Poetry - Lynn White

Brenda’s Turtle When I was a child, Brenda’s turtle walked into the hot, hot embers. No one knew why. So badly burned we thought him ready for an easeful, sleepy death. “No, no” said the vet, “very resilient, turtles, could live to be a hundred.” I would like to tell you that he made the hundred, but he’s not quite there yet, though he still seems happy enough. By Lynn White When I was a child, Brenda’s turtle walked into the hot, hot embers. No one knew why. So badly burned we thought him ready for an easeful, sleepy death. “No, no” said the vet, “very r… About This Website THEDRABBLE.WORDPRESS.COM Brenda’s Turtle By Lynn White When I was a child, Brenda’s turtle walked into the hot, hot embers. No one knew why. So badly burned we thought him ready for an easeful, sleepy death. “No, no” said the vet, “very r…

They Thought It Time They thought it time to build a cathedral with gothic towers reaching into the clouds. It seemed time but as it rose the dry ground crumbled and cracked around it leaving only a few distorted stones behind. It had seemed like time but it was too late, much too late the cracks were already open the foundations had fractured and there was no one to watch as it floated away with the clouds. https://eventhorizonmagazinecom.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/issue-8-w-covers.pdf https://eventhorizonmagazine.com/

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My Old Blue Pumps I kept them on, my old blue pumps. You see, I could see a broad band of sharp shells and pebbles and other flotsam between me and the sea so I kept them on, my old blue pumps, until I’d crossed over. I eased them off carefully but even so the sharp sand grazed my heels. Never mind, the sea would sooth them, wash away the pain with the ingrained sand. And it did as I swam. But at the end they were no longer waiting for me on the shoreline, my old blue pumps. No longer waiting when I emerged healed and refreshed, no longer waiting but captured by the sea and washed away with the rest. https://eventhorizonmagazine.com/

A Disappointing Day If they hadn’t asked her to smell the nice scent. If she hadn’t remembered the scent from before. There would have been no screams, no stamping up and down on the trolley. The nurse would still have her cap on and the doctor would have no fist or feet marks on his white coat, no red hand mark on his pale cheek. There would have been no shock, horror reports to those who had put away Red Riding Hood and were waiting anxiously for news of their little girl. But they did ask her. They did ask her. The scent wasn’t nice. She knew it. And there was no ice cream afterwards either. They’d lied about that as well. A disappointing day. https://thestorypub.com/2019/03/20/a-disappointing-day/ The Story Pub 20 March at 16:01  ·  Read Lynn White's "A Disappointing Day" at  The Story Pub . https://thestorypub.com/2019/03/20/a-disappointing-day/ .

Every Cloud Every cloud has a turquoise lining sparking in caught sunlight. You can see it   even though your eyes   are tight shut   against the light you know it’s true you can see that it is even though your eyes are shut tight against the light. Believing is seeing after all. https://eventhorizonmagazine.com/

Curly Cashews That’s what it said on the packet, ‘curly cashews’. But right now, I would like a straight cashew for a change, had enough of those that are curly. So I asked in the Health food shop. I asked in several Health Food shops. Some very strange looks were forthcoming, but no straight cashews. I don’t give up easily. I searched on Google. Perused Amazon. Lots of cashews, but in the photos all were curly. Looks like I will have to become a plant breeder, a hybridiser to satisfy this need, fast becoming an obsession, for a cashew that has no curl or curve. I believe someone has developed a straight banana, so in time, who knows what there will be. BLOGNOSTICS.NET Curly Cashews by Lynn White Curly Cashews by Lynn White That’s what it said on the packet, ‘curly cashews’. But right now, I would like a straight cashew for a change, had enough of those that are curly....READ MORE

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 beyond it’s edg...

Old Reds Molly was a red, her politics even redder than her hair. She met in the city centre pub every Tuesday night with the three Tommys, a Gramscian Tommy, a New and of course, Tommy the Trot. Every Tuesday night they met and argued about the Spanish Civil War. They’d been doing it for years, decades in fact every Tuesday night their voices undiminished by age growing louder and louder as the Guinness worked it’s magic spilling over a little as fists banged the table every Tuesday night. But the new Landlady was no respecter of age, “Youse come in here disturbing the peace again next Tuesday and yer all banned”, she cried! “Well”, said Molly ,“that’s not very comradely!” Quietly, at last they all agreed. https://mercurialstories.com/2019/03/17/volume-2-issue-4-red/2/

Every Breath It's interesting to consider that every breath I take has already been breathed by someone else, another person or creature. Been part of their breath. Perhaps that dog over there,   smelly and hairy,   licking it's own arse. I would prefer not to have   molecules of oxygen from it's breath entering my blood stream,   giving me life. But there's nothing I can do about it. Have to take what comes. Breath the air that's there wherever it's been before. Rebellion is not an option. https://thedrabble.wordpress.com/2019/03/15/every-breath/?fbclid=IwAR0Ti2urTchsHmz35UUBxKeZlCpUtxEA1Lt-5978aznShjQPijnDG0AK_ic

The Empty House It fascinated us as children, the empty house in the countryside where we walked the neighbour’s dog. Why was it empty? Who had lived there? We imagined secret passages leading to priest holes, walled up dead bodies and buried treasure. No one knew. But we knew that the dog was reluctant to go near and we had heard that dogs were sensitive to the spirit world. So we knew it was haunted. That ghosts lived there, spirits of the past. We dared each other to enter through the broken window. Maybe we broke it first, but I don’t remember that. In the end we all went in, leaving the dog outside. But there was nothing. Just a house. Empty. Ordinary. Not spooky. Just empty. I passed it today, all these years later. There’s no entering now. Police tapes surround it. Maybe the dog knew that the ghosts were of the future, not the ...

Mermaid It was the change in her hair she noticed first growing now like harsh thin weed but attached firmly attached and inedible. She tugged at it but the pain was too great to separate it from her head. And then her scales began to disappear her beautiful shiny scales washed away with her gills. Her brothers and sisters and the rest of the school swam around her still but she couldn’t hear them, couldn’t understand what they were saying. The art of communication had been lost washed away with her gills. What was she now? Neither fish nor fowl. Fowl, where did that come from? She ran her fingers over her skin, still smooth unfeathered up to now. She waited waited to see what would emerge. Then the next wave came and carried her to the beach so she crawled along the sharp sand uncomfortably on her swollen belly until she found a rock and clambered up then slithered down algaed slime into a recess a safe cave a haven with a shallow pool left by the tide, a birthing pool she thou...