Posts

Image
A Full Bus It was the summer of 1989   the last days of the Soviet Union and our first visit to Sochi. We were staying on the outskirts and had taken the bus into town to explore. We waited in a long line for the bus to return so when it came we thought there may not be room, but there was, a squeeze amongst those strangers and a triumph that we made it aboard against all odds! At the next bus stop there was another long line of people and we thought the bus would go past leaving them standing, but it stopped and everyone got on hardly able to breathe now though the driver’s girlfriend helped out by setting on his knee and on we went to the next stop where once again the bus stopped and everyone somehow squeezed aboard. The concept of a full bus simply didn’t exist. And then we were out of town and at the next stop there was noisy good natured concern   in the middle of the crush. Someone wanted to get off. So all the passengers disembarked (apart from the driver’s girlfriend)...
Post a Comment
Read more
Image
  The Road To Pec   It was long before the war wreaked it’s destruction, long before the massacres stole so many lives that we decided to hitch hike to Pec. Well, to hitch hike as far as Belgrade, that is. You see, we knew the road from Skopje to Pec, knew it was impossible, had already explored it’s awesome hairpins, spent two days driving slowly, very slowly over it’s suspension wrecking rocks and ruts. had already gazed in alarm at the rusting corpses of dead buses scattered down the vertiginous hillsides. So we took the overnight train from Belgrade. Uncomfortable, but at least it was possible. And then, some months later, we met someone who had achieved the impossible. His lift had dropped him   near the beginning   of the rocky road to Pec,   but he had seen enough   not to chance it further. So he clambered down onto the track made for donkeys and continued his journey on foot. There was a long way to go. Two days later he came across a horse market....
Post a Comment
Read more
Image
  Broken The cold wind speeds so   move   slowly now one step at a time careful now one step then another before   the broken ice melts   away the sky shatters and the wind brakes   it all. https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-challenges/stephanie-grainger-ekphrastic-responses-curated-by-kate-copeland
Post a Comment
Read more
Image
  The Cuban Dancers His hand was so rough, the Cuban dancer. I held it as we twirled at the after show party. Palms, backs, fingers all so rough. I held his partner’s hands. Hers were the same rough rough,   rough.   Such delicacy   of performance with hands of hard labour. How could that be. https://dashboardhorus.blogspot.com/2026/03/thursday-march-4-2026-lynn-whites-cuban.html
Post a Comment
Read more
Image
  The Search In the killing zone where the red string of fate   stretches into infinity I search for you, search for any part of you but find none. I search and I search. I search again but find nothing nothing remains where the red string of fate was stretched   out   into invisible infinity I still search. https://calul.substack.com/p/in-a-time-of-war-the-first-installment
Post a Comment
Read more
Image
  Tired of Waiting From Langston Hughes to Ray Davies,  from the political to the personal and back again, back and forth, back and forth. From Kissinger to the newbie pretenders standing in line moving back and forth, back and forth. From Oslo to The Hague back and forth,  back and forth. We are so tired, so very tired, but all we can do is wait to see where we shall find them. https://www.europeanpoetry.com/2026/03/lynn-white-poetry-popular-uk-poet.html
Post a Comment
Read more
Image
  The Melon Market It was a small town, Pec, in Kosovo now, then in Yugoslavia. It was 1966, the year before watermelons became illegal  in Palestine. It was a small restaurant with no menu so communication wasn’t easy. But the guy on the next table spoke French opening up a channel of communication for us. John wanted to eat melon but there was no melon. Our French speaking friend, he was a friend by now, Had a late night solution. He took us to a large dry field, a melon market, he said. There were huge heaps of watermelons, dark green globes waiting in heaps. Each heap with its sleeping seller resting on a bed of melons. He shook one seller awake  and carefully chose a melon. We all went home with him, he called the neighbours in and there we had a melon party eating great juicy slices  off tin plates in a small house in Pec in 1966, the year before Israel banned watermelons in Palestine. https://www.europeanpoetry.com/2026/03/lynn-white-poetry-popular-uk-poet.htm...
Post a Comment
Read more