Poetry - Lynn White

New Growth The trees are bare now revealing all in the winter light. Or so it seems. But they can still hide secrets, unexpected traces of their secret lives, and the seeds of more to come. And every tree is different. Some are firmly rooted even when the ice melts and the ground softens in the winter sun. Others have wider horizons and are making their plans accordingly. Getting ready to branch out. Every tree is different. Some can act as a womb for an embryonic form waiting to develop. Perhaps a parasite in search of a new host. Or a new growth. Different, reluctant to form branches to match it’s parent. Maybe it never will be a match, but always an alien form. With an unknown future hidden. And then, maybe the new will branch out from the belly of another alien form and leave it’s roots behind as it makes tracks in the snow, searching searching. We must wait and see. Every tree is different. http://blognostics.net/…/20…/04/21/new-growth-by-lynn-white/ New Gro

To My Old Friend Who Knows How It Is What ever happened my old friend? You know right from wrong. You know, you saw with your eyes open. You knew oppression, abuse of power, state terror, apartheid. You knew. You know. We boycotted, we campaigned, we did what we could. Then I would have shared anything with you. Now I wouldn’t even share my space, wouldn’t stay in the same room as you. What ever happened to you my old friend? Rediscovering your jewishness shouldn’t mean giving up your humanity, negating your history, seeing with your eyes tight shut but you know you know. What ever happened my old friend? You know. https://inquietudeslitjournal.weebly.com/issues.html Issues We've enjoyed this creative process, and hope you enjoy the beauty that has arisen from it! INQUIETUDESLITJOURNAL.WEEBLY.COM

Where Lies Reality In my sweet dreams I can float and swim like a fish. Can extract air from the water, as they do. And breathe it out in pretty chains of bubbles. But in my dark dreams, the nightmarish ones, this is just a pretence. The only air is within me and the bubbles lost to me which soon will cease as I continue to float upwards. Can reality lie in my dreams? https://uglywriters.com/2018/04/26/where-lies-reality/

Look Me In The Eye Here we are face to face. Perhaps angry. Perhaps sad. Perhaps you will look me in the eye. I will meet your gaze, but you still won’t find me. The mask is firmly in place and you’ll only see what I choose, the response I want to show you, the planned or the superficial pose, the pretence of me. If you look me in the eye I will never know what you see. Your mask is firmly in place to show me what you want me to see and no more. So how can we begin to see each other any more. htps://academyoftheheartandmind.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/honorable-mentions-of-the-contest/ Honorable mentions of the Contest Here are some really good works that I wanted to include as well. It is kind of a long list but they are all really good. By Meekha S Dreams Come to me tonight Scarlet dreams Violet skies Silvery p… ACADEMYOFTHEHEARTANDMIND.WORDPRESS.COM

It’s a Worry He bottled up his worries, his fears, and sealed them in securely. Put them inside a bottle firmly corked. Then he thought, suppose they grew agitated and, expanding with the heat produced forced the cork free from the bottle, releasing all those fears and anxieties to reoccupy his being. It was another worry for him to ponder and fret about. He knew a screw top bottle would have been better, would have kept them confined more securely. Too late now though, to have that thought done is done. The best ideas are, always too late. Past has always passed. And then, another thought came to him, so timely. Maybe he could he transfer them, move them to the bottle with the screw fastening and screw them up tight without letting them out of the bottle. Without letting them escape. Without giving them freedom, freedom to invade his soul, his dreams, his being his reason for being. Such a risk though. Such a worry. https://www.weaselpress.com/mentalillness

The Village of Twee I am just arrived in the village of Twee with its little front gardens carefully wild, with its thatch nicely polished, its flowers dust free. I wonder who tends them in the village of Twee. Who shampoos the pinks who waters the pots, who sweeps up the leaves and prunes all the phlox. There’s no humans to see in the village of Twee, just cars with their robots, red, white and pink. They wave as they drive through with shopping piled high singing ‘tra lah lah, welcome and fiddle di di. There’s a welcome for all in the village of Twee.’ They park right outside, with the pavements long gone to give wider roads for motoring robots. So how did it happen, this robotic coup. There must be a story or legend to tell to explain the strange culture I came across there. Well, pavements weren't needed with no humans to walk and that’s how it started if truth it be told. And it’s ‘tra lah lah, welcome and fiddle di di’ as the robots drive smiling through the village of

Apoc-Elipse They were observant so they saw that the night was already black, unbroken by pinpoint stars. Black even before the moon swallowed up the sun leaving only a ring of white light for breakfast with nothing to come after but dark days. They could hardly believe it but they knew that only black days could follow such an apocalyptic event, an event that would eclipse all others. That would be a prelude to a world without light a world without life, an apocalypse. http://voxpoetica.com/prompts/

Story Tellers I’ll tell my stories. My life stories. My rememberings, meanderings never written down, but taken in for telling. Waiting now to be put outside again. I’ll tell my stories. I’ll put the inside out. See if I can find my lost past self and hold it still for a snap shot to be taken. But my dream stories, were never outside. They’re the secret ones. Unrevealed staying inside. Maybe later I’ll tell my dream stories, let you into them, put them in the mix. Let you get lost in there, as I did. And then all of you will see all of me, maybe. Later, there’ll only be my stories. I’ll be part of your stories then. Or will I be lost, still lost. Lost in them. http://blognostics.net/…/2018/04/06/story-tellers-by-lynn-…/ Story Tellers by Lynn White Story Tellers by Lynn White I’ll tell my stories. My life stories. My rememberings, meanderings never written down, but taken in for telling....READ MORE BLOGNOSTICS.NET

National Poetry Month - Pocket Poems Napkin/Pocket Poems RIVERPOETSJOURNAL.COM

Magic Now is the season of magic, from the witches of Halloween to the fairies and elves of Father Christmas. Only for children, though. Magic for adults has Pagan qualities referencing the myths and legends that made sense of earlier times, though some still invite their ancestors to picnic with them on the Day Of The Dead. Only for children, though are the fairy stories and fantasies of yesterday and today. But children know that these are only the building blocks of magic. Yes, children know that magic is something you make. Sometimes adults forget. http://blognostics.net/blognostics-an-innovative-experie…/…/ https://blognostics.net/blognostics-an-innovative-experience-in-literature-poetry-and-art/2018/04/12/magic-by-lynn-white/

https://issuu.com/…/docs/scrittura_magazine_issue_11_spring_ https://issuu.com/scrittura_mag/docs/scrittura_magazine_issue_11_spring_

Now and Then Now the clouds are pressing down making everything grey, everything misty.  It’s impossible to discern which way people are facing. It looks like everyone is facing both ways, so it is impossible to know who to follow, impossible to know which path to take, which is the good and which is bad. Then, in the old days it was all so clear. This was the way. These were the good guys, the brave guys with the guns, sending out their scouts from the circled wagons of peaceful pioneers in search of a better life in the vast empty land. Protecting them from the bad guys, the savages, the cowardly braves with the bows and arrows and scalping knives. It didn’t always go to plan. But the cavalry usually arrived just in time. And the good guys always won in the end. Didn’t they? http://spillwords.com/now-and-then/

The Brooch We sat on the dirty stairs holding hands and looking sad. His name was Ralf and tomorrow at "la bonne heure" he was leaving Paris, going home to Geneva. He gave me a brooch made of metal, two hands breaking a rifle in two. I pinned it on my jacket, the black leather one that was stolen some years later. I bought a new jacket, also black leather, also stolen later. I could have bought a new brooch, identical to the one I had lost. But I never did. I couldn't replace the connection lost. Lost when I lost the brooch. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0998847674 The Ramingo's Porch, Issue 2 (Volume 2) The Ramingo's Porch, issue #2, bursting at the seams with poetry, stories, essays, and other literary constellations. Spring, love, revolution. AMAZON.COM

The Sound of Silence Silence is complicated. It can be comfortable and companionable like the silence between us now. We see others though, where silence rests heavily, as they seek speech to bridge the gap of discomfort, which lies uneasily between them. We will not allow this silence space, Worse is the fear of a future silence, a cold space, where we have nothing to say to each other. A silence where we are still together, but distant, remote, without feeling, drifting into our private spheres, that we do not want to share. No touching warmth, but a place where we are unable to excite each other even with conversation. We know dangerous silences too, seething with an anger that pours from our closeness and expresses itself, tightly wound, as it passes through us. We communicate this only too effectively and may break ourselves, before this silent storm. Speech could not help us anyway, it's violent words threaten only to separate us, to blow away the vestiges of how we w

Above It All Sometimes I need to be out of the fray, above the drama and the darkness, look down on it all, be part of the scarlet sky and the jagged skyline. Sometimes I will climb so high that I’ll have no way back, no wish to go back only to stay above it all. https://visualverse.org/submissions/above-it-all/ Above It All - Visual Verse Visual Verse: An Anthology of Art and Words One image, one hour, 50-500 words. The picture is the starting point, the text is up to you. VISUALVERSE.ORG

The Skin I'm In Am I still the same person under the skin? Are you? I think I am. The outside has changed. But inside my skin I am intact. Myself as before. I think. Not quite so comfortable, though. It doesn't fit me too well. Doesn't always represent me. Doesn't look like I still feel. Like I still am? What about you? Are you still that person in your new skin? I'm not sure now if it is only on the outside, that we have changed together. http://www.lulu.com/…/molt-…/paperback/product-23564416.html Molt, spring '18 Issue1 by Peach Velvet Mag (Paperback) - Lulu Buy Molt, spring '18 Issue1 by Peach Velvet Mag (Paperback) online at Lulu. Visit the Lulu Marketplace for product details, ratings, and reviews. LULU.COM

https://issuu.com/…/docs/scrittura_magazine_issue_11_spring_ https://issuu.com/scrittura_mag/docs/scrittura_magazine_issue_11_spring_

Seed Shells The first seeds were sown a long time ago. When these small seed shells burst open they were scattered locally. They grew patchily at first, in Palestine, in Israel, in Lebanon and throughout the Arab world. There were only little streams to irrigate and fertilise them, so they often failed to thrive. But that was then. Now the shells have grown bigger and the seeds have flown further. Further and further. And the streams have grown wider and longer. And more nutritious. When the seed shells have burst in this century, they found ground that was even more fertile. So more and more has come under cultivation, irrigated and fertilised now from rivers, rivers of blood. So well irrigated, so well nurtured and tended that the patches of brown soil became rare indeed. But there were some. Later seeds spread wider over Gaza. As larger seed shells broke and splintered they found and colonised new areas outside the brown patches where it was now easy to germinate and thrive.

Blow It Away I’m thinking that every grain of sand represents some part of my life as I lie wet on my towel. I’m thinking that every speck has some meaning, some significance for me. And now I’ve shaken them up to dry them off and I’m watching them float away. Float away likes motes in the sunshine leaving me ready to begin again with a clean towel. http://blognostics.net/ …/…/03/30/blow-it-away-by-lynn-white/ Blow It Away by Lynn White Blow It Away by Lynn White I’m thinking that every grain of sand represents some part of my life....READ MORE BLOGNOSTICS.NET

Orange Light Orange is at the cheerful end of the spectrum. It should spill out it’s zest so I can live and love in a golden shower, taste exotic fruit, engulfed in an ecstasy of orange light, be part of a story with a happy ending, full of sunshine. Bright gleaming reds and yellows are not far away. Orange is their combination, inevitably. Yellow and red. Cowardly, acidic and dangerous when parted from each other. Colours have different moods when separated. As we do. So this palette can hide more than it reveals. And now it forms a mask on the face of black despair, a bright new dawn that breaks the surface, but one which is not wanted, not desired. A flash of lightening breaking up the continuum of my horizon. There’s a cloud of bright dust swirling in a stormy sky, with darkness following blocking out the sun, destroying the light Rain like tears must follow as the light disperses and the golden sun is cracked open to reveal it’s inner stone. This bright cloak of orange