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 […]
Tag: Meeting the Bar
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 […]
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 […]
writing in north norfolk 