monochrome keepsake reflections of happy days floating on water melting into memory her voice merely a ripple in deepest shadows of dreams Kim M. Russell, 2017 Source My response to dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night For today’s Open Link Night, which is hosted by Grace, I’m trying out a Bussokusekika, a Japanese poetic form […]
Tag: Open Link Night
My Mum’s Smile
Every summer in my earliest years, My mum aired a hand-sewn quilt And placed it on my bed. On sunny Sunday mornings, We would trace a patchwork journey, Each square a story Of the girl my mum used to be Before she belonged to me. Mum met everyone with a smile, A blossoming bud gleaming […]
Snow fell…
Snow fell during the night, fresh and bitter, scattering glitter, exhaling biting winds perfumed with winter. This morning we marvelled at icicles and ice flowers on the window and tingled with the chilly thrill of a season all in one day. Kim M. Russell, 2017 Image found on Pinterest My response to dVerse Poets Pub Open […]
Gemstone Winds
Beyond the Solar System, in the Cygnus constellation, a hot Jupiter orbits, enormous, gaseous planet of intense light and heat locked face to face with its parent star in space. Colossal clouds of corundum, a ruby and sapphire conundrum of unimaginable tone, are blasted by fickle, violent winds, hot as hell and cool as diamonds. […]
Goose Music
Chain-stitching a rosy sunset, geese arrive in a cloud of fieldfares and redwings, a blizzard of snow buntings blown north to south. There’s an explosion of wings, no soaring, no gliding, just metronomic beating and a goose symphony of honks and whistles. The water ripples, in a shower of drops they rise and fade Into […]
Robin Song
On bleak mornings in November, when birdsong is muted and rare, the robin is the only bird that sings throughout the year. In the bleak gloom of winter, more wistful than in spring, a robin’s song is ‘wildly tender’ – Emily Bronte wasn’t wrong. © Kim M. Russell, 2016 My response to dVerse Poets Pub Open […]
One Man’s Kindness in No Man’s Land
Tattered faceless silhouettes Staggered across no-man’s land, Fumbling to attach bayonets, Unkind weapons in shaky hands. Wisps of men blundered in thick of gas Back to the comfort of a mud-filled trench, Eyeless heroes in useless masks Smothering in the toxic stench. One innocent soldier wandering wide, Heading for trenches on the other side, Felt […]
The Lugworms’ Lament
Foam of sun-sparkled morning tide silvers sea-side beachcombers’ treasures: wave-whipped windswept strands strewn with jettisoned jewels, jelly encrusted with shell grit and grains of sand. Brackish bladderwrack, entangled like rubber bands, vesicles gasping, protuberant thyroid glands, flutter flirty flimsy fronds, release gametes in a dioecious dance of fertilisation. All the while we humble lugworms, the […]
Punting on the Cam
My response to dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night # 177 Gayle of Bodhirose’s Blog was the host for Thursday’s Open Link Night. She mentioned that three of her siblings have birthdays in August, as do I! Mine was on Wednesday and my husband took me on a surprise trip to Cambridge. While the Poets Pub was […]
Remembering my dad
Dad taught me to twist with a towel, skip like a boxer with his leather rope, and give my shoes a sapper’s* shine. Dad and I rode together on the 118 bus, watched Dr No and Goldfinger at Streatham Odeon, and danced to ‘Reach Out’ by the Four Tops. His voice was boxing on the […]