]
A Reminder
In the grey light of late December – the old year’s end is burnt with embers – a glimmer of spring lifts the temper with thoughts of dew sparkling in the fragrant hazy blooming of hay meadows on an April morning: the yellow trumpet of the daffodil, mauves and blues of clover and speedwell, and […]
Moving Towards the End of the Year
Angular boned branches are bare except for the sheen of random smears of moss and ivy. They scratch at a sky opaque and goose-feather grey. Goblin faces gurn and leer from the trunk of the freshly pollarded willow trunk, their silent roar lost on a windy wave. Scattered birds rearrange themselves on telephone wires, notes […]
The Thylacine’s Lament
They alliterated me, called me the Tasmanian Tiger, me, a marsupial. They think they obliterated me, but here I am, lurking in the murky shadows between sorrow and laughter, cowering in sun burnt woods. I only come out at night, and you are waiting to find out if my bark is worse than my bite. […]
Messages from Mother Nature
Frost leaves chalk marks on wall and fence, reminders that last summer did shine: a punishing sun dug runes in baked earth, raised a cloud of dust that stung our eyes – maybe we misread the message. Since then, Nature has left gentler signs on falling leaves in nuanced colours and there is still hope […]
Scarf Magic
My grandmother never went out without a headscarf. She had plenty of them, all neatly folded on a shelf in a low cupboard, within easy reach of a child. In other words me. The scarves were mostly chiffon and in rainbow colours. They demanded to be unfolded and swirled in the air like fairy wings. […]
Bloodless
This year’s blood has frozenand so has mine – no beatin my heart and all heathas escaped in clouds of breath ~ like wisps of winter mist ~ dreams are tattered cobwebsstreaming from the garden gate.I watch them dissolve in a slantof bloodless morning light. Kim M. Russell, 8th December 2018 My response to Imaginary […]
To be a Child Again
Now that you are gone, I make a wish on every falling star I see (they are few and far between) to travel back in time, have you tuck me up in bed so tight, sing our favourite lullabies and then kiss me goodnight. I want to know that you’ll be there on Christmas morning […]
writing in north norfolk 