Tuesday, 31 December 2019

Bits And Pieces
I loved Auntie Mary’s bits and pieces drawer.
Loved the metal box full of buttons
I laid out carefully
to admire the different colours,
the different shapes and sizes.
Some were very old
cut from outfits long gone.
I thought she should remember them
but she would never say,
only that she cut them from clothes discarded
in case she needed to replace those lost,
buttons were expensive back then.
I found a silvery chain
with a broken clasp
that glistened and gleamed
as I wrapped it round my fingers.
She said she couldn’t remember where she wore it.
I didn’t believe her, it was too beautiful to forget.
Then there were the discarded ornaments
that had once been on show,
presents from seaside places, so they said,
but it was the photographs I liked best.
Pictures of family I’d never met,
pictures of family I never would meet.
Now, I only remember the one of three young women,
my auntie and her sisters.
They were sitting on a wall with the sea behind them,
perhaps they had just bought one of the ornaments.
My auntie told me that people had said:
“just look at our Mary, showing her ankles!”
“I was very. daring”, she told me smiling.
I couldn’t that imagine the prim lady
in her always blue dresses
had ever been daring,
but she had hidden the picture away
because she thought it revealed too much.
On later visits I would always ask
to look in the ‘bits and pieces’ drawer
but it was never allowed again.
Perhaps it had already revealed too much.
BLOGNOSTICS.NET
Bits And Pieces by Lynn White I loved Auntie Mary’s bits and pieces drawer. Loved the metal box full of buttons I laid out carefully to admire the different colours....READ MORE

Monday, 30 December 2019

In Memoriam
She thought her large hands and feet
were due to her hard labour
one summer vacation
on an archaeological dig
in Germany.
It was there she met Max,
an Art student,
a Sculptor
who also had trouble finding shoes
large enough for his big feet.
Afterwards
he cycled to Florence to view ‘David’
in all his marbled flesh
and later
on his return
he slept on the sofa
in our shared student house.
In return
he carved a large number ’14’
in our sandstone gatepost
with a rusty spike
and a half brick
that he found
lying around.
Where are they now?
I don’t know
but still
the gatepost stands
in memoriam
a small footfall
to their passing by
that way
and still
there is no gate.


AMAZON.COM
Poetry, Short Stories, Interviews, Art, Photography with interweaving moods of humor, anxiety, happiness, love, sadness, mental health awareness, hope, faith. Many creative poets, artists, photographers, lyricists in each issue. Issue 2 includes interviews with Brett Siler of Rebore Records, Jess...

Sunday, 29 December 2019

Smile


It was the purr she heard first,

so loud it was almost a growl.

But a dog up a tree?

No, she knew that would be mad!

So she wasn’t surprised to see a cat 

when she looked up

and wasn’t surprised to see it smiling.

She expected it to be happy with so loud a purr.

You must be pleased to see me, she thought,

watching it stretch and sleepily curl.

She felt sleepy too so she curled like the cat.

And together they dreamed smiley dreams

until she heard a crash

as the branches broke

and the cat landed heavily in her lap.

Then she woke

to find

the cat had disappeared.

Only the smile remained.

And that weighed nothing at all.







Friday, 27 December 2019

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.


Tuesday, 24 December 2019

The Spirit Of Christmas To Come
The ghost slid down the rabbit hole
on a dark wintery night.
He expected to arrive in Wonderland
if such a place exists
and he believed it did,
just as he believed in ghosts and Santa Claus.
It was as he expected.
There was a full glass on a table.
He looked for a label saying:
“Drink Me”.
But there was no label.
So he drank it anyway.
It left a nice warm feeling inside him,
“spirit for the spirit”, he laughed aloud.
There was a plate of pastries.
He looked for a label saying:
“Eat Me”,
but there was no label.
So he ate them anyway,
all of them
every last crumb,
every succulent morsel of mincemeat.
He lay back contentedly
then smiled somewhat sheepishly
at the old man dressed in red carrying a large sack
who must have followed him down the rabbit hole.
He was looking none too pleased at the scene.
“Well”, said the ghost,
“Anyone can mistake a chimney for a rabbit hole
and we need a new Christmas story.”

 Banner design by TJ Edson.
ODDBALLMAGAZINE.COM
Banner design by TJ Edson.

Sunday, 22 December 2019

Christmas Tree
Trimming the tree was a Christmas Eve ritual
in my family.
Each year my cousin would come to help my mum.
They would carefully take the glass baubles from the box
that used to hold her big doll called Topsy.
Then they would put them all in their special place
in my family.
“No the elephant doesn’t go there,
that’s where the peacock should be
and the Christmas pudding goes above.”
Everything had it’s place on the Christmas tree
in my family.
There were shiny miniature crackers never to be pulled
and curly, coloured candles never to be lit, for economy.
No tinsel was allowed for that was cheating.
Only baubles to cover the tree, hiding the green.
The glass baubles had belonged to my cousin,
so had the tree. And earlier, to her mother and granny,
all in my family.
The only family to fall out over trimming a tree,
my cousin’s husband used to say with some truth,
as every year the arguments as to which
bauble should go where were replayed
in my family.
So much stress over trimming a Christmas tree,
that I think they drank Santa’s sherry!
They must have needed it!
And ate his mince pies,
after trimming the tree
in my family.


CALAMEO.COM
Free Cheeze Und Krackers No 6 e-zine

Friday, 20 December 2019

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

Thursday, 19 December 2019

I Saw A Bird
I saw a bird today,
just one.
I wasn’t alone,
many people saw it,
more came out to look
dusting off their long unused
binoculars.
Facebook was buzzing
like the insects used to buzz.
And so many tweets
trending for all those lost tweeters.
It made the local headlines,
then the national ones.
It flew a long way that bird,
then it was gone.

Wednesday, 18 December 2019

Silver Baubles
The little girl loved the glass baubles
loved their shiny surfaces
that could catch the light
and shine it back
loved the fragility that
she was not allowed to touch.
The oldest ones were especially fragile
like old people, she thought, so easily broken.
They had been bought by her grandmother,
her old dead grandmother,
so old she had never known her.
Their colours had faded,
it happens with time
she was told.
The glossy paint had cracked and peeled away,
it happens with time,
the heat and dryness does it
like wrinkles and flaking skin
even here where cold and damp prevails,
yes, it happens with time,
even here.
But the baubles were still shiny
gleaming silver
underneath underneath their fading colours.
The old people she knew weren’t glossy
just wrinkled, dry and fragile.
She wondered when they would become silver.
She knew that just a touch could break a bauble
shatter them
so they no longer existed
just like her grandmother
and they other dead people.
She wondered if they became silver,
perhaps it was after they died.



Spillwords.com presents: Christmas at Spillwords: - Silver Baubles, a poem by Lynn White, who lives in North Wales. Her writing is influenced by issues ...

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Spillwords.com presents: Christmas at Spillwords: - Silver Baubles, a poem by Lynn White, who lives in North Wales. Her writing is influenced by issues ...