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 […]
Tag: Meeting the Bar
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 […]
Paradiddle
He plays a paradiddle on the drumswhile his lover sleeps. The room is dim, no heat at the ending of the day,although the weather has stayed dry. She really wanted to go for a walk,but he focused on his drumsticks, work took precedence, with a new world tour.She turned her back on him, a tear […]
Why?
Why do honeysuckle blooms spill their fragrance in the night? When morning sun creeps between slats in shutters, whyare dust motes ignited like fireworks? And later, the lens of day’s diminishing light freezes in the finalblaze of sunset, capturing a heron’s trailing gangly legs. Why does spring arrive in starts and stops like a dripping […]
Stolen by the Breeze
On stone pillows, the dead sleep soundly.but the cicada’s seventeen sad syllablesare immediately stolen by the breeze. In the morning quiet of the cemetery,the haiku master writes a eulogy, whileon stone pillows, the dead sleep soundly. Lost in his task, he dips his brushin a pot of black ink, and he hears nothingbut the cicada’s […]
First Kiss
First kissFirst touchFirst stepsAnd all the bees dancing From one of the poem postcardsSarah Connor sent me Night fell fastLights glowed in windowsChimney smoke driftedCondensation in the kitchenScent of homemade lasagneA walk in stars and sea mistLost in conversationMusic and memoriesOpen fire’s hissFirst kiss Misty halo aroundAn October full moonOnly light on the empty streetSand […]
writing in north norfolk 