Poetry - Lynn White

  Quite A Puzzle “It was an alternative to Rorschach”, he said just choose the dots to connect   in whatever way suits you, and draw whatever comes to mind. She wondered if this had been the challenge set to God, or the gods, when the night sky had been designed. Random stars joined into a pattern ready to be re-imagined. And named. She looked at the page and wondered if she was godlike, if she was an artist, or if she was a mere mortal   about to construct a puzzle for someone else to interpret just as she had pondered the night sky. https://chainmailpoetry.blogspot.com/

  Samhain It’s the time when bonfires are lit when it’s easier to cross into another world when places are set at the table to welcome the dead,   to consume the witches so the evil in the world dies   in the heat and the smoke and the flames. But this Samhain in Gaza the evil is spreading in the smoke and ashes. Everywhere is aflame nowhere is safe and everyone is a witch, the old, the young and even the dead must burn. Gazans have become the new Nemeds having already given their corn and milk now they must give two thirds of their children and watch as they are consumed in the fire. It’s the custom after all. https://edgeofhumanity.com/2025/12/10/samhain/

  The Theatre Of The Absurd Back in the 1960s I loved them, sought out the plays Beckett, Ionesco, Stoppard and the rest who were illustrating the death of logic which silenced argument as the beginning became the end. I didn’t anticipate the re-run in the theatres of Westminster and Washington all these years later as the political players take the stage to play those parts again speaking absurdities on cue   as directed by their part, by their party in a government where ethics are as dead as genocide, where ethics never existed, just like genocide, where ethics are deader   than Rosencrantz and Gildenstern and only the absurd still lives taking us back where we started. https://corncrakemagazine.com/article/the-theatre-of-the-absurd/

  Living Alone and Loving It I’m living alone and loving it, that I am. I had a good ‘un though, but wouldn’t want to train another. Takes years to train ‘em. That couple last night, what a one she was. You could see who was boss in that marriage. Ain't it funny that   you picked up on it as well! I don’t like the shows, though. That magician was terrible.   Worst I've seen. Mind you, magicians are old hat, In my opinion. Still, better than sitting on our own watching the telly. I think we only watch it out of boredom, being on our own. I wouldn’t want another, though. Well, I had such a good ‘un, it would’t be fair. Couldn’t believe it when she said: “I told my first that I’d divorce him if he got a pot belly and look what I’ve ended up with!” Must have hurt him! No equal partnership that! You could see she was boss. Fancy you picking up on it as well. Must have hurt him. Living alone and loving it, I am. Wouldn’t be fair to have another. I’d be making comparisons. He wa...

  To Brian Patten (A Cento and Apostrophe) Yesterday   you were my favourite living poet, there, watching and smiling, now yesterday seems so far away. So I wonder -   did you build your ship of death, knowing you would need it, or did you rage - rage against the dying of the light and not go gentle into that good night when it was time to go, to bid farewell to one’s own self, and find an exit from the fallen self and falling skies. With one quick call dreams can be aborted and become like a marooned whale. Piecemeal the body dies, and the timid soul,   has her footing washed away, as age dark flood rises, cold dash of waves at the ferry-warf - posh and ice in the river, a gray discouraged sky overhead .. is there anything more? So you should build your ship of death for the long journey towards oblivion, knowing a man can his own quietus make. But   still the heart of me weeps   to belong where a slow, sad bird has flown, only twilight now and the soft “s...