We purchased it for mixingwith garlic and honey, a dressingfor grilled halloumi and sourdough toast. Its orb glowed crimson,the blade split smooth skin,spilling the ruby jewels within, and stained our fingers with fruity blood.Its sticky flesh held heavenly food,the luscious seeds tiny surprises crushed between our incisors,trickling juice upon the tongue,a fecund fruit with a […]
Tag: Open Link Night
Why Spillage?
Why did you ponder on that daythat started with a shower of rain?You could have started with a rayof sunshine and then waylaidus with a downpour.Just saying. Why did you have to go on aboutthe many hues of green and shoutthe praise of buds that sproutand burst with leaves, withoutconsidering the soil?I’d like to know. […]
An Easter Love Sonnet
Yours is the face I see when I awake,its slumber-toasted skin is pillow-creased,a welcome comfort to the nightmare achefrom which I have been recently released. You stir – and in that moment I must smile,the naked truth of your expression slaysmy fragile heart and I must sit a whilepondering fond memories of days and nights […]
A Serpent’s Tale
This month in Visual Verse: An Anthology of Art and Words, we have an unusual image by an unknown artist from the Wellcome Collection, which has inspired a wealth of strange tales and poetry. I look forward, on the first of every month, to the Visual Verse challenge of one image, one hour, 50-500 words. […]
In a Dusty Window in Delft
It was Easter, we were looking for something to eat before a gig; we were tourists wandering a street, canal on one side, on the other a row of houses. Our eyes slid sideways to glimpse through windows, idle curiosity in a city we had never been before, the picturesque home of pottery and Vermeer. […]
I Want to Be Yours
I want to be your mouth wash drowning in your germsI want to be your mistle thrushdigging up your wormsif you like tea in a baglet me be your Earl Grey hagI don’t want to be a dragI want to be yours I want to be your spectaclessee things through your eyesI don’t want to […]
Traces of an Elephant’s Tears (Empathy)
I feel the tears, although there is only a trace now. Just like the baby elephant, alone in the zoo, abandoned with only a memory of the mother it will never forget. And what about the mother’s tears? The tears of the herd? It is not absurd that my maternal instinct rears in despair at […]
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 […]
Candlemas Vow
In the moody half-lightof the Imbolc landscapebetween birch, ash and oak,there’s an unspoken oath. Brassy hazel catkins shimmer,lemony lamb’s tail buds glimmer,and there’s a gleam in Candlemasbells’ nodding waxen flowers. Everywhere, for the first timethis year, is the vow that temperatures will climband imbue everythingwith the welcome scent of spring. Kim M. Russell, 1st February […]
The Fencing in of Rainbows
The first Visual Verse image of the year by Michael Easterling was beautiful but tricky. My poem in January’s Visual Verse is on page 33. As always, I recommend reading all the poems in the issue but, if you want to go straight to mine, it’s called ‘The Fencing in of Rainbows‘. You can also […]
writing in north norfolk 