At the tipping point of summer,leaves have not yet turnedand, at the Old Vicarage Gardens,a riot of dahlias continues to burn,their vivid colours and spiky bloomsare not likely to fade too soon,unlike the fading dog day heat. Grass and bark paths yield to our feeton a quiet walk between trees and flowers,disturbed only by the […]
Tag: Tuesday Poetics
Fragile Bonds and Lipstick Smears
Deceived by a cancerous two-faced moon,I believed in the thickness of blood –until she broke the fragile bond of sisterhood. Nothing can stop these grief tides,the splash of sorrowand its constant ebb and flow. In the density of salt water,on the tempest of my grief,my heart is tossed like a leaf. With her glossy slick […]
Message in a Bottle Revisited
his poem a bottle blue glass glittering in the sand washed up on sea swell salt and power ebb and crash on a distant beach buried in sediment until a girl’s bare foot stumbled upon a jewel hidden well among stones and shells its tattered label washed by the tide the message inside cryptic and […]
Bird Seasons
Spring’s symphony is longover. Birds that filled everytree and bush with songare now hushed,and the dawn chorusis stifled by long hot days. A garden chiffchaffgives a final flourish,knowing that autumnand then winter will rushin, only in a matter of weeks,on a lonely crow’s cawand a tawny owl’s shrieks. Kim M. Russell, 15th August 2023 Image […]
Still Life with a Plate of Onions
His hog hair brush elicited ochre orbs;their pale sprouts, long grown through,contrast with green pot of camphor oiland candlestick’s cobalt blue. Were onions the only vegetablethe ailing artist could affordonce he had paid for rough wine,pipe tobacco and humble board? Or was he keen to improve his healthafter battling with hallucinationsand mutilating an ear? Throughoutthe […]
Father’s Self-portrait with the Family
Mother put my hair in a plait,dressed me in my best blue skirtand red sailor blouse.Father set a timerand photographed the pose. I knew it would be boringand, deliberately turning,rummaged for stories in a chest,while mother froze, her blue dressblending into the mise en scene. She smiled faintly at the lensand then looked away,as did […]
Day at the Seaside
It was one day at the seaside, midway through the summer holidays and, despite the trauma of tepid vomit lying heavy in a paper bag, about to drip on my new cotton dress, as soon as we reached the top of the hill, the whole coach sang with the thrill of seeing the sea. After […]
Limerence
I am an unripe field with scarlet seepingthrough green stalks, a stain of fluttering blooms studded with the teary aftermathof warm summer rain. I take your breath and set your world on fire. Just one glanceis all it takes for you to fall. One close dance means that you are in my thrall, and I […]
Three Things
Little tiger Mojo won’t go beyond the corkscrew willow, while I wander to the end, to the garden gate, lean against the warm wood and watch a boat bob, tethered by a frayed rope that clink clink clinks. The long grass beneath the silver birch is a mass of dots, forget-me-nots and pink weeds the […]
Strains of Billie
It’s a quarter past three on a Sunday morning. Darkness sits heavy as a blanket. It’s waiting for first light to seep through night and gently lift it. Strains of Billie Holiday curl into a hug of raspberry tea steam from my favourite mug. The cats have been fed and husband is tucked up in […]
