To My Old Friend Who Knows How It Is

What ever happened my old friend?
You know
right from wrong.
You know,
you saw with your eyes open.
You knew oppression,
abuse of power,
state terror,
apartheid.
You knew.
You know.
We boycotted,
we campaigned,
we did what we could.
Then
I would have shared anything with you.
Now
I wouldn’t even share my space,
wouldn’t stay in the same room as you.
What ever happened to you my old friend?
Rediscovering your jewishness shouldn’t mean
giving up your humanity,
negating your history,
seeing with your eyes tight shut
but you know
you know.
What ever happened my old friend
you know.

https://literaryyard.com/…/poem-to-my-old-friend-who-knows…/

https://literaryyard.com/2018/05/02/poem-to-my-old-friend-who-knows-how-it-is/

http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/1483719

Unicorn

I shouldn’t have done it.
I’ve always shunned
the spotlight,
always feared it.
Unlike the horses and dogs
who play the game,
perform,
do what’s expected
by their human providers,
by their audience.
I’ve always been afraid
of being seen
onstage
just in case
I was taken short
and golden notes
fell from my arse
and made
rainbows
brighter
than the spotlight,
upsetting
the lighting engineers.
I think we’re all the same,
we unicorns,
shy creatures.
That’s why we’ve
survived,
hiding
in dreams.

https://tropicalacedmagazine.weebly.com/issue-2

Artwork by Lynn White

In My Dreams

I have such beautiful dreams
inside my head.

Inside my head.
Struggling to get outside
into the ragged, jagged
outside life
which passes for normality.

Such beautiful dreams.

Such a perfect life
lying inside my head.
I would like it to be
on the outside.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/…/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_api_i_Z0agBbTP09J…

http://voxpoetica.com/just-hair/?fbclid=IwAR0735fHOD_ZQ6Nnj7TB3bOeX5VnTOwgjIfwhJ7r_Bs8OYKz4FWOrnwT_tA

AMAZON.CO.UK

Further Within Darkness & Light: A Collection of Poetry

Further Within Darkness & Light is a collection of poetry and verse, from across the world. Featuring the very finest of international talent. 212 poems, reflecting upon the darkness and light of life that exists within this world of ours. Poems of love, loss, mental anguish and hope that will ce...

Sore Fingers

At night my long hair was wrapped
in rags - pristine strips
of thick white cloth.
Sore fingers, my mother called them.
My unruly curls bandaged
into six stiff sore fingers,
to be unravelled in the morning
to reveal
shiny ringlets
ready
to be tied in bunches
with broad, bright, bias cut ribbons.

I wanted plaits.
All the heroines
in my childhood
books had plaits
I dreamt about plaits
fantasised about plaits.
No more sore fingers.
I wanted plaits.

Sometimes I untied the ringlets,
to my mothers displeasure,
and made untidy, unsuccessful plaits.
Plaits would ruin my hair, my mother said.
Would spoil it’s natural curl,
destroy it
in some
way
never
specified.

I didn’t care.
I hated ringlets.
I hated sore fingers.
I wanted plaits.

http://spillwords.com/sore-fingers/

https://spillwords.com/sore-fingers/

Rooks

There are just two pieces left.
Two fragments of our dreams.
Two castles in the air,
the remnants of a game
we played
where there was no winner.
Like a game of chess
with an improbable ending.
Just two rooks left on the board.
More flying over
our castles in the air
leaving them behind.

https://medium.com/dreamnoir/two-poems-cadbd3273d

Taped

I was pleased with my reel to reel recorder.
It was four tracks which was good,
as tapes were expensive.
More tracks, less tapes needed,
that was my reasoning.
My source of music was the radio.
Radio Luxembourg
fading
in and out
with lots of crackles.
Or Forces Requests on the BBC.
Or occasional Pop programmes.
Very occasional.
I hadn’t thought it through,
the source of my recordings,
so the quality was poor.
But I didn’t mind,
it was music,
my music
and I stuck with my reel to reel
enlivened by a transistor radio
and pirate stations
until the age of relative affluence
caught up with me.
Eventually it became an amp
for my boyfriend’s guitar.
But I never bought a cassette.

https://visualverse.org/submissions/taped/

https://issuu.com/…/docs/scrittura_magazine__issue_12__summe

https://issuu.com/scrittura_mag/docs/scrittura_magazine__issue_12__summe

Magical Child

In this strange new world
it’s hardly surprising
that a strange child
has slithered it’s way
through the dark passage,
the secret tunnel
that others have feared to enter.
In this strange new world
such magic is normal
and unsurprising.
So come to me,
magical child
and we will
find new secrets,
new passage ways
to a different future
and spread magic
as we breathe.

https://go.epublish4me.com/public/issue…

GO.EPUBLISH4ME.COM

Titlestand - Online magazines and books

Turn Of the Tide

We will 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.

https://uglywriters.com/2018/07/07/turn-of-the-tide/

UGLYWRITERS.COM

Turn Of The Tide - The Ugly Writers

We will wait for the tide to turn. It will carry us away wave after wave gathering up the debris which surrounds us

Dandelion clocks

The field was yellow
with dandelion flowers
only a week ago.
A field of sunshine.
I caught it at that moment,
a moment in time.
And now the moment has passed,
clocked off,
has become a field of clocks
which can’t tell what time it is.
Only that the yellow sunshine
was fragile,
as fragile as a dandelion clock.
Only that time has passed
leaving only clocks
that will soon be wished
away in the wind.

https://treehousearts.me/…/…/dandelion-clocks-by-lynn-white/

Sunrise

The rock looms large above me,
the petrified remains of the last time the sun burned
in the time of giants.
Giant rocks and giant creatures fused together in the fire.
Look!
I’m climbing now
Higher and higher.
Now I'm lit by moonlight,
but soon the sun will rise
and consume us,
fuse us together
the rock and I.
I am not sure anything will remain
after.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/…/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_api_i_Z0agBbTP09J…

Holiday

Even Death needs to take a break sometime.
Needs to sit on the beach in the sun
with his scythe hidden,
so as not to frighten the swimmers.
Well,
everything about Death has to be hidden.
There can be no exposure
beyond a few inches of face and hands,
hardly more than a woman in a burka.
Yes,
everything has to be hidden,
so as not to frighten the swimmers
ready
for when the holiday is over.

https://www.amazon.com/Scryptic-2-1-Black-Cha…/…/ref=sr_1_7…

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scryptic-2-1-Black-Chase-Gagnon/dp/1721736158

AMAZON.COM

Scryptic 2.1: Black and White Edition

Scryptic Magazine is a bi-monthly alternative art and literature magazine.

Spotlight On Writers

Lynn White

1. Where, do you hail from?

I'm from Sheffield in northern England originally. I went to college in Liverpool and never went back! So I lived for many years around Merseyside and still love Liverpool but I now live in Blaenau Ffestiniog, a small town in the mountains of north Wales.

2. What is the greatest thing about the place you call home?

It's a lovely community - safe, eccentric, beautiful! Pity it rains so much!!!

3. What turns you on creatively?

It can be almost anything - a phrase in someone else's writing, anger at some humanitarian injustice, a past event which comes to mind. I also enjoy the challenge of writing to a theme or picture prompt.

4. What is your favorite word, and can you use it in a poetic sentence?

In terms of my writing, probably 'dream' because it can mean so many different things. It appears a lot in my writing!

5. What is your pet peeve?

'Peeve' seems to me quite a small word or one referring to minor irritations rather than the big issues, so I will answer it accordingly! So far as writing goes, I think it would be those who expect to be paid for their work but expect editors/editorial teams to work for free. Scale that up to bigger issues and there are bigger 'peeves' (and bigger egos!) - not least that the only way to derive benefit from work or to have it valued is to be paid cash.

6. What defines Lynn White? 

I find that difficult to answer, I often wonder about it myself! Possibly people who know me would define me in different ways. I'm very focused, perhaps obsessive when I'm concentrating on something. I don't give up. I don't like loose ends or unfinished business so I see something through to an end that I can feel satisfied with. Increasingly some things going on in the world or so awful I turn off, don't want to know, then something will spark me and I'll be in full campaign mode...

http://spillwords.com/spotlight-on-writers-lynn-white/