Poetry - Lynn White

  Africa Is Everywhere The factories closed for two weeks each summer and it was off to the seaside then! They would head for the beach and hire a deck chair there were no sun-beds back in those days and there they would sit on shell laden sands, the women in cotton frocks  and the men in grey flannels, sandals with socks and a sleeves rolled up, open necked shirt, there were no tee shirts back then and shorts were too daring for the over twenties. And most likely it was too cool in any case. The sun could be bright though so the women had a straw hat ready, but this was too exotic  and extravagant for the men, newspaper fashioned into a sailing boat shape was de rigour for them. And so one way or another  eyes were shielded from the occasional brightness. Nowadays the sun has grown angry, too bright for our eyes. It rages fiercely threatening all in its view. Africa is everywhere now and soon sun-beds will be out of fashion. It’s too hot now, too darn hot. https://edgeofhumanity.com/2

  Cotton Fields Fields of cotton as far as the eye can see, row upon row of soft white balls always thirsty the plants and people, always hungry the plants and people. A crop so thirsty it can dry up a sea in socialism. A crop so hungry it can starve a people in capitalism. A crop so needy it can render sterile the land forced to grow it. A crop so demanding it can destroy, enslave and exploit wherever it goes. Its softness hides a heart of steel. But still it’s natural. Always natural. Only natural. https://edgeofhumanity.com/2024/10/15/cotton-fields/

  A Question Of Perspective The theatre was full of children. I was there with my mother and auntie. We were all excited, especially first timers like me. I’d been told it was a fairy story, Cinderella, they had said, but I couldn’t work it out. The prince was a girl, a ‘principal boy’, they told me. So why a girl? It made no sense. And the wicked step-mother   looked suspiciously male. A dame, they told me. So how can a dame be male? It made no sense, not to me. I guess it’s all a question of perspective. https://edgeofhumanity.com/2024/10/14/a-question-of-perspective/

  Life After Death I am uneasy now in the places where I used to walk. I no longer emerge from my home to meet my friends   in those open spaces, or hug them   or share a coffee even though the cafes are open now. The ground has sickened where the men in white suits sprayed disinfectant   over streets and beaches to stem its diseased flow and I have sickened with it. But still I’m alive to the sounds of spring rising from the decay and death of winter. Still I’m alive to the prospect of summer when the fertilised ground shows the life that death has bestowed on it and blooms. I’m going home now feeling happy. https://www.mockingowlroost.com/blog/eath-life-after-death/

Strange Fruit “If this is justice I’m a banana,” I remember this being said and I liked the sound of it humour and pathos   combined incongruously. So sometimes I used those words to express how I was feeling in various situations. But strangely the oddness, and incongruity of the expression impressed no one. So I moved on to express myself with different words,   forgot about it, until now when the sight of a banana hanging singly by it’s stem on a hook not made for the purpose (how could it be?), made me realise that the banana, a fruit with no juice and usually no seeds, is always incongruous always out of place wherever it appears. https://gobblersmasticadores.wordpress.com/2024/10/12/strange-fruit/

  Weeping Mask The mask weeps diamond tears, turning ruby like as the blood   flow starts. Then black   like coal as decay begins and the mask itself begins to crack, to distort and disintegrate, to flake away, to disappear. As all masks will in the end. Until only   the tears   remain. https://masticadoresusa.wordpress.com/2024/10/10/weeping-mask-by-lynn-white/