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Showing posts from December, 2016
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Death at Work Such a terrible thing, to go to work and not come home. To put yourself in danger, risk a fall or an infection just to do your job, earn your bread without hurting anyone. An accident happened or someone was negligent. So much grief unheard except by those close. Personal grief staying personal. Maybe some were heroes, maybe not. Some good, some less so. Just people. Soldiers though, they are always heros, especially when dead. Those sent out to kill for the politicians and the generals. It's automatic, goes with the territory, whoever's territory it is. Heroes when they kill the other guys. Heroes again when the other guys kill them. Murdered heroes the courts say now, unlawfully killed killed by criminals who should be brought to justice. Not corporate manslaughter to be forgotten. Criminals or someone else's heroes. Depends on your territory. https://iamnotasilentpoet.wordpress.com/2016/12/29/death-at-work-by-lynn-white/
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Wild Fruit I like the wild berries best. Juice spilling over. Bursting, staining my tongue purple or my lips red. Each one a new sensation. A little harder to come by, than the bland clones, the cultivars. A bit more of a struggle. And, it must be said, not always sweet. One never knows with these wild fruits. With each taste comes a surprise. Spit out the sour, take in the sweet. Such joy! Oh yes! the wild berries are the best. Published in The New English Verse, December 2016 https://www.cyberwit.net/publications/949 First published by Dawntreader, July, 2015
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The Hedgerow Fairies Where have they gone, the hedgerow fairies  in their harebell hats? I used to see them sitting under their leafy roofs  stitching their summer dresses of poppy and mallow petals with long silk threads  catching the summer sunlight as the smiling spiders spun. I miss them so, the hedgerow fairies in their harebell hats. I used to see them collecting armfuls of meadow sweet to stuff their nighttime mattresses, making doorways in their new toadstool homes with sharp stones. Maybe they’ve gone underground to escape the passing cars and tractors. Maybe they only come out at night now and stitch and stuff under the moonlight. I don’t know. But I miss them so, the hedgerow fairies in their harebell hats. First published in Vox Poetica, December 2016 http://voxpoetica.com/hedgerow-fairies/
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My Felt Hat Felt hats have a long history, or so I’m told. Back even to the Romans. Back to St Clement. Back to medieval Nurnberg. Back to the Roaring Twenties and the trilbies, bowlers and cloches. Perhaps some creative enough to be the product of someone’s fired up imagination. Maybe some were made in Tallinn, fairy tale hats from a fairy tale place. Creativity without bounds. Such hats are made there now and as a hat fanatic, of course I have one. I thought the dye might run in the rain and cause it to lose it’s crowning glory, in woad-like streaks down my face. But it hasn’t happened. I thought it would fail to spring back into its bowler shape when squashed. But it hasn’t happened. It’s still a crowning glory, my beautiful felt hat. https://silverbirchpress.wordpress.com/…/my-felt-hat-poem-…/
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 Melting The rock looms large above me, the petrified remains of the last time the sun burned, the time of giants. Giant rocks and giant creatures fused together in the fire. Look, There's on with a long nose! Or maybe it's a beak. And there's a human molar, surely. And here I stand, on my tiny rock. I'm lit now by moonlight, but soon the sun will rise and consume us, fuse us together and we are both so small, I am not sure that anything will remain. http://visualverse.org/submissions/melting/
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Aftermath Aftermath How can it be that someone I don't see,  only think  about sometimes, but never contact, or try to, leaves such a gap, in their final leaving. My life has not been changed. All is the same. So why the difference now that you're really in the past, when you were already part of my past and not of my future. Nothing has changed for me, not really, not in reality. So why do you occupy my thoughts in a different way. Why does my future feel different now you cannot be part of it, even though you never would be and I knew it. Perhaps because I can no longer dream you there. But why not when you could never be there and I knew it the same then,  as I know now. Why is it different, now even to dream? https://issuu.com/wandrmag/…/reflection_wr_mag_nov_dec_2016…
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River I look into the river and see myself in reflection. Colour fast but unstable, I move helplessly in it’s flow. I am constantly being moved and changed, but left stationary, moved but not moving on like the fishes and pebbles. Here I am, disturbed and abstracted, surrounded by this rippling, babbling, watery world, which leaves me unclear who I am and, more unclear about the solidity of my background and what is happening around me. I look into two worlds which are intermingling, becoming inseparable before my gaze. My own distorted image fades and breaks with the images behind and beyond me in the background of my life. This river is becoming a metaphor for my own confusion. For the displacement and fragmentation I feel inside. I am in danger of being broken up and washed away. Unable to bring myself together, I remain in pieces, undecided, lacking definition. It is also a metaphor which stretches beyond my person, into the confusion and fragmentation be
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BLUE NIGHT IN BLAENAU Blaenau Ffestiniog, Wales (2010) Blaenau Ffestiniog is the small town in north Wales where I live. It has a reputation for being grey and rainy, but sometimes when the weather is clear, we get an amazing dark blue sky at night. I painted this landscape after walking home on just such a night. Published in Topology, December 2016 http://www.topologymagazine.org/image/blue-night-in-blaenau/
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If I Were A Butterfly If I were a butterfly where would I fly? I could grace every home bringing good luck every time. Make sure that my children ate up all the weeds, and recycled the waste without judgement or hate. In a world that’s at peace I’d find my place. Hmm, if I were a butterfly I’d think this must wait. If I were a butterfly where would I fly? If my soul were parochial it would hang in my space, It would look pretty in my garden, propagate where I said, and keep watch with indulgence as my kids ate the rest. If I were a butterfly I’d think this was sad. A life is too short to live in the past. If I were a butterfly where would I fly? Like all souls of dead warriors for justice and peace,  I’d fly down the throats of the haters, war mongers, arms traders,  parasitic self servers. Yes. They’d choke on my body and ingest my eggs. My children would eat them, feast on them, thrive then fly on to t
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Seed Shells  The first seeds were sown a long time ago. When these small seed shells burst open they were scattered locally. They grew patchily at first, in Palestine, in Israel, in Lebanon and throughout the Arab world. There were only little streams to irrigate and fertilize them, so they often failed to thrive. But that was then.  Now the shells have grown bigger and the seeds have flown further. Further and further. And the streams have grown wider and longer. And more nutritious.  When the seed shells have burst in this century, they found ground that was even more fertile. So more and more has come under cultivation, irrigated and fertilized now from rivers,  rivers of blood. So well irrigated, so well nurtured and tended that the patches of brown soil became rare indeed. But there were some. Later the seeds spread wider over Gaza. As larger seed shells broke and splintered they found and colonised new areas  outside t
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The Lighthouse I was a little crazy to buy the old lighthouse. I knew it at the time. But I wanted to be somewhere, somewhere where I could shine, shine lamps out into the vastness, shine like a beaming beacon. And it was so high. It matched my mood and then some. Higher than high. Higher than high. There was no housewarming. No one came. There was no one to come. So, only I could relish the exposure. Only I could walk round the top of the tower and look over the edge into the dark deep depths. Only I could see the swimmer, a mermaid, surely? waving. Or was she beckoning as she approached the mooring. Only I could come spiraling down. Come down from the heights to open the door, to run down the steps to the mooring. And then the lamps went out. http://www.withpaintedwords.com/view_submission.php…
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A Grey Place? This is a grey place,  there's no denying. Grey slate, grey granite, grey houses built of both. And it rains a lot, there's no denying. Vertical, or horizontal, or swirling rain falling greyly from heavy misty clouds. But when caught by a sunbeam it makes glistening slides  shimmering across the slate  and falls in bright white tails  or snakes like silver where the mountains leak it. And spills heavily over rocks, it's foaming, frothing, yellow ruffed  cascades catching rainbows as they crash then spitting them back out  in a fine spray of colours. And now there's no grey  in the dark blue, black sky  filled with gold and silver twinkles. No grey at all in this place now, there's no denying. Published in Snapdragon, Welcome Home Issue, December 2016 http://www.snapdragonjournal.com/ First published by Silver Birch Press in Where I Live Series 2015
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Soul Searching Will I find you shining among the sharp pinpoint stars gleaming gold and silver? Or shall I search the ocean and find your spirit buried down there amongst the sand and pebbles? Perhaps I should comb the beach raking through it’s silver grains and broken shells. Only your restless soul could have washed up briefly there. You never liked beaches with their sandwiches of sandy bites and the boredom of sun seeking. No you wouldn’t stay there. I wouldn’t find you there. You were always the deep one, so maybe I should look deeper, deep into the blue black night beyond the white milkiness into the sweet soft starlight. There would be a place for your soul to hide and I could join you and rest a while, a long while with you again. First published in Writer's Ezine, December 2016 https://issuu.com/writersezine/docs/december_2016_issue
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                     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.         A testament to my life, an affirmation.         It didn’t take much water to remove them.         But I was already clean.         I can remember. Published in Whipers In The Wind, December 2, 2016 First published in Snapdragon “Your Wild And Precious Life”, September 2015 http://whispersinthewind333/
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Ground Force Gaza Another volley of stones. It’s frightening. Lucky we’re protected  with our body armour. Lucky we’re safe inside our tanks. Frightening though. So many stones. Such big rocks lobbed  by such little people. We’re not allowed to kill them if they’re under twelve. And orders are orders. But it’s difficult to tell sometimes. Could be worse though. Could be in a war zone with phosphorous flying and armour piercing shells doing more then scratch the paint. We could be fried alive in our tanks then. But now, here, only us can do the frying. http://cajaderesistencia.cc/caja-de-imprenta/caja1-numero2/white/