Poetry - Lynn White

  The Sad Man I take my hat off to him the sad man of the leafy suburbs always smartly dressed dapper old fashioned smart carrying  all our problems  with all his silent grief on pinstriped shoulders. We all took our hats off to him that sad man, as we played in the streets as we grew older as we changed while he stayed the same still silent still carrying all those problems all that grief that we never understood. https://fourfeatherspress.blogspot.com/2026/03/52-poets-are-being-published-in-turtle.html

  Photo Opportunity I watched the man crossing the path underneath the cascade of the waterfall. It had been part of the route wine was carried from the high lands, to be sold on the coast. Back in the old days, that was. But the old days weren’t very long ago. He seemed confident as he placed a foot carefully in each of the footholds hacked into the precipitous rock face. He gripped the thick metal hawser attached to the rock with strong metal rings. Gripped it firmly and proceeded slowly one step at a time. I had a camera and I thought that it was a picture he would like to have when he was dry and safe back on terra firma. Then I thought, suppose he falls, falls into the waves, to be smashed against the rocks far below. I didn’t want to have such a picture, a picture of someone’s last moments and I thought, to take it may jinx his journey and even cause him to fall. So I never took the picture. But it made no difference. The man fell anyway. https://fourfeatherspress.blogspot.co...

  Dreams And Plastic Smiles The accordion player was from Eastern Europe. He was there each morning on the promenade in the south of Spain, He plays popular songs with an unremitting plastic smile. A little further along sits the beggar with no legs. He is also from Eastern Europe. He sits there every day with an unremitting plastic smile and a cardboard sign written in English and Spanish. I wonder what lit the fuse to set them off on their incredible journey into the unknown. I wonder if the smiles fade on the way back to their new homes. I wonder if the dreams have faded or whether they scrape along  as the men scrape along. Or perhaps they’re as vibrant as ever, full of hope, surviving in the mild winters, ready to blossom like the cherry trees  in the spring. https://fourfeatherspress.blogspot.com/2026/03/52-poets-are-being-published-in-turtle.html

  https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1528440498872012&set=a.579194347129970

 Beyond Our Control Beneath the surface of the night the daylight is hiding. I saw it disappear as the sun sank beneath the straight line of the horizon. It’s still there somewhere, hiding here but showing itself shining roundly somewhere else in a different place, a different hemisphere. That’s how it works this day and night business that’s in control, that tells the flowers when to close up their petals and the animals to sleep and dream. Every day it happens, a shining sinking miracle hiding beyond our control. https://chewersmasticadores.wordpress.com/2026/03/16/5-poems-by-lynn-white-4/

  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://chewersmasticadores.wordpress.com/2026/03/16/5-poems-by-lynn-white-4/