Tuesday, 28 March 2017

Turning to Ice
Snowflakes lit by sunbeams
blowing gently,
fragile as shadows
making rainbows in the sun.
Smiling in the soft light.
So soft.
So soft.
Catch them quickly in your hair
to melt them.
Time has past and
they're already harder now,
even though the sun
is still shining and smiling.
Blindingly bright.
Crunchy crystals.
Jewels
glistening still.
Shining like diamonds,
but harsh
in the sunlight
while it lasts
Cooler now as
the light starts fading.
The surface is melting.
Shiny where the sun
still catches,
but fading,
giving way to ice.
Losing it's smile.
And we're skidding, sliding
beyond control.
slipping away,
blinded by tears of ice.

https://spillwords.com/turning-to-ice/


Sunday, 26 March 2017

Soul Searching
Will I find you shining still
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

Friday, 24 March 2017

On the Edge
I’m standing on the edge,
on the rim
of the perimeter,
on the outside, looking....
I’m not sure where I’m looking,
outwards over the horizon
or inwards to the inner depth,
the inside of something.
The inner void or the outer space.
Face or about face.
But there’s no confusion.
Both faces are the same,
I think...
Can somewhere be full
of emptiness?

http://heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/poetry-by-lynn-white




Thursday, 23 March 2017

May Queen

They crowned her the queen of May,
the little girl.
Chose her for her purity. 
Pure and white and smiling.
Unblooded.
Golden curls
held by red ribbons,
and entwined with flowers
topped with sweet smelling may.
Spring is here,
you see.
New shoots springing into life,
so we’re ready to be
reborn and ready to play
the game.
Ready for the circle.
Ready to go
round and round again.
Like the dancers she watches
weaving their ribbons round
the maypole.
The maypole phallus they’ve planted 
in the ground and
bedecked with ribbons.
Red and white.
Red and white ribbons of menstrual blood 
and semen.
Round and round
She watches from her throne.
Round and round.
Then come the Morris Men.
Bells jangling their presence.
Sticks clashing with their power.
Flags waving
to announce 
their virility.
They crowned her the queen of May,
the little girl.
A crown of sweet blossom
and hidden thorns.




First Published by Community Arts Ink, Reclaiming Our Voices, 2015



Wednesday, 22 March 2017

Waiting
I’m not waiting for ageing or changing,
for growing,
restoring, or
recreating
the mask.
I’m not waiting for structures to collapse
and reform
and reshape
and remake
themselves
from the ruins.
I’m not waiting for the revolution
in thinking,
in acting,
in feeling,
to happen
when the walls finally fall.
No.
I’ll dig the tunnels.
Then I’ll wait.
Wait for you
to scramble through
to greet me
then we’ll be away,
through
with our waiting.

https://issuu.com/fragmentsofchiaroscuro/docs/fragments03_v07



Monday, 20 March 2017

Release
I could have come home sooner,
Made the journey home.
but that home would not have been my home.
I could have joined you sooner,
but you would have to leave your home
and join me in a place
that could never be our home.
So I stayed.
I stayed
and stayed.
I stayed
longer.
As long
as it took
for you
to come home
and become the person
that you once were.
First published in Writers Ezine, March 2017
http://mag.writersezine.com/
https://issuu.com/writersezine/docs/march_2017_issue


Sunday, 19 March 2017

Bury Me Deep
Bury me deep in the tall meadow grass
and bury me deep in your arms.
Lie with me here in the sun ripening flowers
where the blue of the sky hides the clouds.
Bury me deep in your cool white sheets
and kiss my eyes and my mouth.
And as the warmth of your body flows in to mine
I’ll bury you deep in my arms.
Oh, bury me deep beneath darkening skies
and hold me close to your heart.
And buried deep with our love complete
we’ll sleep covered over in stars.
But the future lies with us heavy and dark.
It has bitter sweet memories of now.
With the tastes of the past buried deep in our love
the tastes of the future are sharp.
I can see both the stars and the blackness of night,
the blindness and brightness of love.
The past and the future cast shadows of time
so bury me deep in your love.
And bury me deep in the tall meadow grass
and I’ll bury you deep in my arms.
And lie with me here in the sun ripened flowers
where the blue of the sky meets the clouds.

http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/the-unreal/poem-bury-me-deep-by-lynn-white

http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/the-unreal/poem-bury-me-deep-by-lynn-white

Friday, 17 March 2017

Reach Out
Where are you?
There was a time when
I knew where to find you,
knew the places and spaces
you inhabited
in my dreams,
in my day
and night
dreams.
You would be waiting there,
waiting to be found,
waiting to come
to me.
Now
it's harder to find you,
to recognise your shape and form.
You are becoming fragmented and ephemeral,
floating forms in a damp mist.
Reach out.
Hold on
to me.
Don't pass me by.
It's such a long time since you left,
perhaps it's me who's letting go,
me who has forgotten how to reach you.
Forgotten to reach out to you.
Reach out.
Hold on
to me.
Don't let me fade
away.
First published in Visual Verse, March 2017



Thursday, 16 March 2017

Letting Go

I dreamt I saw you.
Perhaps I did see you
in the distance of my 
imagination.
And I caught the moment
stilled in shock
and 
held on to it.
I held it 
and
the past held
for another moment,
our past,
and then I freed it
to fly 
away
like a bird,
as if you

were a bird.


First published in Literature Today, Feb 2017


Tuesday, 14 March 2017

The Brooch

We sat on the dirty stairs 
holding hands and looking sad.
His name was Ralf
and tomorrow at
"la bonne heure"
he was
leaving Paris, 
going home to Geneva.
He gave me a brooch made of metal,
two hands breaking a rifle in two.
I pinned it on my jacket,
the black leather one
that was stolen
some years
later.
I bought a new jacket,
also black leather,
also stolen 
later.
I could have bought a new brooch,
identical to the one I had lost.
But I never did.
I couldn't replace the connection lost.
Lost
when I lost
the brooch.


First published in Silver Birch Press, Lost and Found Series, March 2017


Monday, 13 March 2017

The People Are Sleeping
The houses are sleeping now,
lit only by moonlight.
The lights are turned off
until the dark morning.
All are tucked up cosily
under soft duvets.
Work is finished,
homework completed and forgotten,
games packed away.
All can dreaming sleepy dreams
undisturbed
till they wake tomorrow
and the new day begins to play
it’s familiar tune.
The houses are sleeping now,
lit only by moonlight,
smokey still from the storms of dust,
almost dark, unrelenting
darkness.
Lights out for ever.
All lying in a bed of rubble.
All finished, done,
beyond disturbing.
All dreams ended.
No waking tomorrow.
No more tomorrows
for them
as the new day plays it’s old tune.
The people are sleeping still
as the coins are tossed,
the dice are thrown,
the cards shuffled
and the game
of chance
resumed.
First published in Armageddon Issue, Pilcrow and Dagger, February 2017

Sunday, 12 March 2017

A Fictional Account
This story is fiction.
Made up.
Made up like a face.
First the base,
the foundation,
then the shadows and highlights,
the blushers and sparklers,
the reds and the blues
to add interest and shape.
Then lines for emphasis.
Black,
thick night time black,
outlining the fiction.
So, there was a base
for this fantasy.
There was some foundation.
Even a made up story
has some links
with reality.
A spark from a dream,
an inspiration
from experience,
mine, or yours, 

or someone else’s.
Something written,
something sung.
A word, a phrase, a line
from someone’s life,
their fantastic real life,
or imaginings.
becoming real
in the telling,
when the make up
is removed
and the secrets
are revealed
between the lines.


http://www.lulu.com/…/true-…/paperback/product-23068717.html

Friday, 10 March 2017

Regrets
Regrets are best forgotten,
laid to rest in peace or
in restless confusion.
Dump them with the other debris,
the detritus of the past
no longer needed.
They will be taken away in time,
disposed of
in the future,
by the future.
Displaced by more things
to regret
and forget.
And by more things to keep
and remember.

Thursday, 9 March 2017

Flight Of Fancy

Fly with me my fancy man
and I’ll take you to places 
that you haven’t been,
but only if that’s what you fancy.
We’ll flit over mountains flapping our wings 
on our magical flight of fancy.
We’ll hover above cities of silver and gold,
and stopover wherever we fancy.

Come fly with me, my fancy man,
and find a little of what you fancy.
But hold on tight as we climb up
close to the sun, then go 
sliding down moonbeams
avoiding the planets, way over the spires
and the earth towers, over the clouds,
right out of the rain showers.
There’s no plain sailing for us in my fancies.

Then hold on tight as we start speeding down, 
down under the clouds in our fancy
we’re still tripping the light fantastic.
But we’re frantic to find our fantasy land

at the end of our flight of fancy.


http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/the-unreal/poem-flight-of-fancy-by-lynn-white

Wednesday, 8 March 2017

Breaking The Ice

It needs strength to break the ice
when it’s frozen as solidly as
silence.
Or so I thought.

It needs strength to break the ice,
to break the mould and
reform.
Or so I thought.

But just suppose,
the ice gives up it’s power
and allows the colour 
to break through, bright
so the delicate flowers can form,
can bloom, can flourish fragile.
Will they then open up
through the self shattered ice,
and melt the frozen silence
to make a space,
an opening
for a warmth,
that will shatter
the now thinning ice?


Sunday, 5 March 2017

Now and Then

Now the clouds are pressing down
making everything grey,
everything misty. 
It’s impossible to discern which way
people are facing.
It looks like everyone
is facing both ways,
so it is impossible to know who to follow,
impossible to know which path to take,
which is the good and which is bad.

Then, in the old days
it was all so clear.
This was the way.
These were the good guys,
the brave guys with the guns,
sending out their scouts 
from the circled wagons
of peaceful pioneers
in search of a better life
in the vast empty land.
Protecting them from 
the bad guys,
the savages,
the cowardly braves
with the bows and arrows 
and scalping knives.

It didn’t always go to plan.
But the cavalry usually
arrived just in time.
And the good guys 
always won
in the end.

Didn’t they?


First published in Setu, February 2017

Friday, 3 March 2017

Thoughts on Swallowing a Butterfly

Butterflies,
such a fragile incarnation
of what went before.
Warriors, according to the Mayans, 
dead warriors ready
to be transformed,
transformed into butterflies.
Butterflies, 
surely too fragile 
to make warriors,
too easily destroyed
in their new metamorphosis.
But  they can wait
for their next transformation
So take care if you swallow a butterfly.
Butterflies,
vigorous egg layers
that can reproduce themselves,
warriors,
mutating again to find
new ways to fight back,
to invade the invaders,
enslave the enslavers,
exploit 
the new possibilities.
So take care if you swallow a butterfly.
And I can wait.
I have been waiting a long time
to see Henry Kissinger choke
on a butterfly.
I can wait.
Perhaps there’s still hope 
that the butterflies
will worm their way inside
and destroy them all.
I can wait.
So take care if you swallow a butterfly.

First published by Vanguard Press in Rise Anthology, 2017

http://www.vagabondbooks.net/

Wednesday, 1 March 2017

Help Me Over

Help me.
Help me over.
Help me cross.
I can see the sky 
framed
by debris,
by rocks,
by wire,
by dereliction.
Framed 
by sharpness and
impenetrable barriers.
I want to see it clear,
clear and unblemished
creamy white
and pink and blue.
Help me see it.
Help me over.
Help me cross.
I want want to see it
framed by trees,
I want to see
the rocks become
flowers 
again.
Help me.
Help me over.
Help me cross 
to the place
where the birds are singing
breaking up the sky with flight.
Does it still exist, this place?
I must think so.
Help me find it. 
Help me.
Help me over.

Help me cross



http://go.epublish4me.com/februarymarch_2017_issue_sneak_peek/10092674#