Poetry - Lynn White

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

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 https://creativetalentsunleashed.com/…/writer-highlight-fe…/

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

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. ...

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

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

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 clo...

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 http://visualverse.org/submissions/reach-out/

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

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 https://silverbirchpress.wordpress.com/…/the-brooch-poem-b…/

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 http://pilcrowdagger.com/

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

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. First published in Setu, February 2017 http://www.setumag.com/20…/…/Popular-Setu-February-2017.html

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

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? I think so. http://www.withpaintedwords.com/view_submission.php…

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

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. Fi...

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#