rain strokes the earth, greening leaves and grass, the porter scent of turf smoke fills the hills and, in the river, water chuckles at a joke, a limerick or the jaunty song a musician whistles on the long road home from a late night session and whispers in the rover’s ear: go n-éirí an bóthar […]
Tag: Imaginary Garden with Real Toads
Sculpting the Coastline Together Again
My fingers itch as I watch clouds racing across a bracing sky. Wind wrestles everything into flux, bowls waves against an unforgiving fractured coast. Sea booms and boasts, spits salty spray, whips hair, seaweed and marram into a melee. My hands tingle with a defiant energy, gather crumbs of cliff and tumbled rocks, melt them […]
My first try at a Tanaga
Memorable March landscapes glimmer. Morning song escapes, giddy with green budding light, new life breaking like a tide. Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads Fussy Little Forms: Tanaga Marian says that she wrote this prompt in the early morning as her town woke up under a blanket of fresh […]
Falling Stars
Gemini and Andromeda burn among a welter of stars: some are rising, others have fallen, they are the souls of mortal children. Remember to catch the falling stars, polish them until they sparkle and glisten, love them so much they won’t explode or disappear down a black hole. Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to […]
Concepts and Metaphors
Under an overflowing ashtray sky, the train stops. Frost seethes on scrubby sidings, where naked trees stretch pale, angular limbs. The engine rumbles and we’re gliding towards the tunnel of night, on tracks lit up with winter aconite. Kim M, Russell, 2018 My response to dVerse Poets Pub Poetics: Finding \Emotions and Concepts in Things, […]
Folding Rainbows
I watch each crystal raindrop that trickles down the window, a tear that lands with a dull plop in the blur of steamed-up glass. Inside each crystal raindrop is a spectrum folded in a bow, science captured in a full stop, a miracle that cannot be surpassed. Somewhere there’s a ray of hope and sunshine […]
Morning Conversations
You lift my hair like a cool breeze and kiss my ear; I’m the only one who’ll hear in the thundering silence of early morning. Everyone else is asleep or deaf to the poem that hums in my head, thrums like a guitar string, chatters like the sparrows in the hedgerows. Even when you trumpet, […]
No Alcohol Required
I get drunk on poetry and music, no alcohol required. You can keep your wine and beer; I love the cool, clear trickle of unadulterated nectar, must of grape and amber glow of apple and pear. No acidic burn of embarrassment, no hang- over, no regrets. I can still laugh at cheesy jokes, sing along […]
Not Dead Yet
You see pale reefs of coral off an unforgiving coast, sea witches on a jumble of inky rocks. But we have the muscle to battle waves of political garbage: anarchistic ghosts of satire, riding upstream currents of hogwash, wielding tongues and pens. Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads Hasta […]
Vincent’s Valentine
Vincent said, “There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” But Vincent, when you braved love’s snarling thicket, you didn’t expect nervous coughs in quiet rooms. You believed that fungus and algae are stronger together, survive every kind of weather. Now, you gaze at your lover and see no white doves but a […]
writing in north norfolk 