A North Norfolk Midwinter

Broad, grey Norfolk skies. Weave clouds.Anthracite grey. A boat,steel river wash forms intrepid in its wake,discouraging ice. Draws wintry breath,draws roosting crows, draws hoarfrost across bare fields,landscape’s fallow womb. Kim M. Russell, 5th April 2021 My response to NaPoWriMo Day Five It’s Monday and it’s snowing here, not heavily, it’s Easter snow. The prompt for […]

In the Belly of Pandemic Spring

Last year,in the belly of pandemic spring,I was shut in. Walls warped,windows were eyes,and the chair in the corner stayed empty. All the words I wrote poured off the page;I had to scoop them up and paste them back on,like poison pen letters to myself. This year, I’m sitting in the empty chair,planning what I’ll […]

The Road to Norfolk

Where would we beif I hadn’t driven the road to Norfolk,to our little cottage by the sea? You might not have left,gone to live with your father,leaving me bereft. You might not have takenyour own long road of experience,acquired a faithful canine. You might not have metthe man who became your partner,friend, lover, father to […]

At the end of the party…

when it all slows down, music, body, brain, you feel like you’ve been drinking acid rain. Lights explode into colours and shadows are palpable; in the dark corners of a sofa, some are even huggable. Darkness starts to fade, daylight begins to hover through gaps in the morning and a mother of a hangover and […]

Almost (a love story)

almost burned her fingers as she watched a flame consume a match almost to its end almost cried at the pain that didn’t come but the tears were welcome anyway almost fell in love with the man who struck the match that lit her (almost) last cigarette almost kissed him on the lips before the […]

Reading is No Sin

I’ve never heard a mockingbird, a New World multilingual, and I’ve never seen one fly. But I have climbed inside numberless books, read numberless words, breathed numberless characters’ lives, walked around in their skin and thought their thoughts. Characters are the only kind of folk I ever felt comfortable with, willingly lent my reader’s ear, […]

A Moment

I took a real moment, not a virtual corona one, to step out into the garden, under cover of the darkest night. White noise and rustle of leaves – the only human sound was the distant hum of tyre on tarmac, a delivery truck perhaps. It was quiet and so dark I could not see […]