April has unravelled like a favourite old cardigan. The sound of distant traffic died weeks ago, and the empty town has lost its orange glow. We can see all the stars now, scattered like salt across the night sky. When did we take our eyes off heaven? Is this white noise a wish come true? […]
Tag: Imaginary Garden with Real Toads
The Beckoning
Along the fields and lanes, sloe and blackthorn hedges are humming with bees. Beneath the trees and along the edges, bluebells cast a heady scent into a wistful April breeze that teases the branches of overdressed trees, spilling pollen, a sugary omen of fruitfulness. In morning’s flickering light and shadow, crocuses beckon with purple and […]
Smiling Through Tears
How many stations are left on this journey? How can we ever know? We smile at each other with tears in our eyes, how do we stem the flow? Don’t worry about how long it takes, relax and enjoy the view. Keep smiling through tears, just let them go and I’ll wipe them away for […]
Nature Haiku to Ease the Pain
errant porpoises trapped inside the harbour wall the sun’s a beachball call of the harbour nets strung between the boatsheds sparkling with sea salt avalanche of fish tumbling down the harbour wall no more plastic bags Kim M. Russell, 17th April 2020 My response to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads NaPoWriMo Day 17 Play it […]
Only Our Last Conversation Remains
Years mutate virus-like in their determination and, before we know it, only our last conversation remains, hanging in the air like a note from a bass guitar that we know must end. We each had our perspectives, memories and photographs the only proof of friendship, all that’s left of us, my friend. That’s why I […]
A Place to Catch my Breath
Before the virus, when the world was busy, I fantasised about a secret folly in a corner of the garden hidden by trees, a place where I could catch my breath and let my imagination run free. I envisaged gargoyles on the corners of the roof to ward off unwelcome visitors, and an ornate lantern […]
Cloak of Invisibility
When the clock strikes midnight, will she vanish out of sight, a squashed pumpkin, a shattered glass slipper, a homeless, friendless Cinderella? Cloaked in the nightclub’s anonymity, dancing in the dark, caressed by strobe lights, she relished her invisibility, touched someone else’s damp skin, caught a glimpse of other people’s lives. But outside, on the […]
Thirteen Squared
Remember all the lies, belittling stares, derisive laughter, heat of scarlet shame, a wake that followed after preserved in ink, the aspic of the literati picking on the bones of every poet at the feast? You hoped they’d disappear, stuffed-shirted corpses, gilt with attitude and privilege, but no, their breath still lingers, the cloying scent […]
Between the Shelves
She wrote him a ballad between the Classics and the Poetry shelves in the public library, inhaling papery pheromones. She spotted his shadowy figure between periodicals and autobiography, held her breath to stop the erratic timpani of her heart and the blood-red symphony surging in her ears. The poem slipped from her sweaty fingers, drifted […]
Sullen
After countless years and so many sullen stars, we yearn for sparkling seas, fast running rivers, snowy mountain tops and vast green plains on our home planet beyond the moon. We have longed to escape the monotones of this metal box: utilitarian grey and brown, the tasteless sustenance, our heads blown by shifting body fluids, […]
writing in north norfolk 