Poetry - Lynn White

In The End In the end  I’ll be like you. Dust with flakes of skin and bone wrapped in long hair. Teeth chattering With no voice. No sense of taste or smell. No reason. In the end we'll be invisible, impenetrable, anonymous, figments. But then, we always were you and I, we always were. Published in Saudade, Issue 1 Half of the proceeds of sales will go to the schooling of underprivileged children in the Philippines. We have chosen Virlanie Foundation. Virlanie Foundation was established in 1992 by Dominique Lemay, a French social worker, with the help of his Filipino friends. Virlanie cares for children in need of special protection - those who are among the poorest of the poor, the abandoned, abused, exploited, neglected, and orphaned.  https://www.createspace.com/5522912

A Rose For Gaza Gaza is a garden full of roses. Stone roses. Rock roses. No petals to crush and bruise to release their fragrance. Only dust. Dust and the stench of death. No green space left. No sweet tranquility, peace or quiet. No escape. No garden of Eden here. No gateway to paradise. Rubble and rock roses. So I shall plant a rose for Gaza in my green space, in my tranquil garden. I won’t bruise it, just gently sniff its fragrance and hope that one day fragrant roses will bloom again in the garden of Gaza. What else can I do? Published in Zaira Journal 1 Half of the proceeds of sales will go to the schooling of underprivileged children in the Philippines. We have chosen Virlanie Foundation. Virlanie Foundation was established in 1992 by Dominique Lemay, a French social worker, with the help of his Filipino friends. Virlanie cares for children in need of special protection - those who are among the poores...

Sunshine and Shadows There are black clouds lingering over me. Casting shadows. Even though there’s a big red sun above  shinning down on me. Warming my face. Caressing me. reminding me of other sunshine days when the rays beamed more sweetly. The clouds make today too close, too hot, yesterday too far away. And the rays are stabbing me sharply. Hurting me. No longer warm and sweet but hot and sour.  Piercing me.  Cutting me like icy splinters. Because there’s cold there as well, coming from somewhere. This sun is too bright for me to see clearly, too red and swollen, like my eyes feel now. Heavy. Black with shadows. So I’m waiting for the rain to fall. Fall away. Drop by drop until they’re empty and cold. And I’m waiting for more cold days to come. And I’m waiting for the empty clouds to pass  and the sun to shine again and warm me if it can. First published in Aubade, September 2015 ...

Transformed We were such special people then,  flying high above the rest, like the arrogant angels we saw  playing way above the clouds. We could almost touch them with our arms outstretched as we danced our way through  a youth of endless possibilities. But other people were unimpressed. They had no wish to touch the angels,  or reach the stars, even if they could. They looked down to us, not up. Laughed and shook their heads at our strangeness and waited for our dreams to fracture as theirs had done. We did not hear the soundtrack of their voices. Did not see that their dreams had split open  and rotted away consuming them in the decay. Now we have become the rest and know that we were not so special then.  But just practicing for a life that would elude us  as our dreams remained dreams. Dreams which became decayed imaginings  growing dusty with time and fading. Like them, we were consum...

                         Washed Away         Cool cleansing water running over me,         washing away my sins, my impurities,         Cleaning me up, getting rid of the villainy         and lack of chastity.         Absolving me.         But who’s to say they should be washed away,         like the scruffiness of childhood innocence.         Who should judge these scents and tastes and sweats          of a life cleanly and clearly remembered.         What sins, what villainy?         I wished they could remain unwashed and pure          retaining their essence within my reach.         Hanging about me in my lived in face....

The Bucket Man I saw the Bucket Man today, Upside down, his head in his bucket, his arms folded tight to entertain the crowd. “It’s my living”, his sign says, “puts a roof over my head”. Such focus and fitness, such determination, such imagination, such creativity. Will it lead him him  to a different place, one day, this man and his bucket? And what if his parents were wealthy and had sent him to Eton or Harrow, What then for the Bucket Man? Such focus and fitness, such determination, such imagination, such creativity. Would it lead to a different place for this man and his bucket? But he does well, it seems. And for every coin in the bucket there’s a ‘thank you’ and a thumbs up from an arm released from it’s fold. He’s a popular entertainer, on facebook now and Twitter. So, what if one day his head meets up with the treasure in his bucket? Will he kick his bucket away and pay to send his kids to Eton or Harrow...