Poetry - Lynn White

  Brenda’s Turtle When I was a child, Brenda’s turtle walked into the hot, hot embers. No one knew why. So badly burned we thought him ready   for an easeful, sleepy death. “No, no” said the vet, “very resilient, turtles, could live to be a hundred.” I would like to tell you that he made the hundred, but he’s not quite there yet, though he still seems happy enough. https://masticadoresusa.wordpress.com/2026/03/06/brendas-turtle-by-lynn-white/

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)...

  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....

  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

  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

  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