The young man’s hands were slender, quick and strong, composing sonnets to his unknown muse, creating worlds in drama and in song to challenge the emotions and amuse. The busy writer’s hands were stained with ink and words. His skin was cracked and raw with rhyme. The scratching of the pen spurred him to think […]
Tag: Meeting the Bar
Morning Inspiration
I get up early while you’re still asleep; avoid the cats while creeping down the stairs, try not to wake you with my leaden feet, and stumble over work boots into chairs. The floor is cold, and so’s the toilet seat, the sink is laced with toothpaste and stray hairs. The cat tray smells and […]
Bread-Making in Winter
For months frayed foliage has covered earth, the agèd year is faded to sepia shades and now it turns again to white and grey with early dusk as winter draws its breath. The frigid bite of January’s mellowed, outdone by the aroma, as it lingers, of yeast and flour wafting from your fingers, familiar scent […]
December Moon
December moon had reached its height, everything was bleached of hue, lending fields a spectral light tinged with frosty blue. Everything was bleached of hue except for silent shadows tinged with frosty blue like moths gathering at windows. Except for silent shadows, all of nature shivered like moths gathering at windows, and icicles on branches […]
Waiting for Rain
As I walk among the willows, following the dried-up brook, I stumble on its hidden hollows, pebble beds and twisting roots, and brittle leaves crunch underfoot. Autumn leaves, a beetles feast, release a sweet scent of decay: pollen, dust and shrivelled weeds waiting for the autumn rain to come and flush them out again. Kim […]
Eldritch
You wait for the third hoot of owl to flutter down the chimney but the only sound to gild the shadows is the silence of moonlight, broken only by the slap of feet across the kitchen floor. Through the back-door window, the wind waltzes with the willow, the one-two-three ghost steps of branches rustle on […]
Coast
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 […]
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 […]
writing in north norfolk 