September’s come to its inevitable endingand the light is bending. Late afternoon sun puts the moon to shame,setting leaves aflame, sparking rosehip, hawthorn and rowan berries—winter’s emissaries. Soon russet and gold will turn to muddy brown,and leaves fall down. October echoes in a jackdaw murmuration;for them, no migration. Twilight seeps through naked branches early.The moon’s […]
Tag: Poetry form
A Whale’s Lament
I thought that once my shadowed dorsal bentthrough undulations, swimming would be spent;descendants bask in waters far from me.I’m a menopausal hundred-year-old granny. The ocean sparkles glisten off my back,as I pick at barnacles and bladder wrack.I birthed my last calf back when I was thirty –I’m a menopausal hundred-year-old granny. I’m an awkward Orca […]
Madrigal Muse
A ripple stream flowed steadfastly through snowand came out on the other side of spring,its bubbles lit by sunshine, brightly sparkling. A faithful friend, in winter it was slow,a muse on chilly days while walking;a ripple stream flowed steadfastly through snowand came out on the other side of spring. My lover waits down where the […]
Grappling with Ottavo Rima
In the quest for a sonetto rispetto,I rummage in the archives of my mind, whereI find the ghosts of poems to set fire toand let the words drift in the cold morning air.Words turn into iridescent birds, undomy heart, fray my resolve, challenge with a dareto grasp as many words as my hands can hold,write […]
A Fresh View
after the drumming of last night’s stormthis morning’s view from the windowis silvered with rain, colourshave faded – no rainbowjust gossamer threadson leaf and boughglisteningcrystalsfresh Kim M. Russell, 9th April 2022 On NaPoWriMo Day 9, I am delighted that my poem is featured as daily participant with my “breezy interpretation of Day Eight’s alter-ego prompt”. […]
August Poppies
Blood red blooms line dusty country lanes, they dot the village verge, and a meadow explodes into a rippling scarlet sea. Here and there blow pale pink blooms, their blushes fading in the sun, papery ghosts haunting tired fields. Dog day heat has scorched the brittle fields, the only shade is found in leafy lanes, […]
Swimming in Green
Workaday realities disappear, bright bubbles in a flashflood of birdsong, and the garden becomes a shady mere, green ripples that echo all summer long. l Peace creeps from grass to leaf to tree, along each branch, farther than any wings can reach, way over the top of the silver beech, from which a sole premature […]
Song of the Ornery Oak
I am an old oak bowed by years, knee-deep in my fractured limbs, leafless, bare of bark and splintered, destroyed by lightning in a storm. I am an old oak fraught with scars, and here you are with saw and axe already stained with another tree’s sap – I’ve anchored my roots to thwart your […]
Cruel Paean
For the past few weeks I’d caught it echoing across the village, a lazy iambic chant. When you heard it too, we smiled together at the rare sound of the cuckoo’s two-note song. We forgot that it’s a cold-hearted parasite, hatched and nurtured to the tune of another bird’s lullaby. We were oblivious to its […]
Spring Sorrow
ragged rooks follow the path of a plough black wings reflect the sorrow lonely tomorrow tear springs walking in yarrow sad chiaroscuro death stings Kim M. Russell. 25th April 2019 My response to dVerse Poets Pub Poetry Form: the Lai Grace is our host with a new poetry form: the lai. It reminds me a […]
