Poetry - Lynn White

  Colonel America Calling The dove sat carefully on Liberty lining her nest with down. A few feathers fell free a few loose feathers fluttering down   to feather   the nests below.   She cooed sweetly but her new chick   said ‘coo-ark’ mimicking her, then ‘quark, then ’yawp’ as it grew stronger, she saw her cuckooed dove hatchling was a mocking bird, calling in New-Speak straining to be understood, straining   for more space,   more gas,   more gold,   more like a colonising colonel,   whose eagle’s eye preys south then north. West and east   will follow next. But he’s balanced precariously, puffing out his dovey chest so more feathers fall, he stamps his feet, his call now sharp, dummy dumped, diaper dirty stinking for change as the vultures gather,   chests bared brooding ready waiting   for him to fall, knowing that while the colonel still   pushes buttons and counts his dough Elvis left the building a long time ag...

  The Letter It was a letter for hand delivery not private in the way of a love letter but certainly not for the eyes of the maid. It was not so much a letter as a gift, a new recipe from me to my best friend who will be amazed at my tasty invention. I’m telling her it was mine even though the maid instructed me and the cook baked it for me as I watched seated comfortably at the back of the kitchen. The maid can’t read so no one will know it was not my invention. No one will ever know of my theft. https://dsmag.in/2026/03/27/lynn-whites-three-poems/

  Shall I Go Gently? I’ve always been indecisive and I’m still undecided but soon   I will have to choose whether to build my ship, and furnish it   comfortably   and sail with you   gently into the dark into oblivion gently or to rage and fight scratch and bite kick and scream so that you have to drag me to where I will not follow gently into oblivion into the darkness the inevitability of the end whichever way I choose. https://latinosenglishedition.blog/2026/03/30/shall-i-go-gently-by-lynn-white/

  It’s Dark Now There was a time when ‘it’s not dark yet” seemed apposite, suitably pessimistic for that time but with a ray of hope.   But now night is falling fast. In the wake of the Nazi holocaust no one offered excuses for them no exceptions were made. International organisations were set up to ensure that international laws were upheld. War criminals would be prosecuted without exception and states committing genocide would be sanctioned. But that was then. Now an exception is made for one state that has broken international law for decades without sanction and has committed plausible genocide, it’s leaders now identified as war criminals. Now, as darkness falls, even with unanimity between all   international organisations and all aid agencies, it is those organisations and those agencies who are vilified, demonised, denounced and threatened not the state accused,   not the perpetrators. They are excused. The most powerful of nations   are on their side ...

Death of Empathy When empathy died the soldiers could dance in the streets they’d cracked wearing the underwear of the women whose homes they had destroyed. And dance they did with pride. When empathy was dead   the soldiers could take children’s toys from the rubble of their bombed homes and repurpose them as tank trophies mascots to be flaunted with pride while the street cracked under the weight. When they had killed empathy   the soldiers could shoot babies in the head or gut - they chose, and someone’s daughter 200 times,   or 300 - they could choose. And they filmed it with pride from the street’s rubble and cracks. When empathy was murdered the soldiers could capture children and imprison them in cages, one metre square, or whatever they chose until they told them   what they did not know and then laugh with pride in the smooth Israeli streets. When empathy was dead and buried deep down below the streets’ cracks and only silence could be heard Israel was supre...