Poetry - Lynn White

  What Is To Be Done History is littered with stories of imaginary futures. Bread, land and peace were Lenin’s promises and the Bolsheviks believed them and, like others before and since, believed in themselves, believed they could achieve them. But power intervened, power and conflict external and internal and internal contradictions all in the mix and look where it took them. Such promises, such imagined futures, have a long history and a large geography. They were being similarly re-imagined at that same time by the early Kibbutz movement. Simplicity and co-operation in one harmonious state. They believed they could achieve it, believed they could set an example for the whole world to follow. But power intervened, power and conflict external and internal and internal contradictions all in the mix and look where it has taken them. We thought the monsters were defeated, starved, dead, buried with stakes through their hearts, but they were sleeping and being fattened ready   t...

  The Sound Of Silence Sometimes the silence speaks   louder than the words, louder than the music as loud as the sounds inside my head. Sometimes the silence shouts and I turn on the radio and open the window and block up my ears to shut it out. Once it was a welcome guest entering as others left. Once it was a time of peace, a quiet time alone, a rare time alone. Now it’s all there is, that deafening silence. https://poetrywivenhoe.org/2026/06/day-1033-the-sound-of-silence-white/

  Disconcerting It’s disconcerting to hear an intelligent discourse from those we’re told to hate, to hear what sounds like truth from the vilified and proven lies from those we’re told to respect. It’s disconcerting,   truth be told. https://dsmag.in/2026/06/27/lynn-whites-three-poems-2/

  Desolate Road It’s a long and desolate road. I think it’s always been so. Such a desolate road to travel before I see the brightness ahead, the light after desolation reflected in the water of the lake, And the wire fence is no barrier to this vision of my future brightness. And the gate looks open ready to welcome me through. Sometimes a gate has seemed closed, only to open with a degree of pressure to allow me through. Sometimes it has stayed closed set firmly against me. But this one is seems open, or partly open, no barrier to my passing. But as I draw closer I can see the chain and the padlock. Open so far, but no further. I can go so far, but no further along the desolate road. So far, but no further towards the light unless I climb. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0H6NPZ5RZ?tag=uklinktagbk-21&geniuslink=true

  Sins Of The Fathers It was 1966 in a quiet Skopje side street and the Germans parked in front were surveying the wreckage of their car. “They don’t like Germans here,” they said. And they knew it was because of the brutality   of the German occupation in Yugoslavia in World War 2. “But it wasn’t us!” they said. And of course they were right! They were paying   for the sins of the fathers, maybe not their fathers but the ones bound to them from a wider inheritance. And so it goes, the sins of the fathers. There are no barriers, no boundaries, no constant of time   or place they are forever bound and they play out over and over again. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0H6NPZ5RZ?tag=uklinktagbk-21&geniuslink=true

  Father and Sons No, they don’t want to visit, perhaps afraid they may be asked   to help out   with something, a little job   around the house, with anything really for the old man. No, they don’t want to call, perhaps afraid to listen, perhaps afraid they may be asked to think of someone   not themselves. or hear news not good. No, they don’t want to visit, perhaps afraid of the possibility of buying a lunch, when their company   alone should be enough, who knows if they think at all. No, calls stay unanswered. Perhaps in case of an emergency, the inconvenience of an emergency, so best not to answer   that call. Well, now it’s over. Finished and done. The end, in this world. Only immortality wrapped in a poem   remains. https://manicsylph.com/lit-ezine-vol-10-p-7-poetry-father-and-sons/