Poetry - Lynn White

  Brownies  My mother took me there, the first time I went to Brownies. The church hall was too far for me to go alone and I couldn’t be trusted to cross the main road. It was like Fireflies, she said. I liked Fireflies, and I could go there on my own. They put on records for us to dance to and the games we played were fun. There was no music at Brownies. Many of the children wore a brown uniform. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t have to wear it said the old woman in charge. She was called Brown Owl. She had a brown uniform as well. With her fat upholstered body and tiny eyes, she didn’t look like an owl to me. I liked owls. Arthur and I often planned to sneak into the woods at night to see if we could find them. We would be like the children in the Enid Blyton books then. Brown Owl was bossy and made the children  play silly games, not like Fireflies at all. I sat at the side and watched at first, but she said I had to join in later. So when she wasn’t looking I sneaked ou...

  The Spirit Of Christmas To Come The ghost slid down the rabbit hole on a dark wintery night. He expected to arrive in Wonderland if such a place exists and he believed it did, just as he believed in ghosts and Santa Claus. It was as he expected. There was a full glass on a table. He looked for a label saying: “Drink Me”. But there was no label. So he drank it anyway. It left a nice warm feeling inside him, “spirit for the spirit”, he laughed aloud. There was a plate of pastries. He looked for a label saying: “Eat Me”, but there was no label. So he ate them anyway, all of them every last crumb, every succulent morsel of mincemeat. He lay back contentedly   then smiled somewhat sheepishly at the old man dressed in red carrying a large sack who must have followed him down the rabbit hole. He was looking none too pleased at the scene. “Well”, said the ghost, “Anyone can mistake a chimney for a rabbit hole and we need a new Christmas story.” https://masticadorestaiwan.wordpress.c...

  Christmas Cheers They placed the presents carefully wrapped   in bright paper beneath the evergreen branches decorated with shiny baubles. All was ready now in this house, the last house for Santa for another year. He raised his glass of sherry and toasted his hard working elves whilst the reindeers waited impatiently nibbling the undecorated branches outside. No one noticed the shadows they cast. https://spillwords.com/christmas-cheers/

  The Act The orchestra are tuned up   dressed so as not to distract from the on stage drama they’re dressed for invisibility while those on stage are   dressed for performance dressed to be noticed dressed to be seen. Then they go home and play at life. https://whispersandechoesmag.home.blog/2025/11/26/the-act-lynn-white/

  Creatures Of The Wind We’re all creatures of the wind holding up a damp finger to feel which way it’s blowing. We’re all creatures of the wind trying to weather the storms trying to stand straight or at least to not bend too far. We’re all creatures of the wind and now we’re sucked into a tornado. https://highlandparkpoetry.org/themusesgallery/

  Father Christmas I was so excited. It was nearly Christmas and I was going to meet Father Christmas himself. I was so excited,   wearing my best coat and bonnet, hopping from one foot to the other in the long queue of children waiting with their mums to be allowed into Santa’s Grotto. I was so excited. We were nearly there. I could see the grotto with it’s tinsel and fairy lights twinkling. I was going to sit on his knee   and have my picture taken, and that was in an age when photographs were even rarer than Christmases.. I was so excited. There were the elves... But wait.. they were cardboard. Where were the real elves, the magic ones, why weren’t they there? “They’re much too busy”, my mum said. “But Father Christmas will be real”. We paid our money and there he was. He really was. I couldn’t wait to climb on his knee and examine his beard. I’d never seen a beard before. But he was very tetchy when I pulled at it and told me to stop. Then it went lop sided and I real...