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The Suitcase Back then, we had a theory. We thought that a suitcase was easier to get into cars than a rucksack and thus, drivers were more likely to pick up hitchhikers with a small suitcase. It worked like a dream and it carried our dreams. Yesterday I came across our old suitcase buried in a heap of debris in my attic. It was battered from it’s long journeys and even longer vacation. Its clothing was torn exposing its cardboard credentials. I haven’t opened it yet so it’s unclear if it’s still full or if it’s empty. Once we packed it full of our dreams, but now I wonder if any remain, caught in the lining perhaps, or if they’ve all have been carried away with our lost memories or buried in the debris of the past. https://thepangolinreview.wixsite.com/mypoetrysite/issue-14-8-january-2020?fbclid=IwAR1ak_eHa7rhaXF5Q9lCJXse57Ct5JQAus3bPDigNE_r-uFqD1_fMFTXIjg
Spider She hangs suspended, like a puppet dancing to the tune of the wind. Blown this way, blown that, buffeted, but only briefly before she takes control like the mistress puppeteer she is powerful free to spin her silk to weave her web as she wills. Or so she thinks. But it’s an illusion. She’s trapped. Trapped and wrapped by her dna as securely as any fly, her patterns pre-ordained pre-programmed destined to be repeated millennia after millennia in her genes. https://issuu.com/freshwaterliteraryjournal/docs/2020journalmockup-2
Ripples Ripples of time gathering pace. Working up to the wave that crashed into me, propelled me forward and now sucks me back. Thirteen decades. Back. To a place beyond my imagining, so tidy now after the crash. Gentrified now. Rippling gently. But before, in my father’s time. There was beer mixed mud and crowding children. And smells of horses and metal. Working. Fire and metal work. Children who would leave behind the mud, and country smells, for the dust and smog. For the city grime. Streets and factories. More fire and metal. Bigger. Grander. And what then? Still poor. What then? What secrets lie in those ripples of time washing over me now. https://freeverserevolution.wordpress.com/2020/10/25/sunday-best-ripples/
I Remember My Father I remember my father. Remember being carried high on his shoulders when he was walking into town. I remember that I was scared. I had never been carried on shoulders before. Was there a bus strike or no money for the fare? That I don’t remember. I remember my father sitting in a chair, a passenger on a bus or tram, as I collected his fare and gave him a ticket. He drove trams once and then later he cleaned them. I remember my father. Remember sitting on his knee looking at Rupert Bear books. I knew the stories by heart so people thought I could read and were very impressed. But I could only remember. I remember my father. I don’t need photographs to jog my memory, which is just as well since there are none, None of him whole, anyway, just one of his legs in loose grey trousers, sitting by me as I planted seeds in my first garden. https://ephemeralelegies.com/2020/07/08/i-remember-my-father-by-lynn-white/?fbclid=IwAR0MdqNQtLDFWPDRT3s2RQ_2pDHXOQdg...
Perfectly Imperfect It started when we stood hopefully, with our thumbs outstretched by an English roadside. We were heading towards Italy and Yugoslavia without maps or money, or sense of direction. And we made it to Italy. and swam off the rocks, with a man we’d met in a cafe, because he said we could. And we swam and swam until two policemen came, (one very stern and one very twinkly), and said we couldn’t. Nor could we leave the rocks without clothes on, or with clothes clinging to our still wet bodies, or lie on the rocks until we were dry, in case we disconcerted the traffic or populace. This being the main street in Trieste. And we made it to Pec and lived in a house ‘typique du Turque’ with a water pump in the garden and a toilet, also ‘Typique du Turque’, which made us very ill indeed. But the parties were good and the conversations interesting, Even though no one spoke English. And we learned t...
All The Devils Were There I used to dress in bakers white and take a basket of bread to Halloween parties. I never found many takers. Spiced pumpkin, apple cakes and candy were always more popular. So I had a re-think. Now I take a basket of babies. They can’t get enough of them all of those devils out there, even those who come as angels gather round for a bite. Just one bite will transform them so they’ll leave as devilish as the rest. https://spillwords.com/all-the-devils-were-there/?fbclid=IwAR2FGPLTuNu2fc3osEU71U9Z47cmHqy9rpx0pElQHs63fDVtPVM9cdNnIs0
The Sun Is Burning The sun is melting little by little falling to earth like blown glass Turning the sea to fire first. The land will be next. It looks like a bright angel now but the angels have burned and this final fire will pipe the last post leaving nothing, but darkness when the fires burn out and the light melts away. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08L9962ZW
Plague And It's Doctors It must have been terrifying, a deadly illness airborne spread by miasma. It sounds like a conspiracy theory now. Perhaps some thought so then. It all sounds so familiar the specially made Personal Protective Equipment required for those treating the afflicted. Boots and gloves, head to toe waxed covering with sweetly pungent perfumes underneath and a stick to make sure people kept their distance. It all sounds so familiar the distinctive mask, so distinctive it is popular in events today. But the shape was necessary then, utilitarian, it’s long beak delaying the passage of miasma to the doctor’s lungs, with a cocktail of disinfecting herbs inside for further protection. It all sounds so familiar. But is efficacy was limited. They had misunderstood the causes and remedies. We have more evidence now but still wrestle with competing theories. So when all is stripped down and the masks are off we are sti...
Marked Out The marks are fading now in the old playground. It’s deserted now, and since the crisis no one plays games anymore. I try to remember the the rules but my memories are fading like the laughter of children like the marks on the ground there are new rules now but no games to play. https://www.thepoetmagazine.org/autumn-2020---a-new-world