Despite tender green leavesand a proliferation of flowersthe world is upside down. Hills rise over the sun, abovethem rivers run, bombsand drones darken skies. Blinkered men are intent on killingone another until Earthstops spinning. Why can’t they stopand smell the scent of springpermeating everything? In this spring reversal, innocent civiliansbecome corpses and tragic orphans. Kim […]
Tag: Open Link Night
Apflod*
* Anglo-Saxon word for low tide. What impressed our ancestors about the rocky coast?Those wet rocks, barnacled and slick with weed?The immense power of waves that boastas they crash onto the shore, pounding screefrom cliffs to sand? And here I stand, watching gulls circle above;below, the colours of the wild sea are mixedas if a […]
after snowfall…
everything is hushedin ominous silenceanother blizzard waiting in the wings street and house lightspierce night-blackgilding the frozen blanket throwing long shadows on snow-crustthat crunches underfootthe only sound not even a puff of breaththat freezes as soonas it’s exhaled not even clumps that dropfrom eaves and brancheswelcomed by the snow below all is still Kim M. […]
Thirty-Three Years On
Thirty-three years have passed in theblink of an eye and the tasteof those first kisses still lingers, ofsea salt on the wind that tied ustogether. I remember theexcitement, the spice,the excitement ofbeing us. Can you remember therolling waves and their hollers,the crash of the rollers andsuck of the ebb? I still feel thepull, the melodies […]
And so…
I emerge, face first,from vertical brushstrokes daubed like a rainstormof bright colours. You might think I’m dressedas Harlequin, but you’re wrong – I am arrayed,dismayed, fighting my waythrough pulsating oiled emotions, scented with linseed,tickled with brushes, waiting to open my eyeson the finished portrait. Maybe I will be finished.Maybe I will recognise myself. Kim M. […]
Light Fractured
On frost-fractured morningsI pause to ponder the intricacy of lighton ice-sugared pinecones scattered like flotsamamong the silvery filigree of leaves and twinkling twigs that litter the path.And I remember winter’s mission:the extinction of useless lights and drawing of grey cloud curtainsacross the sky. But I knowthat light cannot be completely erased: it’s there in the […]
A Roof Against the Rain (a quadrille)
You’re my roof against the rain,where I’m safe from thunder-grumblesechoing across the sky and sharplightning forks stabbing the earth.Life’s not always a stormy downpour,it can be a refreshing shower.I’m glad that you aremy roof against the rain. Kim M. Russell, 21st November 2025 Today Sanaa is delighted to host Open Link Night at the dVerse […]
The Letter
The fragile paper almost torewith the pressure of her pen,ink blotting, words bleeding.So she wrote it out againon thicker vellum. The original words had fallenlike confetti from her hand – butwhen she copied them out,they did not express her emotion;they seemed flat. Heart fluttering with frustration,hand slick with perspiration,she focused on the punctuation;the final full […]
Memory is the Happiness of Being Alone
with the familiar heftof the tome,the unique cover,anticipation of what’s inside. It’s the imprintof fingers on paperand the gentle flickof a page. Print marks magicallyconjure meaning,images, sounds and emotionsin the happy quietude of alone. It’s transportationto another place or time,into the mind of someoneyou will never touch, but you can love and respect,despise, accept or […]
Eternity
Eternity is the great unknown, a breathbeyond the stars, and life and death, a shimmering black holewaiting to swallow us whole, together with all our thoughts, it seems,our hopes, desires and dreams. In dreams, we travel through timeand space, a place sublime, and maybe catch a glimpseof eternity. But they are mere blinks of our […]
writing in north norfolk 