Turn Of the Tide

We must wait for the tide to turn.
It will carry us away
wave after wave
gathering up the debris
which surrounds us
sucking it up like so much dust
getting rid of it all,
everything going
with the flow.
We must wait for the tide to turn.
It will bring us home
leaving new things
there with us.
Bits and pieces.
Leaving them for us to find
so that we can take
what we need
everything
we want.
Or should we swim against the tide?
See where it takes us.
We could try.
It couldn’t be worse.

http://voxpoetica.com/prompts/

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

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

Roundabout

He picked us up near Torino,
a dapper Frenchman
with an impressive moustache.
He was going to Nice.
So were we!
Such luck.
One lift
all the way from Torino to Nice.
We settled back to enjoy the ride.
We came to a roundabout.
With gesticulations of frustration
and twitches of his moustache,
he missed the turning.
We went round again
and the next time,
he missed it again.
The third time we were ready
to call out and point it out
in good time.
But with more expansive gesticulating
and moustache twitching
he still missed it.
There were many roundabouts
between Torino and Nice.
We came to know them intimately.
On arrival we were hugged and kissed
in thanks for our help.
Without us, who could say were he’d be.
Not us, for sure!
He invited us to accompany him
to Monte Carlo the next day,
if we would like to.
Yes! We would like to!
We turned up at the allotted time and place,
but he never came.
So, we never went to Monte Carlo.
Possibly he never went there either.
We imagine him still,
going round and round a roundabout
somewhere in Nice,
his moustache twitching in frustration.
He’ll be a very old man by now.

First published in Ramingo Magazine, Issue 1, 2017

https://www.amazon.com/Ramingos-Po…/…/0998847658/ref=sr_1_1…

https://www.amazon.com/Ramingos-Porch-Issue/dp/0998847658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511617834&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Ramingo%27s+Porch

the Ramingo's Porch, Issue 1 (Volume 1)

Poems, stories, plays, essays, words upon words upon even more words, all for your reading pleasure. The Ramingo's Porch is published 4X per year, and it a collaborative effort spanning deserts and oceans.

AMAZON.COM

http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/1366664

Dragonfly

It was so beautiful,
gleaming huge and iridescent
gold and green and blue and black.
With wings that should have been clear,
filled with shining rainbows
not like this, twisted at strange angles
and dulled with sticky silk.
Not stuck there waiting
to be prepared for some spider’s supper.

I held it gently
and took it from the web.
I carefully removed the sticky silk
and saw the rainbows sparkle as they should,
saw it’s eyes brighten and gleam
with the prospect of freedom.
It took a while, this disentanglement,
a delicate task to free this fragile creature.

And when it was ready,
I opened my fingers and
let it fly away.
It bit me then.
No parting kiss,
but a bite that
left a bruise.
Such gratitude!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0692934758/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0692934758/

Leaded Light

The glass is cut,
so carefully cut,
so carefully arranged
to break up the light
as it reflects it.
Smooth joints
enhanced
with curving strips of soft lead
to fragment the light.
Light cracked by lead,
bright white
or gilded by sunshine
or bent into rainbows
refracted
to paint colours in reflected shadows
to fall in straight shafts onto grey paving.
The reflection is fragmenting
as it falls
breaking up the grey,
so that even the shafts
of multi-coloured illumination
can make no sense of it.
There’s no sense to be made.
The paving is crazy
now,
simply crazy.

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

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

Alien

They emerged from the cute blue eggs
of our Blue Araucanas.
With every one a cockerel when grown,
we decided to have one for dinner.
Under the grey blue plumage,
the skin was blue,
which was quite a shock,
a little alien,
but cooked it was fine, normal,
as expected
and the flesh was white,
as expected.
But when carved,
the bones were blue,
Disconcerting,
off putting,
a little alien.

And now these red feathered birds
have appeared as if from nowhere,
their eggs pink.
And when they hatched and grew,
all were hens,
each clutch carefully hidden,
each batch of chicks larger then the last.
A little strange,
a little alien.
And then, at last, there were cockerels.
They were too many and too large, so
we decided to have one for dinner.
Under the red plumage
the skin was pink,
which was quite a shock,
a little alien,
but cooked it was fine, normal,
as expected
and the flesh was white,
as expected.
But when carved,
the bones were pink,
Disconcerting,
off putting,
more than a little alien.

There are more of them now,
growing ever larger.
I think that soon,
the dinner tables
will be turned.

https://otvmagazine.com/2017/11/15/alien/

Alien

By Lynn White They emerged from the cute blue eggs of our Blue Araucanas. With every one a cockerel when grown, we decided to have one for dinner. Under the grey blue plumage, the skin was blue, wh…

OTVMAGAZINE.COM

Spanish Room

We were pleased when the smiling nun
shook her head.
They were full, the lorry driver told us.
He was disappointed.
He thought we’d be safer
in the out of town convent than in the city.
He’d grown concerned for our safety
on our long journey through France.
He was nice - ‘doux, comme la sucre’
my friend would often tell him.
But he didn’t understand her accent.

He said his lorry wouldn’t fit
the narrow streets, so
we took a cab to the pension he knew.
Our first Spanish room
and we were happy!
The tiles were cool, if dusty.
We covered the TV.
We didn’t need it.
Two single beds pushed together
with one mattress
to make a ‘cama matrimonial’,
normality in Spain.
The owner was nice,
‘doux, comme la sucre’
my friend told him.
But he spoke no French.

We shopped in the corner shop with
it’s curved window
and explored the streets
of clubs and cafes and bars and lively people
enjoying the night.
And then we returned home.
Home to a locked door that
no amount of banging or shouting would
cause to open.
A friendly passer by understood our plight
and clapped his hands loudly.
A man appeared with a bunch of keys,
enough to fit the locks of several streets.
Normality when Franco reigned.
He let us in with a smile.
He was ‘doux, comme la sucre’
my friend told him,
but he didn’t understand.

Forty years later we found the street.
The curved shop window gave it away.
It was all still there, though only in facade,
waiting for reconstruction.
It was our first Spanish room
and we were happy.
The facade of a memory that
is still there and remains:
‘doux, comme la sucre’.
And we understand.

http://magazine.thebluenib.com/

Sea Horse

It was on the first day of our seaside holiday
that I found him
washed up,
stranded,
spat out by the sea
and swimming alone in the rock pool.
I had never seen a sea horse before,
only pictures in a book.
I used my shoe to fish him out
and ran back quickly,
one shoe on and one shoe off,
before the water leaked out.
I put him in the sink
and watched him swim.
He didn’t seem quite right.
Or maybe it was the pictures that were wrong,
or my memory.
He couldn’t stay in the sink.
My mother made that quite clear.
So I found him a jar in the cobwebby shed
and put him in that.
I fed him on bits
of bread,
minced meat
and mashed banana.
He spat them all out angrily.
I thought he would die from lack of food
and my mother said he couldn’t come home with us.
So I took him back to the waters edge
and released him,
gave him back
to the sea.
The next day I found him lying on the pebbles.
The sea had rejected him,
spat him out,
just as he had spat out my food offerings.
I carried him back,
in my shoe again
and put him
back
in the jar.
I’m older now and when I look at him,
I’m wise enough to know
that he is no seahorse,
but not wise enough
to know his name.
Only that the sea rejected him,
spat him out,
as he had rejected me.

http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/…/poem-sea-horse-by-lynn-w…

Poem: Sea Horse by Lynn White

Words by Lynn White Image by Christine Stoddard QuailBellMagazine.com*Editor's Note: ​ This poem was first published in Visual Verse , June 2017.

QUAILBELLMAGAZINE.COM

Tell It How It is

“Tell it how it is,” the manager said,
when she asked me to write the sign
and design the promotional material.
”Something eye-catching
and straightforward.”
Well,
I generally knew the owners,
and the people who were once owners.
I’ve lived here long enough,
longer than she has.
So I should know.
Yes,
I knew they were no longer with us.
I didn’t know if their past possessions
were antiques,
or nearly new,
or even used
or slightly soiled.
But I knew the one time owners,
knew they were no longer with us.
So I did as I was asked.
It was a snappy caption,
I thought.
Certain to grab the attention of
potential buyers.
Yes,
I always follow instructions,
I explained at my next job interview
and I know how to tell it how it is.

https://visualverse.org/submissions/tell-it-how-it-is/

Chill

I close my eyes

and listen

to the birds.

I can’t name them,

but it doesn’t matter,

I can still feast on their song.

Song,

well some sing beautifully,

others need to learn.

I sympathise with them,

I can’t sing either,

but there’s no shame

It doesn’t matter.

There’s no one to hear me

if I join in.

https://thebezine.com/portfolio/chill/

Chill

I close my eyes and listen to the birds. I can’t name them, but it doesn’t matter, I can still feast on their song. Song, well some sing beautifully, others need to learn. I sympathise with them, I…

THEBEZINE.COM

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.

http://www.thestraybranch.org/previous-issues/20-fallwinter-2017/

"The Stray Branch" by #20 Vol 17

Poetry by...A. Marie Kaluza, Abigale Louise LeCavalier, Adam Levon Brown, Ainsley McWaters, Amber Tran, Amy Jacoby, Andrew Hubbard, Ayaz Daryl Nielsen, Betty J. Sayles, Bradford Middleton, Claudia Messelod,I Cody Robinson, Daginne Aignend, Daniel de Cullá, Debbie Berk, Dr. Emily Bilman, Erren Geraud...

CREATESPACE.COM

On Our Watch

If it had been on his watch,
he would have seen,
he would have given the alarm,
would have been heard
and catastrophe would have been avoided.
She also was alert,
but it was not her watch
and no one heard her warnings.
On their watch we would have heard
the warnings.

But it happened on our watch
and we were sleeping.

http://www.versewrights.com/

Follow Your Leader

It’s so easy to be led,
to become part of the audience
to be seduced
by powerful words,
by the performance
on the stage where
leaders make followers.

Followers who will follow,
not herded like sheep
but running,
with the crowd,
trying to keep up,
seduced by the spectacle.

Individuals aren’t allowed
in the crowd
and don’t want to be there.
But, individuality
doesn’t have the warm glow
of follow my leader,
the togetherness,
the comradeship,
the shouted slogans,
the rousing tunes,
the ceremony.
It's for the few,
the one offs,
the weird,
the misfits.

And where is the crowd
being led to?
It doesn’t matter.
They’ll go!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1978206569/ref=sr_1_1…

Harbinger Asylum: Fall 2017

Harbinger Asylum is a literary and arts journal that seeks to bring the international poetry community to Houston poets, and Houston poets to the international community. We seek an honest range of ideas, expressions,…

AMAZON.COM

Shaken Not Stirred

These people here,
those people there.
What do they know.
What do they care.
What will touch their little lives,
to move them, shake them,
disarrange them.

What will pinch them,
wake them,
make them
sit up,
stop their begging
doglike, cringing.

I don't know
what it will take
to shake them up,
to make them fizz
and pop
out of their straight jacket.

https://literaryyard.com/2017/10/28/poem-shaken-not-stirred/

Uniforms

What shall I be,
soldier, sailor,
clown, maybe.
Grey suit, or blue,
tailored jacket, short skirt.
Hippie, maybe.
Now there’s a uniform!
Everyone different,
not conforming.

But, wearing the same
signs,
the signifiers,
of non conformity.
The badges
that identify those
waving the flag,
or burning it.

Beads and bangles,
shell suits, jeans,
leggings, jeggings, posh frocks,
taking us to our comfort zone,
Finding for us the warmth we crave.
A part or apart.

Perhaps we are all figments
as made up and tailored as the
uniform we choose.
Even when we change,
it’s hard
not to
choose a uniform.

https://literaryyard.com/2017/10/28/poem-uniforms/

Poem: Uniforms

By: Lynn White What shall I be, soldier, sailor, clown, maybe. Grey suit, or blue, tailored jacket, short skirt. Hippie, maybe. Now there’s a uniform! Everyone different, not conforming. But, weari…

LITERARYYARD.COM