Poetry - Lynn White

  Washed Up So many dead people   caught in the crossfire created by the the money men,   the arms traders, the super ego-ed politicians. They lie dead where they fell. Flesh and blood transformed to   fertiliser to nurture the seeds   and grow the crops, in a future they will not see. Their bones decaying to dust to form the building blocks   of homes they will never inhabit. Dying where they fell,   over there, not here and not looking like us. Unseen or soon forgotten by us here.   But the dead washed up on holiday beaches look like our flesh and blood. They’re wearing our clothes. They’re washing up to haunt us in the Old World. Then there’s the living, washed up alive   and by any means necessary moving on to bear witness,   if any one is listening. To bring the horror home   to those who created it in the Old World. Bringing it home to the Old World, soon to the New. https://www.rudderlessmarinerpoetry.com/blogpoetrysubmission/washed-up-by-lynn-white

  Orange Light Orange is at the cheerful end of the spectrum. It should spill out it’s zest so I can live and love in a golden shower, taste exotic fruit, engulfed in an ecstasy of orange light, be part of a story with a happy ending, full of sunshine. Bright gleaming reds and yellows are not far away. Orange is their combination, inevitably.   Yellow and red. Cowardly, acidic and dangerous when parted from each other.   Colours have different moods when separated. As we do. So this palette can hide more than it reveals. And now it forms a mask on the face of black despair, a bright new dawn   that breaks the surface, but one which is not wanted, not desired. A flash of lightening breaking up the continuum of my horizon. There’s a cloud of bright dust swirling in a stormy sky,   with darkness following blocking out the sun,   destroying the light Rain like tears must follow as the light disperses and the golden sun is cracked open to reveal it’s inner stone. This bright cloak of orange

  Luck Of The Irish The Irish love their horses. It’s a long tradition which survives urbanisation among young working class people in parts of Dublin, people seemingly like me. They take them along the city streets, into supermarkets, on buses, even up in the lift to their new home   on the balcony of an apartment. The stories are legion. And the Irish love their stories. But I was not like them. I couldn’t be part of that story. I find horses just too big, too strong, too high from the ground. Even on a seaside donkey I was afraid I’d take a tumble from the saddle or be nudged and trampled into the sand. I was sure that it was only   by the luck of the Irish that I survived. Yes, Lady Luck loves the Irish. But I know for certain now that when I join that wild eyed horse on the balcony the luck of the Irish is bound to desert me. https://orangeblushzine.wixsite.com/home/obz3

 The Fall I'm running downhill running   faster and faster. I'm crossing the bridge now, still running, running to the end of the bridge, trying to see the end. But there is no end and I'm falling now, falling, falling. falling into the arms of the demons below with their waving arms outstretched and their claws primed waiting to break my fall and swallow me up into their depths. I grasp at the air, cling to the wind flailing, falling. flailing. Then, I’m clinging   to a hopeful ray of sunshine to carry me up, to take me with it into the light. Now I'm floating, floating, floating upwards or down. It's not clear, am I still falling or am I floating upwards into the light. https://orangeblushzine.wixsite.com/home/obz3

  Refugees At school there was a weekly collection  for charity. I saved up my biscuit money so that I did not seem different, more impoverished than the rest. And so that I had something to give to those less fortunate. I knew what charities were, you see. Well, except for the one called ‘Refugees’. I did not know what refugees were. This was 1956. Only six years after the ending of a war creating millions of refugees and I had to ask what they were several times. Even then, I didn’t understand. It made no sense to me. I didn’t understand. https://www.lulu.com/shop/various-authors/land-and-territory-anthology/ebook/product-24340595.html?fbclid=IwAR1wL9iv5Y18X5suNi_n7MOq5O8yZsLAxGpGMXJjx8-1LHv2E139n7ljUdA&page=1&pageSize=4

  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.” https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08P135XHL?ref_=pe_30

  Father Christmas I was so excited. It was nearly Christmas and I was going to meet Father Christmas himself. I was so excited,   wearing my best coat and bonnet, hopping from one foot to the other in the long queue of children waiting with their mums to be allowed into Santa’s Grotto. I was so excited. We were nearly there. I could see the grotto with it’s tinsel and fairy lights twinkling. I was going to sit on his knee   and have my picture taken, and that was in an age when photographs were even rarer than Christmases.. I was so excited. There were the elves... But wait.. they were cardboard. Where were the real elves, the magic ones, why weren’t they there? “They’re much too busy”, my mum said. “But Father Christmas will be real”. We paid our money and there he was. He really was. I couldn’t wait to climb on his knee and examine his beard. I’d never seen a beard before. But he was very tetchy when I pulled at it and told me to stop. Then it went lop sided and I realised   it was

  It’s Raining Again The weather god doesn’t speak Welsh. She’s tried.   She’s really tried. She’s wept tears of frustration. She’s wept tears   of anger. She’s wept tears   of sadness that flow from the mountains   to the sea. It’s the vowels she finds hard. And the consonants. And the mutations. And the way it’s spoken form   changes   over the distance traveled   in the time it takes her   to make a small cloud and a tiny puff of wind. A tiny puff, not enough to to raise the cloud   above the mountains. So it hangs in a sad, sullen mist. Or blows in angry swirls. And still she tries. She really tries. She weeps tears of frustration. She weeps tears of anger. She weeps tears of sadness. Floods of tears. Lakes. Tears which fall in cascades from the mountains to the sea. It’s Raining Again The weather god doesn’t speak Welsh. She’s tried.   She’s really tried. She’s wept tears of frustration. She’s wept tears   of anger. She’s wept tears   of sadness that flow from the mountains   to t

  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://www.amazon.com/Under-Blushing-Sky-Poems-Beginnings/dp/B08NF36J8R/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=under+a+blushing+sky&qid=1606069177&sr=8-1

  Into The Light I’m living through the time of night without end. The time when everywhere is transformed into the underworld. When everywhere is transformed  into that dark place, deathly dark. Only the dark gods  and the creatures of death can live there, those who need no further sustenance, who gave up on the light above. I won’t give up. I’m ready for the birth of a new day. Ready for a pink dawn to rise and break full of possibilities, as the light takes  over from the dark and the day is born again. I shall follow the road towards the light, and leave the dark behind, again. But I have found that the dark always follows. Catches up with me, as if it were the past. If I hurry maybe I’ll escape it this time. Maybe I’ll catch the light and hold on to it and not let it break again. https://www.amazon.com/Under-Blushing-Sky-Poems-Beginnings/dp/B08NF36J8R/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=under+a+blushing+sky&qid=1606069177&sr=8-1