The heavy tide inhales wind and gasps chilly salty spray, tangles tongues with rain, spattering the windscreen. Gulls mourn bitterly and in the safety of the car a voice on the radio speaks in tones hushed and slow about the death of a new-born. The car behind sounds its horn. Kim M. Russell, 12th April […]
Tag: NaPoWriMo
Ruminations on Writing
I was recently reminded I’m getting old, a greying guest of nature, mother and wife. In an attempt to solve the riddle of my soul, I gnaw and chew life out of life. Stiff fingers falter, they fumble, writing is a spidery scrawl on a page; as I peck at the keyboard, words tumble, I […]
Distance
Only a phone call away, only a bus or train ride, I know you can drive, and still you are distant. I bought you sweets on the way home from school, was thrown into space by a motorbike and still ran up all those flights of stairs to the top floor and along the balcony […]
Friday Night at the Cardiff Novotel
(after Philip Larkin’s ‘Friday Night in the Royal Station Hotel) Light spreads brightly downwards from the wide- screen television between high windows that face the car park, where taxi headlights flare. At the bar, men in short-sleeved t-shirts flash tattoos, down beery dregs and, glancing at the score, jostle in a noisy exit. Receptionists issue […]
M4 Westbound
A slow roll forward. Then a grinding halt. Afternoon is coming to an end and we are still hemmed in by metal. A slow roll forward. Then a grinding halt. Not a sign of an accident and no breakdown on the hard shoulder. A slow roll forward. Then a grinding halt. No emergency vehicles or […]
Ode to a Hug
There are times, left alone with thoughts and memories, when up sneaks grief, a vulgar thief of quietude, squeezes salt and tears from a freezing heart. And there you are, warm as blood, enveloping stony skin, thawing emotions locked within. Kim M. Russell, 2017 Image of statue on King’s Cross Station found on Pinterest On […]
Morning Ritual
There’s a purr in my ear the moment she hears me stir. She pats my face with an impertinent paw – I know I have ten minutes more until I’m wide awake, but she insists. She licks my ear, kneads my hair until I roll off the mattress edge, push feet into slippers and go […]
A 6 a.m. Aubade
between twisted slats of blind and sleep-encrusted lids bright celandine rays of early morning sun disperse penumbrae in a flutter of feathers no cooing on the telephone wire in the margin above a line of silver birches a single lingering star flirts with the crescent moon birdsong ripples in liquid silence and so the aubade […]
Norfolk Sights and Sounds
windmills and flat landscapes coastal curves and seascapes white sails flash on Broads folded fields and sedgy meadows fruit in orchards and in hedgerows wriggling country roads plopping frogs and gurgling shallows trumpeting geese and warbling swallows rumbling tourist boats Norfolk twang and magpie’s cry commingle as the world slips by diminuendo of minor notes […]
Sprung
Now the clock hands have spun forward, an extra hour’s worth of sun- light has my nose smearing windows, spotting miniature mountains in mud- dy grass, patches clawed and dug by myopic moles in their hungry hunt for worms and beetles. My ears detect a rhythm, tap and hammer of a woodpecker, precise percussion of […]
writing in north norfolk 