The year has started to fallapart. Pointillistic burstingof nuts and fruit. Later, leavescrunching underfoot. Conker shells split,release shiny mahogany kernels. Oaks shed acornsthat hit hard ground with a crack. It’s still warm enough for white butterflies.Craneflies crowd windows or hang in cornersfrom spindly alien legs. Cooler mornings reveal cobwebs,dewdropped now –frosted soon. Kim M. Russell, […]
Tag: Meeting the Bar
A Poet’s Books
I take them with me on a walkto write, record an inner talk:my notebooks. Lined pages are for handwriting,snowy plain pages for drawingin sketchbooks. At night before I go to sleep,I read; beside the bed I keepstorybooks. I switch between them now and then,remembering each one againwith bookmarks. Together on a bookcase shelved, notebooks and […]
Sky at Night
We did not walk hand in handbeneath the night sky, nor look upat the menagerie of stars or findour own astrological map, or crabs and fish swimmingamong planets. Neither did we seelions stalking goats, hunters wrestlingbulls and rams, horses running free. What we saw was black velvetcushioning stars like diamonds,winking eyes of those we have […]
My Ghosts
They have been with me since childhood,piquant little ghosts that haunt me. Their white bones long for words,the flesh of their existence. I call out to them in the dead of nightand, in a moonbeam of ecstasy, words appear, freshly-baked poemsrouse me, their mille-feuille pastry crumbling at the ferocity of my pen, a sweetnessthat may […]
Counting to Eleven
As children we learn to count to number ten,slowly at first and then racing on ahead. Soon we are counting, in twos and back again,sheep in the darkness when we have gone to bed.We count the days until school is out and thendays until freedom of summer has ended.But we never stop at number eleven,an odd […]
Stubborn Words Fight Back
I – not thinking of youthis pronoun’s focus is meegotistical write – purple ink flowingwith the movement of a penstubborn words fight back on – what lies betweenthe switching of on and offno prepositions these – not those this or thatmaterialist humansalways possession spindrift – spat from cresting wavesLeucothea’s laundry’s […]
Late Spring is a Wild Revolution
with its carpets of bluebellsand cowslips; gorse pods popping,pinecones dropping; an overexuberance of May blossomblooming with burgeoning butterflies: brimstones, holly blues,and pearl-bordered fritillaries. How soon it is over,giving way to heat and brighter flowers,an exhausting psychedelia. Kim M. Russell, 21st May 2026 It’s Thursday and Open Link Night at the dVerse Poets Pub, where Grace […]
Sweet Buzz
It’s back again, thesoporific burr of beeshovering in the fruit trees thatmakes me want to sleep. I watch them burrowing insidespring blossoms. They ignore meas they take their fillof pollen. Lately, mytaste for honey has taken over my mindand I’m dripping withtheir sweet buzz. Kim M. Russell, 30th April 2026 This Thursday at the dVerse […]
Following the Brush
I sweep the floor with an old broom, it still does the job, collects crumbs and dust, pushes the pile of detritus from one placeto another, and with it my thoughts a poem forminglike the pile of dust,sometimes caught up in the brush and then escaping.Our cat Luna pokes her head round the door; she’s […]
Letter To Myself Looking Back
Six years ago, in the fertile belly of pandemicspring, you were inside looking out. The street was quiet, no traffic, bar a delivery van,the driver masked and gloved, as were the single walkers, with or without dogs.Not even an aeroplane in the sky. The sun shone, flowers bloomed, but you wiltedin the stifled isolation of […]
