Heels tapped on the pavement, cracked red patent flashed ’Stop!’ but she could only go despite the pinch on her little toe and the blisters rubbed raw by red shoe leather, lucky pumps borrowed from her sister. No shoes of her own, no trainers, boots or sandals to her name; everything sold to fund her […]
Tag: Open Link Night
Newborn
The waiting was breath held underwater, the longing was a crushing ocean wave, and the scalpel cut was the sharpness of moonlight at the end of a stormy day. Now his smile carves deep into my ribcage, his fingers worm paths under my skin, and the smell of his head is fresh-baked bread that I […]
Bluebell Wood
Beech trees are coming into leaf, upper limbs foaming with translucent green leaves, softly crimped; all the spaces in between are dusted with bluebells and wood anemones. Lazuline seeps through branches, pools and floods: memories of childhood’s chimeless campanology and carpets of sky. Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Poets United Midweek Motif ~ […]
Morning Conversations
You lift my hair like a cool breeze and kiss my ear; I’m the only one who’ll hear in the thundering silence of early morning. Everyone else is asleep or deaf to the poem that hums in my head, thrums like a guitar string, chatters like the sparrows in the hedgerows. Even when you trumpet, […]
The Language of Seagulls
His cry’s a stentorian swoop in the azure, draws curlicues in and out of the clouds. Apart from the flock, with its dodging and fighting, he lifts up his beak and whispers of wind. He lowers his feet, curves his wings, scrawls a wake, a poem in water with fricative feathers, a lone gull’s sonnet […]
Throwing Poems
Poems are grenades: we remove the pen, throw them into the world, wait for them to detonate, ducking critical shards, burning with awe at the impact and heat of the words. Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Poets United Midweek Motif: Weapon and linked to dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night. For our motif today, […]
Relief
Time has drawn a relief map, traced contours, filled this skin with flaws and points of reference: dimples, moles and scars, a geography of life, and with it the relief of night-sky freedom and earthy wisdom. Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Poetry about the Body and linked to dVerse […]
The Sweetness of a Pear
Pale yellow-green tears pool in the fruit bowl. I choose one with a blush, hoping its shyness foretells flavour. Under a running tap, my pear gleams and drips. I use a tea towel to dab away its fears, buff the delicate skin, inhale its honey breath. I bare my teeth, sink them into gritty flesh, […]
Mirror Magic
The mirror in the garden pond is cracked with rushes, irises, rotting leaves and watercress; a single poppy lingers on, pale petals promise oblivion. In the mirror of the garden spade, a toad with its glittering topaz gaze, legs akimbo and puffed up body dangles from the shiny blade, toxin flooding warty membrane. Mirror, mirror […]
Baring your Soul
Sand is resistant to your feet and teases tight muscles in your thighs. You brave the boisterous breeze buffeting distinctive scents of salt and life. Through a pall of blue spray the sun burns bronze, then vanishes altogether; you close your eyes on the drab despair of weather. Screaming gulls spill into the sea and […]
writing in north norfolk 