It’s a battle between umber cloudin a fiery orange and indigo skyand the raging sea crownedwith frosty foam – gods tossingboats between them like toys. And where are the buoys,the safe places for those thrownoverboard? Who know what liesbeneath the waves, what monsterscircle? Or are the monsters aboardthe ships, ignoring the gods,believing that they are […]
Tag: Tuesday Poetics
To Steph
My dear,I’ll keep this short and sweet,like you, and the tartes au citron we’d eat,and the wine we’d drink in summer sunon rickety chairs in your garden. We’d giggle, laugh and sometimes sing,and often end up wonderingif passers-by could hear and smile at the love and fun we shared for a while. I missed you […]
A Sweet Affair
An orchard’s fruit and its aromasare laden with sweet memories:a windfall of sparkling baublesor a bird café of dulcet squabblesover worms in russet orbs that endas feasts for feathered friends. Each bite of your acidic sweetnessarouses a harvest of ripe blushesbeneath a tree, under cover of night.‘I am sweet temptation in moonlight,’your apple breath whispers […]
Random Words of Winter
you were a cold crone,Winter, dimming our thresholds –summer’s still a dream a dolorous crowbrings me yet another verse –see how words renew and yet we’re awareof cliffs, caves and salty seathe scent of sun cream *** While winter’s nose is still dripping,one memory will cause us joy,even when it’s getting dark by four: it’s […]
While winter writes love notes again
While winter writes love notes,we hunker down in a world of white. Instead of flowers,storms bring ice in fists. Love can be a monster,scribbled poems in the margins of a frozen puddle,or on an uncrushed flower, yearning to burst into constellationsand dance in green shafts of spring again. Kim M. Russell, 14th January 2025 Image […]
Wordstone
I’m not a light-footed scampereron windswept beaches, however I’m like a ruddy turnstone, my ageingskin freckled and pebbled, turning words like stones and discoveringthe nourishment that I’m seeking: words and phrases, deep as the sea;a pile of eureka poems to satisfy me. Kim M. Russell, 7th January 2024 Ruddy turnstone, photographed by Michael Sammut For […]
Latewood
Swaddles of mistinhabit the darkeningbetween trees.Despite the formingof the darker partsof annual growth rings,still there is a green silence,broken only by the beating of wings,the occasional cracking twig,and the seasonal frostingof branches and the grassbeneath my feet.Notwithstanding the ache for spring,I’m listening yet. Kim M. Russell, 10th December 2024 Image by Drazen Nesic on Unsplash […]
Alien Poets
We dance with the universe,where planets cross paths, orbit each other, and regularly alignwith meteor tales and imagistic showers. We are light wavesand white noise coming together in poetic symphony. With long-handled spoonswe stir stars until they swirl, then dwindle, open a crack in the universe,a swathe of galaxies, nanoscopic sequins on the scarf […]
Last of the Undersea Dragons
The sea is replete with the briny tears I’ve shed,which pour from my cave on the ocean bed. I’m bound with pungent seaweed like manaclesand studded with tenacious barnacles. When thunderstorms set the waves a-rocking,I rise to the surface, where fork lightning illuminates my scales of bladder wrack greenand coral pink – however they’re never […]
Nature’s Not So Well Kept Secret
Behind brief, flickering shadows,the invisible bones of nature glow. Autumn sun burnishes leaves,like gun smoke their incense breathes. For centuries men have used their mindsto construct walls of different kinds to repel enemies and protecttheir property, kin and the rich select. But nature has a single secret,one she’s never very well kept: winter threatens humans […]