Everything is packed up ready to leave for the last time on a dark and dismal February day as the spring tide roars on the other side of the dunes waiting to devour the coast the fields the villages drown the towns and rampage in the cities and you say “Let’s go to the pub […]
Tag: Poets and Storytellers United
Wriggle and Squirm
Sometimes, when the sun has gone to bed, a can of words opens in my head, too tired to stop them wriggling across my brain, they leave slime and detritus, worry and pain, a blot on the landscape of my weary creativity. I carry them with me up the creaky stairs and, as soon as […]
Strange things happen at sea
The walk along the beach that Sunday was wild. The wind racing across the sand was fast and powerful, blowing bubbles of foam into the dunes and sand into hair and eyes. The tall dark-haired woman in the Fair-isle hat bent down to stroke the terrier at her feet and lifted a stone from a […]
Black Tulips
Glossy goblets in the florist’s shop, rare tulips, brimming with power and strength, constrained like Rilke’s panther, stained with the ink of witching hours. Oh, for a pot of midnight flowers, scented with soil, not a bouquet of beauties with stems cut and wilting in their pain, but petals of black velvet that bloom again […]
It’s Raining
On my win- dow-pane there are drops of rain again. One cat came in soaked, the other has been chasing dribbles, and the washing will have to wait until tomorrow – unless it’s raining again. Kim M. Russell, 2nd February 2020 My response to Poets and Storytellers United Writers’ Pantry #5: A Tiny Light at […]
New Tricks
twenty seven years learning new tricks together richer or poorer Kim M. Russell, 30th January 2020 My response to Poets and Storytellers United Weekly Scribblings #4 New Tricks Rommy greets us with a question this week: she asks whether we made any new year’s resolutions and wonders how they’re going. She says It can be […]
At Dawn
yoake ni arau tsuyude watashino ashisaichoubi at dawn I wash my feet with dew the longest day Yozakura at dawn the first pink flush of morning still bleary with sleep I wash my feet with dew cold and refreshing the fragrance of grass the longest day stretching to the horizon suffused with promise at dawn […]
View from Sea to Shore
The coastline is a rugged spine of cliff, rocky ribs rise and fall with each breath of wind and wave that shift the distant skiff. Its feet are firm and solid in the depths of tides that loosen roots and bits of stones like rotten teeth; they tumble to the beach with salty water sucking […]
Preparatory Sketch – a poem in Visual Verse
I’m happy to have started the poetic year with a poem in the January 2020 issue, Vol. 7, Chapter 3 of the online Visual Verse anthology. You can find my poem on page 27 or you can link directly to the poem, entitled ‘Preparatory Sketch’. Also linked to Poets and Storytellers United Writers’ Pantry.
Queen of Winter
Cailleach, the Celtic winter queen, atop the Cliffs of Moher, her domain the time from Samhainn to Bealltainn, strikes the ground with her frosty staff, freezing the tops of hill and mountain. From her creel drop curious stones carved with magic, the ancient bones of her husbands and her many children, promises of fertile field […]