Poetry - Lynn White

  The Fishermen The wall ran all along one side of the bay, steps up from the port at one end, down to the beach at the other. I climbed up the steps and looked over. So many fish. Huge fish. Swirling silver moons in a day blue sky. A net would have scooped them up   and broken with the weight. The fishermen were there with their rods set up, like the fish almost touching,   so many and so close,   making parallel black lines against the sky like a blue print for lunch provision. I walked down the steps to the beach. Few people were there so early. Morning was the fisherman’s time   of day, not the sunbather’s. I went back along the wall   when the fishermen were packing up, heading home for lunch. Carrying their fish, I thought.   But no, it was a delusion to imagine   they would eat fish for dinner. Not those fish, anyway. All were returned to the sea. Such is the sport of the fisherman. https://poetryandplaces.com/2020/09/29/the-fishermen-by-ly...

  The Devil It Is Play me a tune a little light music to sooth my soul, to bring me cheer in these troubled times. Play it louder louder play louder all of you together. Summon the angels. Don’t let the devil seduce me don’t let him take me don’t let him carry my soul away. https://litbreak.com/odyssey-in-the-afternoon-the-power-of-gods-a-familiar-story/

  A Familiar Story It’s a familiar story well told and many of us can identify with some part of him - Odysseus the escapee, Odysseus the wanderer, the adventurer, the explorer the leaver of a past life and embracer of the new. We’ve all desired to sail away   in boats that fly as quick as thoughts and at some point we’ve all   ate the sun god’s cattle and paid the price. We’ve all described our relationships as “complicated,” or wanted to. It’s a familiar story well told. Each landing was a new challenge in a newly discovered land inhabited by Other people, Other creatures monstrous beings to be vanquished by superior swords or stolen to serve   as housekeepers or herders, to be made into fish food if they resist.   It’s a familiar story well told. Then there’s the women the temptresses with their beautiful voices weaving with shuttles made of gold. Beautiful voices   but dangerous mouths enticing us with their cupid lips. And there’s always others, the on...

  The Power Of Gods He would have had an easier journey if he hadn’t harmed Neptune’s son. He should have beat a hasty retreat from the sailor-eating giant leaving him unharmed by anybody or nobody. And Aeolus’s gift of winds to speed them homewards was not a blessing when Neptune heard about it. So unsurprising that he magicked the sailors into letting the winds out of their bag   with a chorus of   “all together now”. What did he expect! Gods are powerful,   some more than others. The blinding his son was a fairly big offence in Neptune’s eyes and having control of the seas is a pretty impressive power. So, Odysseus paid the price. And then there was Circe. Not only the goddess daughter of Titan, Circe was also a witch, of course she was,   she was female   so it went with the territory, but her magic skills   were more renowned than most and thus more feared by men and rightly so. I wonder if he ate pork in his year long stay. I wonder if he counted...

  Odyssey In The Afternoon I remember that day of the voyage from the moment the dawn rose out of the golden globe and stretched out pink fingered roses into the blue of the morning, without knowing   what was to come after, in the afternoon when the wind took us to a strange land. But I embraced its strangeness and its indolent contented people who showed me the lotus and smiled   as I bit into the delight   of its flowers and fruits, savoured   it’s dreamy sensations with no need to wonder what would to come after, there were only afternoons, forever afternoons. But the moment   when I woke, shook myself awake, I dragged us all away out of fear of forgetting,   forgetting where I’d come from, forgetting where I should go and before   I forgot to leave that place with it’s sopheristic days   of perpetual afternoon.   And in the evening as night fell to envelop me stretching out its grey blanket and touching me with black, I wondered if ...

  Looking Through The Windows The windows are aglow. A cacophony of colour giving glimpses of other peoples’ lives. Snapshots into different worlds. Shapes still and moving. A little exposure sometimes a mystery revealed. Stories to be told from different imaginings. A cacophony of colour Tati-esque as if Monsieur Hulot has taken his vacation with Mon Oncle in the twenty-first century, until the lights go out. https://visualverse.org/submissions/looking-through-the-windows/?fbclid=IwAR2ZxHcOaSTRN4HhW4-7sj_8FRrNn9zbNAi4QVRtyfC8_XeTp2q7m0_ZAwM

  Lovers Afterwards we lay there naked looking through the window at the paired down blue landscape. We thought it was just as if waiting for Magritte to add   a surreal touch. We thought if only a fine artist was standing behind us easel and paints at the ready. What a beautiful picture we would make lying there even without a surreal touch. https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic/ekphrastic-writing-responses-bertram-brooker

  Above It All Sometimes I need to be out of the fray, above the drama and the darkness, look down on it all, be part of the scarlet sky and the jagged skyline. Sometimes I will climb so high that I’ll have no way back, no wish to go back only to stay above it all. https://pondersavant.com/2020/05/15/above-it-all-and-other-poems-by-lynn-white/?fbclid=IwAR1VTbojOr96Dbw4an1GuVTFxRxw1uNjnjVED3JHagrK9rau4QK59YEjMQY

  Ageing I was young once, unbelievably young, almost a child playing. Oh I was young once, waiting for life to begin to grab me take me up and over. Yes, I was young once playing waiting. No end to it just waiting playing ageing waiting. https://necroproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/youth-nnew.pdf

  Buzzing   I can hear the flies buzzing since I died. In life I could shoo them away, open a window   to persuade them through, though usually they were too stupid to grasp the chance of freedom offered and escape. Now there is no window to be   opened. This is a closed space. Eternal night. No possibility of freedom, or escape. Not for me. Not for them. https://www.amazon.com/Tricksters-Treats-Coming-Charity-Anthology-ebook/dp/B08HDGKJGN/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=trickster%27s%20treats%20%234&qid=1600779071&sr=8-1&fbclid=IwAR31Wb56NEZQUBcwkcxU0By38QYheFX0V30BtMMLxC4apubh6kbSBVuZhQM https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55380680-trickster-s-treats-4?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=uGlGt5p2JW&rank=1