Even as it falls from a rowan’s red berries,a ripening myth of the goddess Hebes,saucer ready to collect each dropof liquid life, I smile while I am sopped. Rain in my hair and on my neck, fallingin cool cascading rivulets, soakinga sweater you once lent me in yourgarden in an unexpected downpour. At supper time […]
Tag: NaPoWriMo
The Gorgon’s Wedding
A hiss of hair uncoils from its lavish cageof silk and lace. She guards her stare,lowers turquoise lids, coated lashes brushpale powered skin. Friends and familygather, and then he’s standing therewith his best man, in matching corsagesand the darkest sunglasses. He turns to herwith a smile and love lights up her eyes.The murmur in the […]
Arboreal
Look for a well-endowed oak; leafless oaks feign death. Collect as many beautiful leaves as you can find. They will be your pages. Look out for a great spotted woodpecker, cocking his red-capped head and hammering the bark. That is your meter. Hug your tree. Like humans, trees find safety in numbers, and they flourish […]
Sounding Out Spring
Vowels ploughed into other: opened ground.The mildest February for twenty yearsIs mist bands over furrows, a deep no soundVulnerable to distant gargling tractors. Seamus Heaney In the north, the Ploughis ridden by the moonand frost continuesto clench the earth.Early morning walkingwakens words,enlivens lines from puffsof frozen breath,vowels ploughed into other: opened ground. Punctuated by stoneand root, […]
Illatebrating
Hidden in a corner filled with the the dusty smell of old books and lingering yawns the weight of paper, I am nonplussed at the heaviness of words on paper held down by a paperweight and, when I fold them into corners, they gain in weight, treasures in my ink-stained hands while I illatebrate. How […]
Artemisia
muscle, artery and veina slice of knifespray of blood and painand fall of head in handsnot mine but mineis vengeanceswapping bloodfor turpentine and oilthumbscrew torture of a sybil for a quick deatha last breath Kim M. Russell For NaPoWriMo Day 1 A story about the body Artemisia Gentileschi – Self portrait as the Allegory of […]
Finding Your Horizon
To find your horizon,you must losesight of the shore. To lose sight of the shore,you must findthe ocean, and to find the oceanyou must dreamof a stream that fills your headwith fizzing and chatteringas it bubbles up, and then follow that streamuntil it forms a river,that strengthens and flows through hills and valleys,past villages and […]
In a Dusty Window in Delft
It was Easter, we were looking for something to eat before a gig; we were tourists wandering a street, canal on one side, on the other a row of houses. Our eyes slid sideways to glimpse through windows, idle curiosity in a city we had never been before, the picturesque home of pottery and Vermeer. […]
Why Fly?
Why is the fly so bothersome,zooming from a corner of the roomto land upon the kitchen worktop,buzzing – will it ever stop?Why does a fly have no etiquette,using my sandwich as a toilet,spreading diseases everywhere?Why, fly, don’t you carethat most humans think you’re a dirty pest,they squash you flat and make a mess,while I gently […]
The Midding Ghost
In death as in life,always on the outsidelooking in, skirting the crowd. Avoiding the loud,I listen through a cloud:I am the midding ghost – just haunting, not lost. Kim M. Russell, 27th April 2021 Image by Steinar Engeland on Unsplash My response to NaPoWriMo Day Twenty-Seven Today’s challenge is to write a poem inspired by […]
writing in north norfolk 