You have been a familiar landscape to yourself, all these years of seeing your reflection in mirrors, shop windows, the still surface of a pond. You thought you knew the prospect of your frown, the parallel lines of your smile and the curves of your hills and valleys. Until one day, at a family gathering, […]
Tag: Open Link Night
Snake in the Grass
It is a grass snake. It is curled in autumn leaves. It is autumn leaves. In it is a curled grass snake. A curled autumn snake? Is it? It is leaves in grass! It is curled in grass. It is a snake autumn leaves. Curled leaves in grass. It is a snake. It is autumn. […]
Gentle Winter Reminder
Snow has been falling for half an hour and already the garden is covered with white. Slumped by the log store, only the tip of an old sack is visible as I approach, feet firmly in my wellies, one sock creeping down to my toes. The logs are frozen to the touch, landing in the […]
Cyborg Skin revisited
From the egg-like membrane of her head to the crescent-mooned toes on her feet, her skin was yielding and not synthetic; soft and warm, it responded to my touch. She was programmed to be forever childlike but she possessed an adult logic, a precociousness lacking innocence, as if she knew my every thought; a hint […]
October Poems
until their leaves fall trees smoulder with poetry ignited by words Kim M. Russell, 3rd October 2019 A micro poem for National Poetry Day in the UK, also linked to dVerse Poets Open Link Night I’m not sure if this is a haiku or a senryu.
The Long Night
They kept vigil throughout the night, watching every movement, every breath, every flicker of dwindling candlelight, shadowy fingers of encroaching death, until the welcome morning light gently caressed the child’s fretting face and soothed away the livid, bright red of fever. All those missed heartbeats crashed together with relief at the sight of the child’s […]
Geranium Revisited
It emerges like a blush from variegated leaves, a beauty hidden in a bush beneath overhanging eaves. Its petals radiate scarlet and the whole plant exudes the intoxicating scent of harlot, earthy and a little rude, with citrus zest and peppery hot, a geranium blooming in a pot. Kim M. Russell, 5th September 2019 My […]
Untitled
In a graveyard of crumbling bones, lichen blemishes untended stones, erases brief life stories of the dead waiting for the world to turn back. Their remains have succumbed to worm and maggot, but their souls still dwell in established heartlands and monuments, splashed with light that shifts with overhanging leaves, are touchstones for the afterlife […]
Still
as a cat watching a butterfly or a falling leaf after a restless night of heat twisted in the sweaty sheet until the sky cracked and light crept under my half- closed eyelids now I am still as the leaves and the grass held by morning coolness Kim M. Russell, 25th July 2019 My response […]
Ghazal of Trees
I marvel at the strength and grace of the green sinewy limbs of trees. There’s a frisson of surprise and joy when a flock of birds explodes from trees. I’m hypnotised by the dance of shadow and light when evening thrills through trees. My imagination takes flight when I see silhouettes of storm-blasted trees. I […]
writing in north norfolk 