The coastline has a rugged spine of cliff, its rocky ribs rising with every breath of wind and wave that shifts the distant skiff; its feet stand firm and solid in the depth of salty water tugging at its bones to try and drag it to a salty death. The tides have loosened roots and […]
Tag: Meeting the Bar
October Sonnet
I look out on a bright October day, bewitched by wanton sun and shadow-play. The blush of autumn spreads its leafy hues and drips its blood in scarlet vesicles. Horse-chestnuts, heavy-laden, start to rust, their tumbled conkers lying in the dust; with spiny shells, some squashed and some half-split, they wink the brown eye of […]
A Secret Guest
Hidden in plain sight, trapped in the linseed scent, the musk of old art and paint, behind the green and ochre of the Olive Trees for over a century, it forfeited the freedom of life en plein air. Vincent didn’t notice his secret guest, having picked off “a good hundred flies and more”. The grasshopper […]
Autumn Begins with a Comma
At the end of the summer Butterflies transform: Commas pause and magically become Dead leaves suspended from trees, Eventually turning, Falling into autumn. Kim M. Russell, 14th September 2018 My response to dVerse Poets Pub Meeting the Bar: School Days, School Days, Good Ole Golden Rule Days . . . also linked to Poets United Poetry […]
Sounds of Water
The quacking and chuckling of ducks and ducklings leads to the meadow, among the stones and grasses just where the gurgling river passes in its sinuous windings. Rapid water purls, not just between the banks but into ponds and ditches, fields and streams, and the convulsive weir pool where I stop to dream and breathe […]
Dipping
in crystal streams that brim with exquisite clarity streaked with fronds of weed children with nets for sticklebacks and water boatmen dip into the mysteries rainbow trout and biplane dragonflies shimmering like electricity shimmering like electricity and biplane dragonflies rainbow trout dip into the mysteries for sticklebacks and water boatmen children with nets streaked with […]
Punctuation of Life and Death
When you lose someone, the world warps: a comma butterfly (settling on a nettle) distorts – flicks open wings to burnish, only to crisp in the sun. When you lose someone, summer colours tarnish; tastes and smells curdle like mouldy blackberries on a parched tongue, and all the while you long to hear their voice, […]
Caged Moon (a septet)
Willows, the anchors of life, felted with silvery grey, captured the moon and his wife in a basket canopy, where daddy longlegs rattle and candle flies do battle: at the end of a hot day. Kim M. Russell, 19th July 2018 My response to dVerse Poets Pub Meeting the Bar: Septets This Thursday, Frank Hubeny […]
Measuring Time
When the whole world measured time in light and dark, descent and climb, civilisation was still new my child, an infant just like you. One drab June, we wandered ancient grounds, round rain-soaked prehistoric mounds, counting a nursery rhyme of stones. We imagined thousands of dawns and shadows pierced by shafts of light – the […]
Sonnet for my students
My students’ eyes are nothing like the sun, it is as if they are not yet awake; they yawn and shuffle in, but never run, until it gets to time for morning break. I have seen some of them arrive on time, to smile at me and greet me at the door. It is delightful […]
writing in north norfolk 