inky streak of cloud in peripheral vision raindrop of a thought Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Poets United Midweek Motif: Beginnings Susan has given us a whole range of images, saying and poems to help us ponder the question of ‘how to begin’, which she says has generated books upon books in every […]
Tag: Poets United
Paradox of Absolutes
How can we grasp reality without images and parables? We live by laws of nature and sing our hymns of praise; reach for heaven and find infinity and flux, children fishing for stars in oceans. Like stars we return to dust, guide others to join up the dots, to understand the paradox between belief and […]
Family Treasure
In the snapshot, you are smiling, the great uncle I knew for only a few years; yet I keep your photographs, nineteen-thirties monochrome, together with Neptune’s and Davy Jones’ endorsement of your initiation into the solemn mysteries of the deep. Seven years to the day before my mother’s birth, you sat on a boat bound […]
Newborn
The waiting was breath held underwater, the longing was a crushing ocean wave, and the scalpel cut was the sharpness of moonlight at the end of a stormy day. Now his smile carves deep into my ribcage, his fingers worm paths under my skin, and the smell of his head is fresh-baked bread that I […]
Bluebell Wood
Beech trees are coming into leaf, upper limbs foaming with translucent green leaves, softly crimped; all the spaces in between are dusted with bluebells and wood anemones. Lazuline seeps through branches, pools and floods: memories of childhood’s chimeless campanology and carpets of sky. Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Poets United Midweek Motif ~ […]
Vincent’s Self Portrait
‘…painted portraits have a life of their own that comes from deep in the soul of the painter…’ Vincent van Gogh A grubby strip of cloth bound around his head distracts from the bright spot of burning reds, a Japanese print pinned to the wall before he sliced his ear. He painted the background of […]
Shepherd’s Warning
Early this morning the sky screamed at me a red warning that echoed off branches and filled the garden with icy chill so I filled my lungs with daybreak and screamed back. Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Scream Sumana asks us if we have ever come to that […]
A Fruitful Late Afternoon Train Ride in March
All along the railway, the landscape’s studded with beechwoods, earthworks and tracks, serenaded by rocking clickety-clacks, and accompanied by clouds that scudded in from the east on a bitter weeping wind. Through dusty, grease-smeared glass, sidings sport orchards as we pass, sprouted from cores tossed from train windows: a magical hoard of apples glows, embers […]
Empty Hands
We enter this world with empty tiny hands, learn to grab a friendly finger, a proffered slice of apple, a toy or a mother’s warm hand. Soon we discover the pages of a book, the weight of a pebble or a pen in hand; and we find our hands are always open, ready to seize […]
Winter and Summer Sedōka
a naked landscape of icy geometry black branches against grey sky swirling skirts of mist sharp scent of snow-covered pines words float in white clouds of breath riotous colour the ripening of cornfields splash of yellow sunflowers bees humming mantras from honeysuckle to rose blessing the summer garden Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to […]
writing in north norfolk 