Clever Fish

Soundlessbubbles slipfrom lips;silentpops and kissesbecomenouns,adjectives,verbs that swimbetweenlinesof verse,glittering silver-scaled wordswhisperingsun-dappledthroughthe lengthof a poem,against the flow,but with the tide. Clever fish. Kim M. Russell, 23rd April 2021 Image by Steve Halama on Unsplash My response to NaPoWriMo Day Twenty-Three Day twenty-three and the challenge is to write a poem that responds, in some way, to another. […]

Transistor Radio

No crystal clarity of stereoor speaker power(to speak of)but my battery-powered transistor radioaccompanied methroughout dayswhen I was not at schooland undercover at night,where I’d tune into pirates of the airwaves,a patchouli-scented teenagerin a council flatimagining Woodstock or Monterey. Kim M. Russell, 22nd April 2021 Image by Alex Blăjan on Unsplash My response to NaPoWriMo Day […]

Swimming Wild

The evening tide is syrupy, strange ripples shivering. It laps at banks and licks salty rocks, as if it’s haunted. We dive in the river. It ties us in intricate knots. Kim M. Russell, 20th April 2021 Image by Christoper Osten on Unsplash My response to NaPoWriMo Day Twenty We’re two-thirds of the way through […]

It’s all Rubbish

I walk along flowering lanes flanked by hawthorn and gorse, and a car roars by at break-neck speed leaving a cloud of exhaust, and in the ditch they’ve chucked a pile of cigarette butts and, even worse, the remains of fast-food breakfast, plastic packaging and a dirty nappy; obviously, the child’s meal with plastic toy didn’t […]

Plum Nelly

Late sun splashes in the summer sky,flashes in the tears every time I seeplump ripe plums hanging in our tree,like the juicy ones she used to buyin brown paper bags to share with me.Their purple musk evokes a sighof scents from grandmother’s scullery;laundry in a copper, hot and bubbly,sprigs of mint, roast on Sunday,cloves and […]

A Moon Moment

I savour the momentfleeting and seldomof a full-bellied moonhovering over treesa seasonal pausereflected in the eyesof a startled fox Kim M. Russell, 17th April 2021 Free image from dreamstime.com My response to NaPoWriMo Day Seventeen Today, on the seventeenth day of poems in April, we are writing about the moon.