When a seamstress loses the thread, she becomes thorny: stitches tighten in her gut and snakes breed in her very soul, notwithstanding itches in her fingers from tiny hollow hairs, steeped in a poison that bewitches and catches her unawares. All fingers and thumbs, and nettled by unforeseen hitches, she waits for serenity and calm. […]
Tag: Weekend Challenge
Spring Kites
bright kites aflutter above cherry blossomed trees a fresh scented breeze Kim M. Russell, 23rd February 2019 My response to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads Weekend Challenge: Season Your Poetry Toni is hosting this weekend with some season words or kigo for spring. She reminds us that the haiku is all about being in the […]
Resist
the mundane, the telling not showing magnify the intricacy of the small present the world through eyes that are seeing not closed to the truth but challenging all change the world through originality but never forget the world’s constantly turning evolving with new birth and creativity as long as you know that the sun is […]
Norfolk Rarebit
In the early years of marriage, North Norfolk winters were harsh. We huddled together in a draughty cottage, where the sash windows rattled throughout the night. Under pitch-black skies full of stars, we’d walk the dog along the coast and up the dunes to the haunted pub for a drawn-out pint before closing time. Dizzy with […]
Metamorphosis
I wear a silver totem on a chain, another on an heirloom brooch; when I’m low and see a dragonfly hovering on the water’s edge among water lilies, reeds and sedge, I think of grandmother’s spirit and, shimmering with joy and light, my transformed soul takes flight and I become myself again. Kim M. Russell, […]
Dreams of Fire
In the middle of a hot and breezeless night, I’m drenched in sweat and wrestling with the sheet snaked around my legs. I’m running from a heath fire, purple heather sizzles into burnt sienna and birds explode in showers of feathers, glowing and spitting like fanned embers. A sharp-winged dragon skims the hummocks, breathing flames […]
No Regrets
Dad was surrounded all his life by sisters, mother, daughters and a wife; I never saw up close the bond between a father and son. I often wondered how Dad would have been if he’d had a son to kick a ball about, swing a bat at cricket, to rough and tumble play-fight. I tried […]
On a soft morning…
rain strokes the earth, greening leaves and grass, the porter scent of turf smoke fills the hills and, in the river, water chuckles at a joke, a limerick or the jaunty song a musician whistles on the long road home from a late night session and whispers in the rover’s ear: go n-éirí an bóthar […]
Still Shy
After all these years she still wears that Bardot scarf and flats are de rigeur for evening saunters by city rivers. With a falter of shallow breath, she stumbles on uneven pavement of the embankment between streetlights, a sunset blush on her cheeks. He carefully grips her arm, feels her fluttering heart, no longer hawk […]
Red Like Mars
Brick buildings, red like Mars on the horizon, are veiled in tatters of grey haze. Our civilisation planted on another planet is a seed that sprouted in healthier days. Will it grow and bloom or be reduced to sizzling weeds of doom? Meanwhile, back on the home planet, the microscopic water bear. also known as […]
