The evening has already drawnacross the town moon-silvered cloudslike a sky-filled eiderdown.Boar Lane is coming to life, crowdstread cobbles that seemto hold on to sunset with the lightstreaming from windows. Like a dream,gas lamps, candles and lanterns brightentice carousers and romancersinto the pubs to escape the long haulof the working day, while dancersand singers are […]
Tag: Tuesday Poetics
Hallowed
The silence of the woods is contagioussap seeping under our skin. Outrageousstrings in minor key rise in a sorrowfulbreaking prayer in an arboreal cathedral. No birds sing in bare branches, gunmetal laceagainst an ashen sky; no clouds to embracethe unabashed nakedness in this hallowedplace that nature reigns, we’ve only borrowed. A doe and her faun […]
Remembering Miss Spencer
My favourite lesson was English,but as far as teachers were concerned,telling tales of yore with relish,only Miss Spencer could bring history to life. She had taught my mother, was rotund with a kindly face, older,always dressed in black,with amber beads around her neck. Daughter of an Egyptologist,she’d visited the pyramidsand witnessed the opening of tombs;she […]
Houses with Laundry
In the suburbs, the sky is muted greys;layered clouds merge with beigepost-harvest fields – a train passes by.Houses are prominent, earthy, weak lightreflecting in windows, the inhabitants’washing strung out on lines like brightbunting criss-crossing the landscape.This is life outside the city, awayfrom Viennese high society, an escapefrom pressures and scandal. The dayis almost over, laundry dances […]
August
Once in a lifetime,maybe twice, but no more,you realise that you are turningfrom growing to giving back:ripening. The fruit, grain and light know.Your body knows from the settlingin your chest — a quiet pause,in which you’re not quite readyto let go. Everything ripens:wheat, corn, apple, tomato,sunflower. Even a poem. Kim M. Russell, 18th August 2026 […]
Something in the Air
I can feel it. Thereis something in the air,a change in temperature,in the breezeand the trees,that tells me summerwill soon be donningits mourning cloak,while I celebrate,a fiery skipper,the autumn leafwith its lustrous copper.I’ll write a sonnet on a rusty-tipped pagebefore making my autumn pilgrimage. Kim M. Russell, 4th August 2026 Merril is our host for […]
Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised!)
They brought brushes, paints and canvas,so that he could spend his sacred leisurein the light, truth and happiness of paintinga surprised tiger and other wonders of nature.When I extend my gaze beyond the vivid huesof yellow, orange, red and tropical verdure(I’ve looked and found hardly any blue),I am thrilled by the way Rousseau capturedthe movement […]
Simple Treasures
These I have loved:half-light stealthily tip-toeing through gaps in blinds,mottled with shadows; mist and fog that drifts and creepsfrom field to field, muffling the rumble of traffic on damp streets; hues of leaves clinging tightly to autumn trees, the crunchunderfoot of those already fallen; lacy cobwebs wovenacross garden gates, strung with diamond drops of dew,sparkling […]
From Earth to Sky
Here we are, planted,our feet firmly in the earthtogether with trees and shrubs and flowers and wheat and barley, just as green as shoots,as tethered as roots, untilplucked by unseen hands. In the meantime, look –a long-necked swan overhead,untethered, flying feathered and free and light and wind-borne following instinct,a seasoned flier, untilplucked by unseen hands. […]
Silver
A shimmer of silver poemslights up the map of my heart. I hope they are not tarnishedas they cartwheel and dart across the page, turningfrom platinum to sterling, to a gentle silver mist, thenshadowing in battleship grey until blackened silver letters playand meander into words, form lines, rhymes, stanzas, odes,leading us down lanes and roads, […]
