Poetry - Lynn White

Shadow Puppets I still see you in the shadows. It’s where you’ve always been  casting shadows over my life playing your part in its theatre while staying hidden  to project an image which makes me feel as manipulated  as you surely are behind that screen. It will take courage  to draw back the blind to let me see your features, let me see who you are and who you can be when you’re free, when we both are free. So step forward. Step out of the shadows  and on to the stage to greet me. When I see your smile we’ll rewrite our parts free of the puppet master and out of the shadows. https://fourfeatherspress.blogspot.com/2026/09/50-poets-and-artists-being-published-in.html

Cabbage Dreams I am dreaming my cabbage dream. I’m peeling off the outer leaves to find what lies hidden beneath. Looks much the same as the outer leaf, a little less battered and crinkled but fundamentally the same. Now for the next layer. There’s a drop of water   shining full of light and something darker, more solid, the leavings of some hidden creature. Another layer reveals the holes and the sleepy caterpillar dreaming... without his pipe   without his crown, so unsure of   his own identity,   much less mine. If I peel off   layer after layer until I get to the heart of it, will I understand where I’ve come from and be able to unpack the dream, find the pipe and put the pieces   together, make sense of the cabbage, crown the king. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HJ83CSC2

  Nothing Is Quite Right I thought I would leave the city behind and go to the beach today but when I got there nothing was quite right. It was too cold for bikinis   in spite of being August with bright summer light it was buttoned up winter there. So I thought a coffee would be good, or maybe warming hot chocolate, but the cafe was topsy turvy, had tipped over   on to it’s side and I couldn’t find a way to get in, a way to sit down and place my order. So I walked down the streets and wondered how long it would be before they became topsy turvy too. Or perhaps they’ll stay the right way up,   I couldn’t say. I tried to cross the bridge to reach the pink castle, but it had become the wrong shape   too steep   to walk over and I was disconcerted by the paper shapes   that were replacing the buildings. They looked pretty, I liked them, but they still weren’t quite right. Even later, when I woke up it still looked all wrong and nothing was ever quite righ...

  Sleepwalking I thought I’d been dreaming on this dark starless night with the moon on the wane. But they said it was no dream, while asleep I’d been walking sleepwalking disoriented sleepwalking somewhere   some time perhaps sleepwalking into my to be lived future living but not living the dream passing the statues of my past times standing in line. Me   as a child growing up growing older and older. Each one an effigy of a time my time my past time. Now,   awake or asleep I’m disoriented sleepwalking into uncertainty as the full moon approaches. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HJ83CSC2

  Dreams On Sale They sold them all, his dreams, their dreams, they sold them all on a rainy day. Perhaps they’d wondered what they   were worth those dreams as the clouds came and the rain began to fall. But the price was right. https://outpostspoetry.com/

Lost Love Letters They came too late, those lost love letters. There was no reply. There could be no reply when there was nothing to say. You said   that seeing   the unopened piles cut you like a knife. But that was later when I was deaf   to you long after   we were over. And now all is done. I think it’s done. https://poetsonline.org/archive/arch_lettersneverreceived.html