Poetry - Lynn White

Running On Empty We take care how we fill our shoes. Our trainers and boots. Our flats and heels, stilettos and cuban. They may match our mood, specially chosen, or be eternal representations of our unified self. So surely something of us must remain when they are emptied. Not just our smells and mis-shapes, evocative as they are, but something more fundamental. Something spiritual. Something symbolic. See here empty shoes laid out tidily in rows. Blocked together on a grass field or concrete yard. Rows upon rows of them that once contained the school children now shot dead, our children. See here empty shoes piled high in untidy heaps. Heaps and heaps of them, that once contained peaceful people now massacred, bombed, burned. Our people spanning place and time without end. https://pondersavant.com/2019/11/17/lynn-white-ltnc-series/

Cover The Mirrors All the mirrors were covered every night in my grandmother’s house draped with coloured cloths like the budgie’s cage. She was worried that a soul might wander and be sucked into the reflective glass and she thought the souls of dreamers were very vulnerable. I thought that the budgie must be covered because at night even with the door closed, his soul might fly the cage and disappear into the mirror. Sometimes she forgot to cover the cage, though never the mirrors and then I would examine the mirrors carefully to check that it was me in there and not his feathered soul. Then I would check his cage to make sure that he was still inside with his soul intact She told me not to worry that his cage was only covered to make it dark so he would sleep. But I didn’t believe her. It made no sense if it was dark anyway. So I always checked the mirrors. http://www.praxismagonline.com/cover-the-mirrors-by-lynn-w…/ PRAXISMAGONLINE.COM "Cover T...

Night Sky She thought the night sky was like a puzzle where you had to join the dots, the glittering cairns pin point sharp which marked the pathways to the moon, to Venus, to the sun and beyond. Sometimes a cairn would come apart and a piece would fall to earth. She would catch it there, hold it in her hands let it warm them let it shine through then she would let it go. http://www.withpaintedwords.com/view_submission.php… WITHPAINTEDWORDS.COM Read Night Sky by Lynn White on www.withpaintedwords.com - home of Short Stories & Poetry @  www.withpaintedwords.com  - home of Short Stories & Poetry - Read Night Sky by…

The In- Betweeners We are the In-Betweeners gathered round the fire. The flames will cleanse, they said, purify, make you fit to fly. And you can watch  the ones below flickering dancing flaring alight, a living fire of the impure dead. Gather round! Listen to them  as they crackle and scream. It’s only hot enough here to purify,  they said, but it’s still too warm much too warm hot as hell it seems. Only enough to purify,  they said hell is hotter, surely not. So here we are,  the In-Betweeners  too warm  but still not feeding the flames. They say there’s a heaven  that the pure can reach  when they grow wings  and fly above the flames but how can they? It’s too warm  for wings not to singe not to frazzle surely. So gather round, it’s here we’ll stay too warm but not in flames and careful not to fall below. https://www.bo...

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"Leave my loneliness unbroken" Self Contained There used to be a man who would sit here on this bench every day gazing at the view. He was always alone. He would stretch out his arms  across the back of the bench so that he filled it, completed it. Though he was always alone there never seemed space for anyone else he seemed complete in his aloneness whole. So there were no conversations, or even “good mornings”. He didn’t seem to need them. So we all passed by. And now we can sit there with the view, with his view and wonder where he is. And wonder if he is still alone. And wonder if he is lonely. https://hereticsloversmadmen.com/2019/10/22/quotable-poe-week-four-lynn-white/

Autumn Rain Vertical, or horizontal, autumn rain falls from heavy misty clouds, but when caught by a sunbeam it makes glistening slides   shimmering across the rock and falls   in bright white tails or snakes   like silver where   the mountains   leak it.

Summers Survivors It’s that season of mists again. The season of damp decay, of naked trees, of fallen leaves ready to be walked through, kicked up, thrown around, admired, pressed, preserved for prosperity, for the future. The season of mists which blurs the landscape, as it strives to cover the nakedness of the trees, as it hides the future which will surely emerge. Maybe this time the future will be orange like the oaks now, the summer’s survivors, the last of the clothed trees, clothed in orange now.

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A Model Woman She set out to become a model woman. It was what her mother taught her. But her mother’s models   were rooted in the past, mannequins really and no longer in vogue, so her attempts were confused. Conformity was the issue but to which age, which youth should she conform now or then. It took her a long time, a lifetime. A lifetime of making up, of trying on and discarding, a lifetime of self discovery, a lifetime to throw away the wigs and become herself. https://ninemusespoetry.com/2019/11/07/one-poem-by-lynn-white-5/

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A Dormouse Dreams “Let me out, let me out!” cried the dormouse. “I don’t want to live in a teapot, not even in a dream! Let me out, let me out before the water boils for tea!” “Boiled dormouse! Now that could be a tasty morsel” Hatter said thoughtfully. “But would it be worth the risks of mousicide? We must consider” All nodded in agreement. “Let me out, let me out!” cried the dormouse. “Escape is difficult.” said the March Hare, “To escape you must go back, through the glass like she did,” nodding towards Alice, “but backwards and as we know, time only moves forwards.” All nodded in agreement. “It’s getting late,” said the White Rabbit. “But where is the glass, there is no glass!” cried the Dormouse. All nodded in agreement. “It’s time for tea!” cried the White Rabbit. And time waits for no one, not even a mouse. http://www.sirenscallpublications.com/…/SirensCallEZine_Aug… http://www.sirenscallpublications.com/pdfs/SirensCallEZine_August2019.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2ReVvmha-GgXXzYEHhTh...

Doll My little princess. My china doll with your peachy skin and golden hair. In pink frills I dressed you up, combed you and curled you. Made you into my special pet, my little angel, to be loved and cherished. My creation. My little girl. But all the time you were making up yourself, getting ready to smash the porcelain, and break out to become the creation you had already made up even before you painted and inked your pearly skin, combed your hair straight, and gelled it into jagged spikes with a pink splash. Shockingly, piercing the past, you broke out into your future. For you were never a princess, never a doll, and most of all, little girl, you were never mine, never mine to mould. https://www.animalheartpress.net/p/purchase-from-ashes.html ANIMALHEARTPRESS.NET Pre-Order 'From The Ashes' Pre-order From The Ashes An international anthology of womxn's poetry Edited by Amanda McLeod & Mela Blust Official release date Nov... ...

This Is Not An Egg The egg box was so sculptural with it’s peaks and troughs like a metaphor, a mirror of life in textured paper, I thought a giant version could easily become an acclaimed art installation and I thought I could make it. And then I remembered the glasses left behind in a museum of modern art by error or intent, real glasses, not the “ne sont pas les lunettes” Magrittean sort, I could feel some guerrilla art hatching inside me. I fetched the pot egg from under the broody hen and pondered the possibilities on the way to the gallery. There, I placed the egg box on a table, sneaked it in between the other exhibits then I placed the Magrittean egg inside. Just the one egg seemed most fitting especially since one was all I had. I had already written the title card. Such a work deserved two titles one above and one below the artist’s name, my name, of course. First came: “THIS IS NOT AN EGG” and underneath: “THIS IS NOT AN EXHIBIT” It was perfectly placed and looked ma...

Sleepwalking I thought I’d been dreaming on this dark starless night with the moon on the wane. But they said it was no dream, while asleep I’d been walking sleepwalking disoriented sleepwalking somewhere some time perhaps sleepwalking into my to be lived future living but not living the dream passing the statues of my past times standing in line. Me as a child growing up growing older and older. Each one an effigy of a time my time my past time. Now, awake or asleep I’m disoriented sleepwalking into uncertainty as the full moon approaches. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1694669785?fbclid=IwAR2XS55BTd-gKc1i30jQBJtkaSc8gFhOP4BiwHXfgZuRhFMKLI66q4JHORk

With Open Eyes I have my eyes open now and 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, like I remember when my eyes were closed clear and unblemished creamy white and pink and blue. I want want to see it framed by trees, I want to see the rocks become flowers again. I want to go back to where the birds are singing breaking up the sky with flight. Does it still exist, this place? I don’t think so. Will it ever exist again? I must believe so. http://thetypescript.com/the-earth-is-broken-and-with-ope…/…