The maid, Abra, must be ready and willing.Wear finest and most revealing garment.Ensure that everyone in the camp is sleepingbefore entering General Holofernes’ tent.Instruct Abra to wait in the gloom for a sign.Extinguish all but one of the candles, and pourHolofernes a jeroboam of wine.Keep within reach his sharpened sword.When he slumps into sleep, signal […]
Tag: NaPoWriMo
Alice
I lie beneath this rusted cross of curlicues,surrounded by these muted churchyard hues,alone among lichen-covered stones,in the peaceful housing of my crumbled bones. You’re imagining my life, how bright my smilefor parents, siblings, husband, perhaps a child;you know my my name, the date when I was born –and died – but no idea of those […]
Eddying
Ayoungstream fillsthe spring woods,fizzes and chatters,bubbling up from its aquifer. At first it forms a tiny pool,clear and natural,eddying,untilspringfloods. Kim M. Russell, 7th April 2021 Image found on dreamstime.com My response to NaPoWriMo Day Seven Today’s prompt asks us to choose a syllable-based form: the shadorma, a six-line, 26-syllable poem or stanza – a poem […]
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 […]
Watching the Wind
I cannot hear the symphony of springbehind this window. I only hear the plague of tinnitus, the shiftingfloorboards, gentle thuds on the stairs when the cats are awake, the creakof a door in a draught. But I see the wind chimes swing, their notes riseinto the branches of the cherry tree. I watch it rustle […]
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 […]
Is it really…
the end, not just the prelude to the death of April, but the final word, the last amen? Tomorrow Is a fresh sheet of paper for another poem, a breezy tune for a new song, the first breath of the first day of the rest of your life, to do with what you want. I’ll […]
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 […]
writing in north norfolk 