just for a momentin its brutal course that covers all tracesof earth’s life force, icicles come alivewith a sweet green tinge and bloom as snowdropson the edge of spring. Kim M. Russell, 10th February 2021 My response to Poets and Storytellers United Weekly Scribblings #56: Hit Me With Your Best Shot This Wednesday Rommy asks […]
Tag: Poets and Storytellers United
Next Door’s Ghosts Episode 4
Instead of Robert’s ghostly whistling she heard loud builders’ voices, and instead of Robert’s pipe, she smelled the builders’ roll-ups whenever they had a cigarette break. She prayed for a quick finish and cursed when it went on past Christmas and into the New Year. Maurice the ghost cat stayed with her throughout the noisy […]
Nell’s Legacy
Rain spits at the closed windowdripping with condensationand I’m listening a play on the radio,following in Nell’s footsteps. The iron steams. Clothes, rescuedfrom the line when the first cloudcracked, are scented with raindrops,creased and pleading to be smooth. Pressing fabric between iron and board,I breathe in warm memories, slipdown the years into a laundry-scented embrace,catch […]
Next Door’s Ghosts Episode 3
Kay wasn’t surprised when she discovered the husband, Robert, in a corner of Edith’s garden, another friendly ghost. He never spoke, just lifted his cap in greeting. She started to listen out for his faint whistle and quite liked the smell of pipe smoke that drifted over the fence. Besides Kay, the only visitors to […]
If
there hadn’t been hesitant sleetthat eventually turned to snowheaped like hills on the empty street, it might not have fluttered silently,like luminescent moths outsidethe window, a continued quietude when the flakes ceased gentlyfalling, that might not have been brokenby the boisterous warble of a robin. Kim M. Russell, 27th January 2021 My response to Poets […]
Next Door’s Ghosts Episode 2
Of course, she told her neighbour, and Edith was not surprised. “That’s my cat, Maurice.” She smiled. “He was run over before he was six months old, and we buried him in the garden. But he preferred your garden, it always was a bit of a jungle.” The little old lady in the corner grinned, […]
A Cup of Winter Tea
Steaming cup in hand, I shiver outdoorsas the moon freezesin a cloud of mist and sequin starsnot even northern breezescan penetrate the chill from Earth to MarsI know that under the snowplants sprout and bulbs are ready to unfoldand the tea I made half an hour agois stone cold Kim M. Russell, 20th January 2021 […]
Next Door’s Ghosts Episode 1
It strolled through the back door one sunny morning, a small, grey wisp of a cat like a cloud, and stayed. Kay had heard it mewing and thought it was her own cat, Muffin, so she opened a pouch of his favourite fish in jelly, forked it into a clean bowl, and placed it on […]
A Blackened Sky
Clouds billowed thunderous greyabove charcoal stalks of heather. Trees held their breath all wind-filled day,browbeaten by the bullying weather. As if by lightning strike, a leafless oakexploded into jet-black blossoming: a magnanimous murder of crowsbroke from the darkness cawing, burst into the blackened sky,their sooty feathers spread and soaring. Kim M. Russell, 13th January 2021 […]
On the Fourth Anniversary of Your Death
Like the sky maps sketchedin the bird brains of the geeseflying overhead this morningin their flocks and vees,your gentle face is etchedinto my genealogy.I hear their honk and chatterloud and clear; they fly byas if it doesn’t matterthat a day cannot be erasedby hoar frost. Yes, it’s here again,sparkling like it did four years ago,stiffening […]
writing in north norfolk 